Charlottesville Albemarle Talkgroups

[QDP2012]

Good evening,

Some traffic fragments have been heard on these unidentified talkgroups for the Charlottesville-Albemarle system. Can anyone help identify these TGs, please? My RR Forum search didn't show any other threads with these posted, and they don't seem to be in the RRDB, yet. So far, traffic is infrequent. Suggestions on any advanced searching techniques are also appreciated.

• 01648 ? (possibly radio maintenance testing)
• 26252 ? UVA PD Event 2 ?
• 26288 ? ...guessing it is in the UVA PD group
• 30352 ? (possibly encrypted) ...guessing it is in the Charlottesville PD group
• 43792 ? (radio maintenance heard testing)
• 43824 ? sounded like Charlottesville Public Works - Electric division or a Power Company (dispatcher and field unit discussed assignments of "electric cutoffs")
• 43856 ? sounded like Charlottesville Public Works
• 43920 ?

If any of these are "supposed to remain unidentified", just let me know.

Thanks,

Bob

 

[QDP2012]

43824 is active this morning

 

[gcgrotz]

Hey Bob, poke around and look at the county's website, they used to have a list of trunk groups. They have been pretty open about it, they posted a lot of info after they re-banded a while back.

I take it you've checked on the database here, right?

Are you a Ham? Do I know you?

 

[QDP2012]

Good morning gcgrotz,

Hey Bob, poke around and look at the county's website, they used to have a list of trunk groups. They have been pretty open about it, they posted a lot of info after they re-banded a while back.

I take it you've checked on the database here, right?

I reviewed both the RRDB and all related RR Forums I could find. The RRDB is more current than CECC's published list which is from May 2011. I am not sure if RR DBAs post all verifiable TG's or whether they choose not to post certain ones that might be considered "sensitive", and whether or not they might have deemed any of the yet-to-be-identified TGs above as "unlistable" for that reason. I don't think any of the one's listed above are sensitive unless they are encrypted, which the one might be.

Are you a Ham? Do I know you?

We have not met before. I am a ham, but don't usually post my call sign in its entirety due to information security and identity theft issues.

When I can I will dig deeper through the different agencies' website(s) to see if they list more TGs/frequencies elsewhere, but I doubt they do because CECC coordinates all of those TG/frequency assignments,

Thanks for the reply and the suggestion,

Bob

 

[QDP2012]

Another TG

Here's another that someone was just using: 44016

Bob

 

[QDP2012]

Possible Link or Patch to SIRS

It sounds like someone at CECC cross-linked TG 24560 with SIRS. Traffic is only ocassional, but is very clear. (A VSP field-unit was just calling Madison on SIRS.) No traffic from CECC to VSP via SIRS has been heard yet, so it's unclear if they linked with a scanner or a transceiver.

 

[BlueMoon2]

Mystery Talkgroups

Hello Everyone,

My contact at CECC has said that they have done some changes. Updates to the RRDB will be coming soon. Some of the mystery TGs are PD, but the 43XX ones are the Albe County Service Authority that just came on board on the 800 system.

TG 24560 is EMOP2.They have patched SIRS to the 800 system. More to come as we know it.

 

[QDP2012]

Hello Everyone,

My contact at CECC has said that they have done some changes. Updates to the RRDB will be coming soon. Some of the mystery TGs are PD, but the 43XX ones are the Albe County Service Authority that just came on board on the 800 system.

TG 24560 is EMOP2.They have patched SIRS to the 800 system. More to come as we know it.

Thanks Blue_Moon for the information, and to all those who help keep the RRDB current.

Bob

 

[QDP2012]

More TGs

Here are a few more that are not yet in the RRDB:

The "Broadcast" TGs apparently broadcast across all TGs for the specific agency, and are used to announce (certain) BOLOs and to call officers who are not otherwise responding when CECC calls them on a particular TG/channel.

• 26000 - UVA PD Broadcast
• 30000 - Charlottesville PD Broadcast
• 34000 - Albemarle PD Broadcast
• 43984 - ? (recently discovered, probably part of the new ACSA group Blue_Moon mentioned)

Bob

 

[QDP2012]

Charlottesville Albemarle Repeated Conventional Channels

CECC also uses at least these two "repeated conventional channels" for patching with users of other 800mHz systems (like VSP, Pegasus helicopter, etc.) when those users need to interface with CECC's regular units. This happens often with large events at the JPJ Arena, or the Stadium, etc. or during multi-agency tactical events, like the bomb-scares at the Fontaine Research Park.

• National 800/8Call90 (806.0125/851.0125)
• National 800/8Tac91 (806.5125/851.5125)

The local fire, rescue, and police units also have a simplex channel they can use on-scene which has been verbally referenced on-air as "Charlie 1". I have yet to be close enough to a scene to verify whether it is one of the above or not.

Several weeks ago, from the 250-bypass, I also heard fragments on...

• National 800/8Tac94 (808.0125/853.0125)

...but nothing was long enough or strong enough to determine which units were conversing nor where they were.

If anyone has newer/better info, please share.

Thanks,

Bob

 

[QDP2012]

Another patch or link

Some updates:

• TG 24560/EM OPS2:
  Previously, when CECC patched this with SIRS, it sounded (to me) like a northern-region SIRS (toward Greene and Madison counties). The signal was very clear. Now, there is little to no traffic. They might have dropped this link.
  
  
• TG 24528/CECC OPS2:
  Last week, CECC patched this with what sounds like an eastern-region SIRS (greater Richmond). The signal is strong sometimes, but is often scratchy.
  
  
• I don't know if CECC has the ability to listen to SIRS selectively by region or direction, North vs East, etc.

Even though it might be operationally unrelated, I find it interesting that this change happened around the time President Obama visited Charlottesville last week (as gcgrotz reported in another thread).

Does anyone have any newer more accurate info they can share?

Thanks,

 

[gcgrotz]

Just a guess, but they could have stations at the 3 main trunk sites with the ability to select them. Money-wise, that doesn't seem likely but it is possible.

 

[John]

Seems plausible to me. The Roanoke system has SIRS on 3 sites. Two are at mountain tops and one is on top of the dispatch building. This provides redundancy and at least one site will work even if the microwave links go down. Of course they do provide different coverage areas and people begin to learn that but that is not necessarily why they were installed that way. Noe of the these are patches to trunking talkgroups but it is similar in that there are multiple sites. Just not that much of SIRS around here any more.

John

 

[QDP2012]

Thanks

Thank you both for the replies.

I was beginning to guess along the same lines, that, if they can afford it, CECC might have SIRS units at each of their tower sites. If I'm not mistaken, more antenna sites are being (or will be) added to the system over time. It will be interesting to learn what areas they might cover if each site gets its own SIRS unit.

It was interesting listening to the Richmond SIRS-link and that area's LE handling calls -- pursuits, crashes, etc. -- at a pace "just a little" busier than traffic on the SIRS-link for the Greene/Madison region.

Thanks,

 

[gcgrotz]

If I had money for only one site to have SIRS in this area, I would put it at Buck's Elbow where it is (I think) around 3400 feet up and covers both sides of the Blue Ridge and would easily talk to a decent SIRS base in Richmond. Try the 146.895 ham repeater for an example.

I know some time back there was talk of a limited number of "super SIRS" sites around to provide backup inter-op between agencies when conventional public comms may be down. Don't know if it ever got off the ground.

 

[QDP2012]

"Super-SIRS" sites...interesting idea.

It seems that WRAV's wide-area ham repeater is on, or near, a VSP tower on Bear Den (W4PNT/147.075, 38.11N/78.86W, 2840 ft) with coverage extending from Richmond to Harrisonburg.

If VSP has a SIRS unit on its Bear Den tower (38.06651N/-78.79884W), with a similar coverage area, I wonder:

• how close could CECC safely place their own SIRS unit (mountain to mountain) without causing "transmitter-too-close"-type problems for VSP, and
• how that distance would be effected by a difference in elevation?

Thanks,

 

[John]

To the best of my knowledge VSP has no SIRS base stations anywhere. There was talk last year about VSP planning to install SIRS base stations and possibly VTAC stations at selected STARS sites but I don't think that has happened. There may be some SIRS base stations belonging to other localities co-located with STARS but I don't think any of the VSP dispatch centers have access to SIRS.

John

"Super-SIRS" sites...interesting idea.

If VSP has a SIRS unit on its Bear Den tower (38.06651N/-78.79884W), with a similar coverage area, I wonder:

Thanks,

 

[gcgrotz]

The 147.075 repeater is on another tower about 1/2 mile north of the VSP tower. It has been giving reliable coverage for at least 30 years. There is also a 444.775 ham repeater a little north of that on the WCYK 99.7 FM tower.

I doubt the VSP could find another inch to put anything else on their tower until they de-install the unused stuff.

 

[gcgrotz]

By the way, the map that comes up for 147.075 is not where the repeater is but the former control ops house. Bearden is about 4 miles north of I-64 on the Parkway.

 

[QDP2012]

Thanks for the update. I wondered how accurate the location information was.