Who is 158.1750??

[David40]

I am picking up transmissions on frequency 158.1750. They seem to be using that old squalk box voice scrambling. I plugged in the frequency into the search box here on the site and it didn't seem to come up with anything in the St Pete area.
Anyone know who this is?

Thanks

 

[N1XDS]

That would be Tampa Electric Company DBA Peoples Gas Systems Division from what I understand it to be.

 

[n2hbx]

That would be Tampa Electric Company DBA Peoples Gas Systems Division from what I understand it to be.

That would be interesting, since the FCC license database shows only 9 licensed users in Florida on that frequency, and that isn't one of them!

If it is them, the sound is probably telemetry between the utility and the boxes some customers have that allows the utility to regulate their water heaters, pool pumps, etc. during peak hours. Florida Power (now Duke Energy) was using VHF receivers at customer locations for that purpose in Orange County (I had one and opened it up to see what was inside...incurably nosy).

Larry

 

[David40]

Interesting. It's definitely not noise, I can recognize it as voices but scrambled. I actually have an unscrambler that I used years ago to monitor those types of transmissions. I packed it away after everything went digital and that type of scrambling became obsolete. I think I'm going to pull it out of storage and see if I can determine who it is from their conversations.

 

[kf4sek]

Cocoa Public Utilities (Brevard County) used to have a two-way repeater om that frequency. Input was 153.410. But, I haven't heard it online in several years since they got Nextel/Sprint phones with the PTT feature.