Traveling thru

[peteyates]

I will be passing thru Maryland next month and want to program MSP in my BC 996XT, What is the best way to do this?

 

[ka3jjz]

You'll have to be a bit more specific. Are you sticking with I-95? What route(s) are you taking?

MSP is almost exclusively on VHF lo band, but many barracks are now echo'ed on the appropriate county's trunk system. So being more specific will help in plotting what you will need

best regards..Mike

 

[ka3jjz]

Here are 2 links from our database and wiki that contain a great deal of information on the Md. State Police (anything in blue is a link);

State Police Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference

Dept of State Police (MD) - the RR Wiki

best regards..Mike

 

[peteyates]

i am not sure if I am coming down 95 or go thru the eastern shore. Iplan on ending up in Norfolk VA

 

[jim202]

i am not sure if I am coming down 95 or go thru the eastern shore. Iplan on ending up in Norfolk VA

Your choice can probably be made easier dependent on the day of the week, time of day and if it is a holiday weekend.

The I-95 around the DC area is no place to be at rush hour or on a holiday weekend. The Wilson bridge gets backed up in both directions for no reason except dumb drivers. The I-64 east of Richmond tends to become a parking lot during rush hour and gets real bad on a holiday weekend. The tunnel under the bay on I-64 in the Norfolk area at rush hour is bad. Can't give you much feedback on the long Chespk bridge and tunnel as I don't go that way very often.

The span between DC and Baltimore is up for grabs on how it is. I tend to take the Key bridge and stay away from the Baltimore I-95 tunnel. Then get on I-97 and jump cross country to MD50 to the -I95 around DC.

 

[ka3jjz]

I'll take a stab at the I-95 corridor since I use that to get back to NJ to visit family; in rough order north to south

Northeast
JFK
BelAir
Golden Ring
Glen Burnie (the Annapolis barracks has been closed for about 2 years now; why we still have them in the database I don't know...)
Waterloo
College Park
Forestville
Rockville

The JFK barracks are echo'ed on the State Highway 151.04 transmitter - however it frequently sounds like c*** due to over-deviation (whoever maintains that transmitter ought to have his fingers fried on the finals!). The PL is 173.8

The VHF lo band transmitters are not repeaters, so they can be very hard to hear unless you have a pretty decent mobile antenna. In some cases (not all) the barracks are repeated on the respective county's trunk system, as shown in the 2nd link I gave earlier. However there are places where that would be inaudible to you - the PG county trunk that repeats the College Park barracks are a case in point, since they almost exclusively use Phase 2 (which none of the Unidens can handle). We don't know if Cecil repeats their barracks because their trunk is unmonitorable.

There is a mention in the database that the radios now have the VTAC/VCall frequencies. I have rarely if ever heard them on there (perhaps they're reserved for heavy traffic days like Thanksgiving or emergencies), so I would assign them a low priority group. They are defined in our database here...

Interoperability Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference

best regards...Mike

 

[ka3jjz]

This would make a decent addition to the state police wiki article. How about it, you Eastern Shore folks? And what about our Western areas, coming from Washington county and down into the DC metro?

With the holiday travel season almost upon us, it's more than timely....best regards...Mike