VHF Capacity Plus System heard in East TN

[Floridarailfanning]

I'm posting to update the info on the VHF Cap+ system I was trying to ID last year. (The original thread is now locked.)

Possible Unknown VHF Capacity Plus System

Hello, all. I was recently reviewing the frequencies for Fort Loudoun Electric Cooperative's VHF Connect+ system to make some changes to the way I monitor it. Afterward, I found two more VHF licenses for FLEC on the TN Utilities page. KIB865 153.48500 and KIN212 153.66500 which are both valid...

forums.radioreference.com

The theory at the time was that the system belonged to Fort Loudoun Electric out of Monroe County since 153.485 is part of their KIB865 license. But being that they fielded a brand new Con+ system in 2018 I doubted that.

I have been sporadically watching the system using DSD and a TRBO control station and decided to try decoding the CWID. At first, I kept getting MRL401 which clearly is not a valid callsign, but I eventually discovered it was WRL401. That license is Duke Energy Business Services, LLC and it turns out the source appears to be the JOANNA BALD RADIO SITE in Graham, NC.

I'm not sure how Duke and FLEC ended up with the same frequency in the exact same coverage area, but the fact one system is in TN and the other is in NC might have played a role in that overlap. I checked the DB for Graham County, NC, and the Duke system is not listed so I figured I should provide an update here in case anyone in the area were to come across this system.

Unforchunetly every TG I've seen has EP so nothing to really listen to. Below is the DSD event log for this morning.

 

[Remington12G]

Every Duke Energy DMR system I've listened to is a Motorola Cap+, uses a ColorCode of 7, and always utilizes EP/ARC4 on almost all TGID's. Some TGID's are in the clear but aren't used much. Interesting find as most of the Duke Energy systems are in the UHF & 800/900 MHz band.

 

[Floridarailfanning]

Interesting find as most of the Duke Energy systems are in the UHF & 800/900 MHz band.

I thought so too but VHF sure beats the hell out of 800/900 when you're deep in the mountains.

 

[Remington12G]

I thought so too but VHF sure beats the hell out of 800/900 when you're deep in the mountains.

I'll be honest I completely forget about the mountains and radio coverage when typing that reply

 

[Floridarailfanning]

Being from Florida I often way overestimate radio range because I forget about the terrain also. There's a fair number of deep valleys and "Hollers" in that area so VHF is probably spotty as it is. I'm exactly 40 miles from that Joanna Bald Site and the only reason I can even hear the system is because of a low gap in the mountains about 10 miles out from the tower which barely allows for LOS.