Washington County (SW Utah) Miscellaneous

[tjohnson139]

Here's what I learned/verified this afternoon:

St George PD

All sworn officers have a personal 2X numerical suffix assigned to them. Command officers normally just ID with their 2X #, for example, 2X1 should the the Chief of Police.

101 = Road Patrol Field Command (Sergeants)
250 series = Bicycle Patrol unit
300 series – Accident Investigators
Delta – Detectives
Motor – Motorcycle units
King – K-9 unit
Sierra – School Resource Officer
Tango – Traffic Enforcement
Victor – Volunteer In Police Service

# = Patrol Area
#A = Day Shift
#B = Swing Shift
#C = Night Shift

For example “5Charles” is a unit working midnights in patrol area 5, 101B is a swing shift Sgt.

*************
I'm not 100% about the Tango listing. Certainly the T = Traffic makes sense, but so does T = Task Force (Washington County Gang & Drug TF). So Sean & I will have to pay extra attention to the Tangos, Motors, & 300 series when we hear them on SGPD. I was able to verify that the patrol area numbers & boundaries are the same as depicted on the CAT map I gave the URL for in a prior post.


It does seem like SGPD will be migrating to the UCAN system sometime this Fall or Winter.

Finally, they use "5000" as a reference to their PD headquarters because in days past, the main SGPD phone # ended in 5000!


Tim

I dispatch in Washington County. You're pretty accurate. Tangos are task force. Everything else is right. 2D? are St. George detectives and just D? are county detectives.

Kinda scares me, actually, to hear how many people are listening to us.

 

[Hooligan]

I dispatch in Washington County. You're pretty accurate. Tangos are task force. Everything else is right. 2D? are St. George detectives and just D? are county detectives.

Kinda scares me, actually, to hear how many people are listening to us.

Cool, welcome to the group, Tyler! Do you have a scanner too, or are public safety comms the last thing you want to hear when you leave work?


I don't know how many people there are in the county that actively listen to scanners, but obviously, there are at least a couple. Some just like hearing what's going on, some like the minor puzzle-work of figuring out callsigns & stuff, just for the heck of it.

I know you mostly handle fire/EMS, but do you ever do the LE side?

 

[Hooligan]

A mystery! 155.505 is of course a statewide LE mutual aid type channel, usually referred to as "statewide." Only time I've heard activity on it was during the Washington County Fair, & for Kane County to dispatch the many LEs that came to town to handle routine calls while local LE resources were involved in the hunt for KCSO Deputy Brian Harris' murderer.

This license:
ULS License - Public Safety Pool, Conventional License - KYO228 - UTAH, STATE OF

indicates there's a transmitter licensed to the State of Utah for 155.505 located & with a control point at 235 N Bluff St in St George.

I went by that location on my way home this evening, and saw nothing but various commercial businesses in several small strip-mall type setups. Couldn't even find a 235 -- closest I saw was a 237, and everything there seemed to just be commercial storefronts. Didn't notice any antennas either, but it was dusk. I realize that "235 N Bluff" could be nothing more than a box on the hillside hosting a remote tx/rx site (even though the license says the control point is there too) but that'd be a bad location for such a thing, & I did look at the hill/bluff above the commercial businesses & didn't see anything.

I'll prosecute this more later on, but meanwhile, maybe some others local to the area can investigate as well.

 

[Junior1970]

So here's what's been consistently on the Washington County area UCAN system. My radios at home & in the car are set to search mode on UCAN, so I shouldn't be missing-out on any TG activity, and I hear all three major sites very well from the home, car & handheld.

4832 -- UHP Car/car

49664 – UHP Cedar

49696 – UHP Cedar, Virgin Area Dispatch

*49888 – SGPD 4

*50016 – Washington SO Dispatch

*50048 – East Law (Hurricane & Washington City PDs)

*50080 – SGFD 1 (SG, Santa Clara, et al FDs)

* denotes TG is merely rebroadcasting the agency's VHF repeater channel.

For 4832, I'm just hearing UHP Virgin Area car/car traffic on it, not car/car comms from other parts of the state, so the TG must be set up to not rebroadcast activity statewide. 4832 is the only TG that's 1005 800MHz UCAN & not rebroadcasting the VHF channels. 49664 & 49696 is a mixture of some UHP & perhaps AP&P, DNR, etc. using 800MHz & others on the older VHF repeaters. All the other TGs except LifeFlight are simply rebroadcasting the VHF repeaters they're linked with.

There is also a LifeFlight P25 secure TG in use. I assume that Dixie Regional Hospital's comm center has had a UCAN radio on the LifeFlight channel since UCAN became active down here, so that radio affiliates with Webb Hill, which in turn broadcasts all the traffic on that TG. I don;t know right now which TG that is, as the Uniden XT scanners that I have only stop on it for a split second then go back to scanning/searching once they realize it is an encrypted TG. I'll manually camp out on some of them, just so I can ID which TG it is.


Other than that, I've occasionally get the UCAN Engineers TGs, and had one or two Salt Lake & other county public safety TGs become active down in the past, probably the system engineers wanting to test one of the locals sites for a while. I doubt it was a radio from up there affiliating down here while someone was at a conference or something, unless they left their radio on 24/7.


I downloaded & installed the latest UniTrunker software, but it doesn't seem to want to communicate with my BC-396XT.

The new LifeFlight helo based at Dixie Regional Medical Center in StG becomes operational this Friday, covering a 5-county area as far N as Beaver, plus some communities across the AZ & NV borders.

To add to the list:

49856 - St. George PD Dispatch (simolcasting still on 155.670)
I heard this while passing through the area last weekend on the way to Mesquite. Heard this last Friday night on Toquerville site and coming home on the Webb (Simocast) site. Did hear hits on the Law, Fire and UHP talkgroups as well.

 

[kf7yn]

Excellent info, thanks Hooligan!

 

[Hooligan]

Here's a new, interesting one I found last week when taking a 'scenic' route home from work.

While in the small burb of Enterprise, I got a Close-Call hit on 809.8125/67.0Hz on the Uniden 996XT in my car. Stayed on that while punching-in 854.8125 on my 396XT handheld & heard both sides of the conversation, which was basically a base unit asking a field unit what other supplies they'd need delivered the next day. The base then signed off with "Red Cliffs Ascent."

I looked up the freq on the FC database & found them:
ULS License - Business, 806-821/851-866 MHz, Conventional License - WPLQ965 - RED CLIFF ASCENT

Googled the company & found them: Red Cliff Ascent | About Us

I haven't tried to monitor their repeater from home -- there's definitely some terrain & distance involved, but I'll give it a try, as these guys could get interesting occasionally, based on:

Red Cliffs Ascent Program

Red Cliffs Ascent – Unjust,cruel, and wrong, what can i do to help my girlfriend?

 

[Hooligan]

I noticed last week that a couple Hurricane PD & St George PD units are finally transmitting on the 800MHz side of their UCAN/VHF channel link. I think just mobiles so far, and haven't noticed other local LEAs or WSO doing it yet.

 

[Hooligan]

I used to enjoy listening to mall security chase-around the savages when I lived in California & Michigan, so I was wondering how busy the local mall security folks here in less 'multi-cultural' SW Utah would be.

Since they/we do tend to be law-abiding, it meant that it took a long time to find the freq used by Red Cliffs Mall in St George because there's very little radio traffic on it, but I finally verified it today:

153.0875MHz, DCS 156. It's a low-profile repeater used for general mall ops -- security, janitorial, etc. Very quiet most of the time. I've submitted it to the RR & I'm sure Tim "The Heat" Heaton will add it quickly.

 

[theaton]

Washington County

Done! Nice work as usual Hooligan. It's great having your down there.

 

[zerg901]

I was checking out the freqs for Zion National Park

From a 2008 document for the Escalante area I got - Zion Natl Park - 166.325 R - 166.925 in - repeater at Timber Top with 123.0 PL on input - repeater at Lava Point with 107.2 PL on the input - repeater at West Temple with 114.8 PL for the input

From a 2010 smokejumper guide it appears that the 166.325 repeater at West Temple was taken out of service, and replaced with a 172.6125 repeater at West Temple with an input of 166.0875 with a input PL of 131.8

This seems to match the info in the database - except the database mentions a North repeater and a old South repeater.

I dont remember what the database shows for the outputs on the repeaters. My two source documents dont mention the output PLs IIRC.

Corrections ? Additions ?

Do they have a structural fire truck or ambulance at Zion? Anyone ever hear them being paged out?

Peter Sz

 

[kf7yn]

Looking at Zion fire pics I took 4/29/2010, Dept of Interior Nat Park and BLM trucks were on scene. I recall BLM freq 164.625 and Zion Dispatch 172.6125 being used,

Also, Zion tunnel ops on 168.350 P25 digital frequencly heard.

I was checking out the freqs for Zion National Park

From a 2008 document for the Escalante area I got - Zion Natl Park - 166.325 R - 166.925 in - repeater at Timber Top with 123.0 PL on input - repeater at Lava Point with 107.2 PL on the input - repeater at West Temple with 114.8 PL for the input

From a 2010 smokejumper guide it appears that the 166.325 repeater at West Temple was taken out of service, and replaced with a 172.6125 repeater at West Temple with an input of 166.0875 with a input PL of 131.8

This seems to match the info in the database - except the database mentions a North repeater and a old South repeater.

I dont remember what the database shows for the outputs on the repeaters. My two source documents dont mention the output PLs IIRC.

Corrections ? Additions ?

Do they have a structural fire truck or ambulance at Zion? Anyone ever hear them being paged out?

Peter Sz

 

[Hooligan]

I was checking out the freqs for Zion National Park

From a 2008 document for the Escalante area I got - Zion Natl Park - 166.325 R - 166.925 in - repeater at Timber Top with 123.0 PL on input - repeater at Lava Point with 107.2 PL on the input - repeater at West Temple with 114.8 PL for the input

From a 2010 smokejumper guide it appears that the 166.325 repeater at West Temple was taken out of service, and replaced with a 172.6125 repeater at West Temple with an input of 166.0875 with a input PL of 131.8

This seems to match the info in the database - except the database mentions a North repeater and a old South repeater.

I dont remember what the database shows for the outputs on the repeaters. My two source documents dont mention the output PLs IIRC.

Corrections ? Additions ?

Do they have a structural fire truck or ambulance at Zion? Anyone ever hear them being paged out?

Peter Sz

I'm easily within repeater range and often simplex-range of Zion comms, and try to keep the try to keep the RRDB updated as best I can, however there is always hesitancy on my part to suggest some info be removed from the DB, simply because I haven't heard any activity on it over the 16 or so months that I've lived in the area, thus the DB may have some obsolete info.

Also, NPS Zion has been in the process of migrating to P-25 over the past couple months. These days, most of the repeater & simplex comms are P-25, but using analog-mode for some reason is still a fairly common occurrence.

The east-end/west-end tunnel coordination traffic that used to be on 168.350 P-25 simplex (starting about a year before I ever heard P-25 on the NPS repeaters) I now hear on the Zion Ops repeater. Couldn't hear the tunnel guys on simplex from my home, so as soon as I buy another NPS annual pass, I'll go sit & read a book by the tunnel & see if they are still using that or any other simplex freq in addition to the coordination traffic now taking place on the repeater.


I haven't been around to hear any fire activity in Zion yet, but I've heard Springdale (the small community bordering the W side of Zion NPS) FD's EMS toned-out for Zion NP runs on the Washington County SO channel of 155.430/141.3Hz. Plus many SARs handled by Zion Rangers & volunteers on Zion channels, and sometimes SARs in Zion handled by Washington County's SAR Team on 155.370/141.3Hz.


BLM has lots of repeater & simplex/remote-base channels active in this region & I've never spent much effort trying to understand their usage, but as Jon mentioned, 164.625 is an output for multiple BLM "Color Country' area repeaters in SW Utah.


Tim

 

[Hooligan]

At about 7:15PM today, I turned on the scanner just in-time to catch Washington County SO unit "Whiskey 30" (covering the W side of the county) asking dispatch to contact a "5X" unit & ask them to handle a report, but that in the meantime, W-30 would continue en-route to the location. "Control" (dispatch) eventually advised that 5X-30 was in Hurricane & thus unable to respond, but that 5X-1 would be en route.

There was no further traffic, and I assume Control got a hold of the 5X units via telephone, because I never heard them on the Washington County channel (used by many small PDs too) or any other Washington county public safety channel.


I have NEVER heard a 5X unit on the air, let-alone anyone refer to a 5X unit, until this evening.

Since W-30 handles the West part of the county, based on the context of the radio traffic it stands to reason that the 5X agency is either county-wide, or shares LE responsibility for a small area of the W part of Washington County. Yet it's strange that I don't ever heard them on the air. Alas, if I'd had the scanner on about a minute sooner, I probably would have at least caught the location being referred to & it could have provided a clue, or worst-case scenario, I would have headed to it to see WTF 5X was.


Any ideas?

Not that it's on the W part of the county, but several small communities, for example Leeds, used to have their own tiny police force but it was disbanded due to budget reasons. 4X units are Hurricane PD, 6X units are Washington City. 8X would be another blank (perhaps that was Leeds PD?) -- 7X = LaVerkin, 9X = Springdale. If I had to guess, 5X would be a town marshal/ordinance officer type unit for one of the sleepy little communities in the NW part of the county -- Pine Valley, Enterprise, Gunlock...

 

[kf7yn]

5X is listed as Enterprise in my State of Utah Radio Call Number User's Guide.
8X is listed at Winchester Hills (that's a new one to me)
10X = Hilldale
11X = Diamond Valley
12X = Ivins (misspelled/misnamed "Ivan City" in the guide)
13X = Dammeron Valley
14X = Pine Valley
15X = Leeds
16X = Veyo
17X = Central Brookside (where the heck is Brookside?)
18X = New Harmony

Hope that helps.

 

[ronchaffin]

5x

I assumed it is Enterprise according to a list I found on here somewhere.

I have heard 2 or 3 calls this past month. Two were bank teller panic alarms or a ready teller machine that ended up being unfounded. One was a domestic problem. All three times they dispatched the SO and then dispatch was advised by the responding deputy to call 5X2 by telephone. The 5X unit arrived all three times before the SO and cancelled the SO.

 

[kf7yn]

Why would this scare you? Myself and others here have been scanning and otherwise involved in emergency communiations for decades. Besides being extra eyes and ears for Law Enforcement and Public Safety, knowing what goes on around us makes the law abiding among us better citizens.

Those who would abuse this are a tiny minority and usually not very bright. How many times have we seen a bust mentioning the criminal had a "police scanner". Their scanner certainly didn't help them avoid capture. I know several dispatchers, police officers, firefighters, etc. who agree it would be frightening if we couldn't listen. Involvement is an important part of what makes a free society work.

My 23.5¢ worth.

I dispatch in Washington County. You're pretty accurate. Tangos are task force. Everything else is right. 2D? are St. George detectives and just D? are county detectives.

Kinda scares me, actually, to hear how many people are listening to us.

 

[zerg901]

springdale utah - Google Maps

You can ride thru the Zion National Park tunnel thanks to Google StreetView

--------------------------------

Hoologan - thanks for your reply. I see that Springvale is very close to the Park. So it makes sense that Springvale would be very involved in their fire and ambulance operations

---------------------------------

KF7YN - that is a one in a million picture of the Zion fire truck lettered as "321". That is a structural pumper. The other fire truck with the label "UT-ZIP-E611" on the back is probably a Type 6 wildfire pumper from Zion Natl Park. Seeing how close Springvale is to Zion Park HQ, I would not be surprised if Zion NP turned over that "321" pumper to Springvale FD for their use, in exchange for coverage of the Park buildings.

---------------------------------------

http://gacc.nifc.gov/wgbc/Smokejumpers/2010 Booster Guide.pdf

has a nice map of the BLM and USFS repeaters in your area - see page 23 of 34 - keep in mind, the right columns are entirely different from the left columns in the freq lists - you probably have to read thru the info a couple of times to sort it all out - I did.

Peter Sz

 

[Hooligan]

Just FYI, I think I probably scared tjohnson off, by knowing & using his first name & mentioning that he normally dispatches for Fire/EMS in my response to him. Oh well!

Why would this scare you? Myself and others here have been scanning and otherwise involved in emergency communiations for decades. Besides being extra eyes and ears for Law Enforcement and Public Safety, knowing what goes on around us makes the law abiding among us better citizens.

Those who would abuse this are a tiny minority and usually not very bright. How many times have we seen a bust mentioning the criminal had a "police scanner". Their scanner certainly didn't help them avoid capture. I know several dispatchers, police officers, firefighters, etc. who agree it would be frightening if we couldn't listen. Involvement is an important part of what makes a free society work.

My 23.5¢ worth.

 

[Hooligan]

Ron & Jon, thank you very much for the info!

After 16 or so months of monitoring Washington SO's 155.430 repeaters, I have yet to hear ANY of those guys besides the 12X. 10X units I hear regularly, on their own channel.

I think some of the callsign numbering systems for communities without their own LEAs (for example, Pine Valley) are in-use by their fire departments. For example, 6X is Washington City, with police units going from about 6X-1 to 6X-100, but I've occasionally heard the Washington City FD guys use IDs in the 6X-600 series.


Ron, regarding Enterprise 5X2, et al. I'm not able to find any hits on Enterprise Police or Town Marshall, etc. using Google so if you come across any further intel, please let me know. I suppose one of these days I'll just go up to Enterprise & do some RF-fishing while reading a book & see if I can verify any freqs/activity, but it's surprising that if they do have some sort of local LE presence, I've never heard them on the SO repeater. I don't think they're like the 10X (Hildale UT/Colorado City AZ LE) guys, who like the rest of the community, seem to not want to have anything to do with Washington County.

5X is listed as Enterprise in my State of Utah Radio Call Number User's Guide.
8X is listed at Winchester Hills (that's a new one to me)
10X = Hilldale
11X = Diamond Valley
12X = Ivins (misspelled/misnamed "Ivan City" in the guide)
13X = Dammeron Valley
14X = Pine Valley
15X = Leeds
16X = Veyo
17X = Central Brookside (where the heck is Brookside?)
18X = New Harmony

Hope that helps.

 

[Hooligan]

Just a quick reminder, the St George Ironman 2011 event is taking place this Saturday morning.

It's by far the most intensive public-safety/communications activity I've heard during the time I've lived in Washington County, and with UCAN really starting to pick-up some local talk-group activity, monitoring on Saturday could be a good way to find & identify usage of UCAN TGs & other mutual-aid channels.

Observations from last year's event were posted in this forum. This year I'll actually be helping out with the swim event, but that will end early enough for me to then play radio-geek for the rest of the day.

I'm really, really hoping that this year, the LE side has their act together & uses mutual aide channels when possible, instead of tying up their normal dispatch channels with Ironman related comms in addition to the normal LE runs. SGPD has been good about using their channel 3/4 for stuff, but the SO, Hurricane & Washington City PDs seem oblivious.

I'll report anything interesting/unusual whenever I get a chance, and hope the other locals will do the same.