Heard what seemed to be a base station/dispatch for Sierra National Forest passing traffic for a multi-vehicle traffic collision, on Air Tactics 37 (164.9375). Also heard an Air Attack plane checking in with them. Timestamps I swore were an hour later, but I was casually listening in the background and focused on something else. The southern accent on the dispatcher is what instantly turned my ear to the radio to see what the heck I caught. Perplexed with the "Sierra" name she identified once, and being on an Air Tactics freq that should not have base stations on it.
Standard phenomenon is tropospheric duct sets up against the eastern foothills of California in the San Joaquin Valley on up through the Sac Valley as the valley warms up and hot air rises up into the foothills under the layer of colder air at higher elevation. I'm situated up in Red Bluff geographically at the top of the valley. When the duct sets up, I can get VHF stations roughly 200 miles south from transmitters tucked up near the edge of the valley. Sierra NF would be about 250miles away, and transmitters at higher elevation so the typical duct was not on my radar when I heard the traffic.
Typically heard without tone protecting CalFire freqs since they repurpose them up and down the state. Had to reprogram our local FD repeater tone since Madera County lit up a new tone for a new radio site, duplicating ours. Their dispatch transmitter in Atwater, CA when getting into their new repeater would light ours up as well 1700ft up. We changed input tones after that (good neighbor, easier for our single dept to change than request they reprogram their entire county fleet).
