CapeScan

Cape County Private Ambulance

2011-10-16T09:39:00.000-06:00

Cape County Private Ambulance (CCPA) has a pending application (0004905210 ) for the standard narrowbanding as well as P25 emmissions. This is for their main dispatch frequency as well as their UHF mobile extenders. They also added St. Francis Hospital as a control point, but not Southeast Hospital. It remains to be seen if they will do what other EMS agencies have done - run encryption full time. I do know that they have all of the local Public Service main agency frequencies programmed into the ambulance radios - I have heard them on CGPD Main, CGFD Main, and Jackson Fire Main. If they do go encrypted, they will need to share the key with all of those agencies - and I am not sure if some of the agencies even have the ability to use encryption without their equipment being flashed.

Southeast Missouri Hospital - Bootlegging (Again)

2011-10-15T10:10:00.000-06:00

Disclaimer: I am positive that the medical care given by SEMH is top notch and the employees that work there are top of the line. This isn't a criticism of any employee or the level of care that they provide.

SEMH has a long history of unlicened operation - for several years, their license to run on HEAR 340 was expired, but they were on there daily. ARCH (Medevac Helicopter Service) "lent" them some UHF HT's to coordinate operations with their aircraft when they landed at the hospital - however they were mainly used for daily operations within the hospital. Then they leased equipment from G&D Communicaion - a single channel on UHF for security and daily operations. Now, they have several new licences, with several repeaters, but.......

A. They have a license for a VHF high band repeater system (152.4425/157.7025) in which they are licened for narrow band analog. They are currently running (I think) a MotoTRBO system on there.

B. They are running a repeater on 464.475/469.475 for security, however while they did have authorization at one time, they did a license modification and deleted it. This frequency is licensed to JCS Communications for a site in Benton. They DO NOT have authorization from JCS to operate on this frequency.

C. Then, they put up a cross band repeater to link into CAPE GIRARDEAU PD MAIN!!! No license for this frequency, and it isn't know at this time if Cape PD even knows they did this! It is on 462.9125/467.9125 DPL 331.

Someone needs to tell whomever is in charge of radio comms at SEMH that they are opening themselves up to some serious issues with the FCC!

New Addition To The Stable!

2011-10-05T06:40:00.001-06:00

I picked up a GRE PSR-410 scanner this weekend and I do love it! I am using PSREdit software to program it, but I have done some "hand programming" as well. While I do have the PRO-107, I wanted something in a base-type scanner so I could take the '107 with me to work or when I go out and about. I especially like the multi-color LED so I can tell the type of channel it has stopped on and the one button store function for new TG's and found frequencies. Audio is good and loud and clear and it has the best display I have ever seen on a scanner! Overall, I am quite pleased with it.

Monthy Focus -- Cape City -- CGFD

2011-10-05T06:32:00.000-06:00

In another post, I mentioned that CGFD has a new frequency - 155.535 - that was just approved today. How soon traffic begins on it is an unknown at this time. But lets look at what they do have:

CGFD Main - 154.3100 (repeater output) / 150.775 (repeater input) Tone - 624 DPL
CGFD Channel 1 - 154.1300 Tone 506 DPL
CGFD Channel 4 - 154.2800 Tone Unknown
CGFD Unknown CH # - 153.830 Tone Unknown

CGFD Main (input/output), Channel 4 and the 153.830 frequencies are on the KCP586 license (which also has a pending application). The pending application has no new frequencies, but it has P25 mode authorization for 154.310 and 150.775; and additional locations, which appear to be Fire Station #3, Fire Station #1, and CGPD Headquarters. One thing of note, 154.280 is a listed interoperabilty channel, but since CGFD has a seperate license for it, they are not bound by the restrictions placed on these channels under the blanket authorization for their usage. In fact, a couple years ago, they were having difficulties with the FD interfering with the PD system, and for a few days dispatch operations were being done on Channel 4. The 153.830 frequency is a county-wide mutual aid frequency - I have not heard any traffic on it at all, so I don't think it is used much (if any). The pending application basically does the narrowbanding and adds P25 to the CGFD Main input/output frequencies.

The other license - WQAE565 - has the currently used Channel 1 and the new frequency of 155.535 MHz. The license shows both mobile and base units (no repeater system), which leaves two potential uses - one, this is going to be an additional fireground frequency or other admin-type of channel or the city is going to do something similar to what the county does, tone out and dispatch on the new frequency and use the existing Fire Main as an operational channel. My money is on its use as an additional fireground/admin channel. The license is for narrowband analog operation only.
In looking at both of these licenses and the pending application, it appears that the CGFD may use P25 on Fire Main or at least have the ability to do so. The lack of P25 being on the simplex channels indicates that they will not be using P25 on the fireground.

Previous traffic has referenced specific channel numbers and listed below are the ones that have been confirmed as well as the ones that have been referenced in traffic:

Channel 1 - 154.130 (Fireground)
Channel 2 - Unknown frequency, but has been referenced
Channel 3 - Unknown frequency, but has been referenced
Channel 4 - 154.280 (Mutual Aid Channel VFIRE21)
Channel 11 - Unknown frequency, but has been referenced
Channel 16 - Unknown frequency, but has been referenced

Looking at the overall picture, and taking into account current licenses as well as any pending applications - this is what the organic CGFD system will look like:

Repeater system - 154.310/150.775 Analog FMN / P25
Simplex Channels (154.130, 154.280, 155.535) - Analog FMN

Time and monitoring will tell what they will be doing with this system.

New CGFD Frequency Approved By FCC

2011-09-28T12:32:00.000-06:00

As of today (according to the FCC website) CGFD can use 155.535 MHz on their WQAE565 license. This license is the one that authorized their Fireground frequency (154.1300 DCS 506). In looking at the application, it appears that this is a new simplex frequency that may be used for Fireground or other operations. One thing of interest is that they have specified that mobile units will operate within the county, and not just a radius around the control point (which is shown as Fire Station #1). They are licensed for a fixed base (not a repeater), so it doesn't look like this will be some type of additional repeater system for their use. The exact use of this frequency is yet to be determined, of course, but I expect to hear some traffic on it soon.

Been Awhile...But I'm Back!

2011-09-22T09:52:00.000-06:00

It has been awhile since I have been "active" in scanning - I was very heavily involved in our local ARES group getting it started and up and running. I had to move from my old apartment and right now we are in what would best be described as "temporary housing" until we can find a new apartment that will allow pets. Since the ham radio options are pretty bleak right now (I have trouble accessing the local repeater from the new location) - I have decided to focus my efforts on scanning (again). A few new bits of news since the last post....

MOSWIN - The Bloomfield and Sikeston sites are "operational", but I don't think that MOHP has migrated yet. Sikeston PD is now on it, as well as South Scott County Ambulance. I have been told that most of the Scott County agencies will be migrating over the next year or so. BTW, Sikeston is using a 700 MHz system linked into the VHF MOSWIN site.

Cape City - New frequency for CGFD [155.535] which is still in a pending status with the FCC for the last month. Not sure if this will be a new discrete frequency - or - they will pair it up with the existing Channel 1 (used for fireground comms) to have a seperate ops system similar to what the county does. Also, it appears that both CGPD and CGFD have migrated to narrowband.

Southeast Missouri State University - They have a couple new repeater systems, one for shuttle bus coordination [152.915 306DPL] and another one [151.550 754DPL] that to date has only been monitored with some telemetry type of signal around 8AM daily. This second system is supposedly for warning sirens and a PA system, but I wonder why they went to the expense to put in a full repeater for this.

Southeast Missouri Hospital - They FINALLY got legal and got a license for their HEAR340 station as well as some additional frequencies. There is a pending application for a VHF repeater as well. I should be able to hear just about everything from them, as I am now line-of-sight to their tower.

Jackson - New frequencies for the FD to include (as per the license application) - one for warning sirens [155.760] and then another pair [154.0325 & 155.7075]. I seriously doubt if I can monitor these from my present location, but they have been entered into the scanner.

In other news, with the latest release of Unitrunker, I can finally use it on the AmerenMO EDACS site here in Cape and have been playing with it some. Still don't have a digital scanner yet, but I hope to get a GRE-800 around Christmastime this year. I don't think that I can hear the Bloomfiled/Sikeston MOSWIN sites, but I can now hear the Starcom site across the river in Illinois.

One other bit of news, is that Cape Girardeau will be getting a casino that will be operational around the end of next year (2012), and unless they go with some type of MotoTRBO or other TDMA system, there should be something else to listen to!

I think I will go back to having a monthly focus on a specific type of service or agency - that worked good in the past and provided a lot of information. I am also going to update the guide I have been working on as well.

Cape Girardeau County Public Service Scanner Guide

2010-10-11T11:44:00.000-06:00

With the exception of five FTO's that need to be derived and checked - the guide is FINALLY finished. It has been a fun project and I think that it is abouts as accurate and complete as possible given that all of the information was derived from "open sources" and on-the-air monitoring. I did not want to use any "official" or "inside" sources so there would not be any possibility of disclosing any sensitive information that should not be divulged.

Since I used to be a Deputy Sheriff many, many years ago - I did not want to put anything in there that could possibly impact adversely on an officers safety. So, everything in there has been derived from sources that anyone could have had access to or monitored over the air. I do have to admit that there are a couple of things that I have held back that I did not feel comfortable putting in the guide. I will not describe them here as it would be a short jump then to actually disclosing the information. However, the information was derived from open sources and what I believe were "unintentional slips" made over the air by the agency members. While this does meet the criteria for inclusion, I elected not to because of the potential for compromising the safety of the officers in that department. If at some time in the future, the information becomes readily available from another source, then I will add it at that time.

MOSWIN - Missouri's P-25 VHF Trunked System

2010-10-11T11:12:00.000-06:00

Well at least the name finally surfaced earlier last month - MOSWIN (Missouri Statewide Interoperable Network) - but still nothing on towers or frequencies! I have been (along with several others) checking the FCC site on a regular basis looking for either new or modified license applications for any VHF P-25 entries.

According to "reliable sources" - the needed frequencies have been identified. It is hard to imagine that they would be in the 153 - 155 MHz range as these frequencies are pretty much all taken by other license grants. There are a few (not too many) VHF frequencies licensed to the MSHP already, but I don't think there are near enough for the system. Most of them are "TAC" frequencies listed for statewide usage and vehicular repeater frequencies. However, earlier this year the Missouri Water Patrol was "absorbed" into the MSHP and supposedly the MWP was going to migrate to the MSHP low band system. This would open up a lot of potential frequencies that are (now) already licensed to the MSHP. The process of modifying a license is a lot less difficult than applying for a new one - so I would not be surprised to see the "old" MWP frequencies show up on MOSWIN.

Second is the lack of information about towers/site locations. Again, "reliable sources" have stated that there will be one in the Sikeston area and I have heard that there has been some "work" going on at a state tower on Crowley's Ridge by Dexter. These may be the same tower, but the lack of information about the sites is starting to trouble me. I would think that there would be one up in this area as it would be a natural progression for such a system if there was a tower in the Sikeston area. Also, I would hope that the system engineers/system managers are looking to the possiblity of local users buying into the system. CGPD would be a prime candidate as its single channel analog network is becoming congested. During the busy periods, the frequency is active 75% of the time with multiple calls/incidents going on. CGPD TAC is used to some extent, but not that much. AFAIK, all of the CGPD radios are P-25 capable and I think that they may be able to operate in a trunking mode. However, I don't think that CGPD is going to change anytime soon.

October Update #1

2010-10-11T10:50:00.001-06:00

Have been busy with the scanners and have made a lot of progress on some items:

1. I have confirmed that Cape Girardeau County Sheriff is using P25 Non-Trunked Mode for "Tactical" communications. I do not know if it is enclear or encrypted as of yet (still no digital scanner here!)

2. East County Fire Protection District - They have their own repeater that is RARELY used. I was finally able to get the tone however due to someone being on the wrong channel during an incident they were involved in. They use 205 DCS on the repeater.

3. Jackson FD - The dispatchers are now simulcasting on Fire Main and Fireground during all incidents. Also the FTO for the volunteers has been derived and checked.

4. Cape Girardau County 911 - I have 5 of the 8 FTO's used on this system derived and checked. Also there is a "new" unit series being utilized - 30xx - for "shared apparatus. I have only heard 3019 use it - a mobile "air van" that is used to recharge the SCBA used by the fire fighters.

5. AirEvac - I have derived the FTO for AirEvac 3.

Hopefully, I will be able to get the missing FTO's for Scott City, CG 911 and AirEvac 80 this week so I can put this project to bed. Scott City FD uses a long tone and that shouldn't be too difficult to derive.

OK - Back To Work

2010-08-20T08:28:00.000-06:00

I am re-invested and re-invogorated to contine to unravel all of the information about scanning in the Cape Girardeau area. 98% of the local government systems and frequencies have been identified, verified, submitted and logged. There are a couple of blank spots left - but I will not forgo working on other areas just to focus on them. Eventually the information will present itself and I will have 'em!

The prime focus this fall/winter will be on the Missouri Statewide System (MSS - until I find out its real name) as it initially rolls out in Troop E. HOPEFULLY there will be a tower in Cape or very close by. I am planning on getting a digital scanner around the first of October or mid-October at the latest so I will be ready for them to start testing.

In the mean time......

I will start improving the "monitoring post" by adding (finally) a better antenna in anticipation of getting the digital scanner and by finishing up some other loose ends with commercial users and commercial trunked systems.

It has really been crazy....

2010-08-20T07:51:00.000-06:00

I have been working 6 days a week minimum for the past few months, so pretty much all I have done is eat, sleep and work! But it is starting to settle down now and I have been doing some monitoring - but not as much as I would like to. Some of the things I have accomplished....

AmerenUE - I got the LCN's for the Benton site down pat now and I can monitor it from the apartment. It is pretty much a simulcast of the Cape site. If conditions are right I can monitor the Dexter site - but as of yet I haven't heard anything on it at all as the times I have been able to monitor it, it has been later on in the evening and there hasn't been any traffic on it or the Cape/Benton sites.

Cape County - The infamous scanner guide is pretty much finished except for a few minor details (FTO's for Cape County 911). Anyone that wants a copy - it is in Word format - can drop me a line at wb0wao@gmail.com and I will email it to you.

Missouri Statewide System - Supposedly within the next few months, Troop E - the Troop that services Cape County - will be the first in the state to use this new VHF-High P25 trunked system. I have to start saving up for a digital scanner now!

Local LTR Systems - I was able to get a lot of monitoring done on some of the systems and we now have a fairly extensive basic listing of many of the TG's on them. Dittronics UHF is by far the most active with G&D 800 next. I can monitor both the Cape and Benton Dittronics sites, so I was able to get a lot of TG's listed. Most are identified as to the type of user and a few have been nailed down to a specific company.

Well, that is all for now.....

It has been awile....

2010-04-19T08:03:00.000-06:00

since I posted anything on here. Work has kept me real busy and I have been working on a Cape County Scanner Guide which is pretty much finished. I have been able to add some details to Cape City PD and FD systems (operational stuff - no new frequencies) and I have been working on deriving TGID's for some of the LTR systems here in Cape as well as trying to assign LCN's to the systems. Since there is not a lot of traffic on the systems, this has become somewhat difficult. I still have not been able to get any of the trunking decoder software to work with the '107 so I am having to do it manually. I will expand on this in a seperate posting.

AmerenUE Final Update

2010-02-26T08:18:00.000-06:00

This will be the final update to the AmerenUE Cape system. I have had a good time with this puzzle and was able to identify some TG's positively as well as determine (somewhat) their unit numbering system. I will be updating the AmerenUE wiki later today to reflect all of the data that I have acquired.

I was somewhat dissappointed that I wasn't able to get anything from the Benton site - I still have not heard any traffic on any of the voice channels although the control channel has been happily transmitting away all the time.

I will keep up the monitoring of this site, allthough not at the same intensity as I did this month, so I hope that I can fill in a few more areas that I was looking to fill

AmerenUE Update #3

2010-02-21T07:32:00.000-06:00

Not a whole lot of new information has been gathered since the last update here. A couple more RID's have been discovered, but that is about it. I have pretty much determined that the "out of area" TGID's that I have picked up infrequently are the result of someone having a radio "tuned" to one of those TG's that was in the local area - either by mistake or as a result of being in transit thru or coming to this area for some reason. That leaves us with the following main TGID's that are in use in this area:
04-146 - Electric (Northwest of Cape area)
05-002 - Construction
05-003 - Gas
05-006 - Electric (Cape Area and south)

Other TG's routinely monitored:
12-042 - Radio System Maint.

I have heard a couple of other TG's that I think are also local, but have not determined what they are:
05-001
05-007
Hopefully I will be able to determine what these are at a later date.

AmerenUE Update #2

2010-02-12T08:11:00.000-06:00

I have been able to determine a few things so far as well as some initial "revisions":

1. TGID 05-006 deals with maintenance and repair of the electrical transmission system (Cape and south)
2. TGID 05-003 deals with mantenance and repair of the natural gas system
3. TGID 05-002 deals with construction of new electrical lines.
4. TGID 04-146 deals with maintenance and repair of the electrical transmission system (Ironton area)

It looks like the 38xx and 39xx units are somehow connected as they use the same TG's and they do inter-communicate with each other. I also think the 39xx may be based out of Dexter perhaps - but not sure on that. 37xx units have only been monitored on the 04-146 TG and have not been monitored on any 05-xxx TG's. I am starting to think that Cape is a major support hub for AmerenUE - but the extent of their area of responsibility is yet to be determined. Since I am monitoring traffic from areas that are well outside the expected service area that Cape would cover, I can only surmise that this may be the reason.
This graphic is taken from the AmerenUE website that shows the service area in SEMO. It goes from the bootheel to up around Perryville and included Poplar Bluff as well as west on US 60. I have heard traffic from most of this service area, but I need to reconfirm this as each day, I derive more data from monitoring the site. Ameren activites on the other side of the river are on the Illinois StarCom21 system, which I have no current capability of monitoring at this time.

I have also not heard any voice traffic on the Benton voice channels - but I do hear CWID from time to time on there as well as the control channel. This makes it rather difficult to get the LCN's for that site obviously!

My next task is to continue to collect RID's and TGID's and attempt to determine the area of operations for what I am normally monitoring as well as trying to further ID the TG's that I am hearing.

Something More In April?

2010-02-06T10:22:00.000-06:00

There will be a presentation in late April at the Missouri EMA Conference on the new system being planned for Missouri. Hopefully, there will be some additional information about the time-line for this system or other info on it. I am guessing that by the end of the year, we will see some sites potentially being tested and/or constructed. At least I hope we will know where the sites are going to be located at!

When the system is being set up, it is a pime time for determining the TG's that will be used as well as determining other data of use. I have "cleared the plate" for the last two months of this year to be used for potentially monitoring the system. Of course if it comes online or is in testing earlier, I will start working in it ASAP!

AmerenUE Update #1

2010-02-06T10:06:00.000-06:00

After about a week of monitoring the AmerenUE Cape site and some additional "understanding" of how their system I have decided to narrow my focus to deriving as much information about the Cape site/units as possible. While I do hear Hayti as well as Ironton units, I don't think I am getting all of their traffic. Without monitoring a large majority of their traffic, I don't think I could properly analyze it to the point where I could make draw some definative conclusions.

Radio ID's/Unit Numbers
So far, the RID's are the same as the unit numbers and they do follow some type of scheme. 37xx units are based out of Ironton, 38xx units are based out of Cape Girardeau and 39xx units are based out of Hayti. I have been keeping a listing of the RID's/units that I have heard as well as the TG's that have been used with them. It appears that the unit numbers are keyed to individuals as the dispatchers knows their names. It is also possible that there is a further breakdown in the last two digits of the unit number. I think 3802 is the Cape Girardeau garage or office unit. I have monitored six seperate RID's for Jeff City dispatch as well.
To date, I have identified over 40 seperate RID's heard on the Cape site - about half are units assigned to the Cape Girardeau base.

Talk Groups
I can also make some preliminary inferences as well. Cape TG's are 05-006 (Primary) and a few Cape units have been on 05-002 and 05-003. All the Ironton units that I have heard have been on 04-146 and I have heard radio service tech's on 12-042 checking the Cape site frequencies. Surprisingly, Hayti units have been only heard on 05-006 (same TG as the Cape units). I am not sure if there is a logical system for determining talk groups. Hopefully I will be able to analyze this further.

So far, I have heard no traffic on any of the Benton voice channels, but I do hear the data channel. I am waiting for some info on UniTrunker so I can try to derive the LCN's for that system.

February - AmerenUE

2010-02-01T08:35:00.000-06:00

This month I will be focusing on the AmerenUE EDACS system. There are two systems that are in range of me using the standard "ducky" antennas I have on the PRO-107 and PRO-528. One is the Cape Girardeau site (LCN's nailed down) and the Benton site (still need to nail down the LCN's). First order of business it to nail down the Benton site - I now have three scanners capable if monitoring signals on those frequencies and two of them will track the site once I have the LCN's determined. Problem is that I have the voice channels programmed into a non-trunking scanner and I only hear the CWID. So far, I ever heard any voice on them. I am trying to get Unitrunker to work on the PRO-107 and when I do, I will start in on the Benton site.

Right now, I will be a monitoring the Cape site to determine any correlation with RID's and TGID's. So far I have gotten about a dozen RID's and monitored several TG's. Preliminary analysis shows that 38xx units are based in Cape and 39xx units are based in Hayti. Time to devise a speardsheet for this!

Also, I need to determine what the scheme is for the talkgroups. TG 05-006 seems to be the one used most on the Cape site. But there have been others on there as well. I did monitor a "private call" between a couple of Cape-based units.

Final Update - Fire Departments

2010-01-31T08:42:00.000-06:00

Well, due to circumstances that occured during January with the Cape City FD, I was able to gather a lot of information that would probably have normally taken a longer period of time. The Cape City FD repeater was down for a few days, so operations were on "Channel 4" - 154.280. Both the channel number and frequency were confirmed. Also, I was fortunate to be at the scanner when a radio check was done on Cape City Fireground - 154.130, an unconfirmed frequency that is rarely active. I was also able to get the five tone pairs for Cape City and have confirmed that each station has its own particular tone used to alert the apparatus stationed there. The fifth tone pair, is for (I believe) the Battalion Chief.

All in all, I think that January was a good month for nailing down data on the FD's in the county. I still need to get the tone pairs for Cape County units as well as Jackson FD information. All of the major information is good - frequencies and CTCSS/DCS tones for the dispatch and operational frequencies. Fireground frequencies are another matter as I do not have the proper antenna system to be able to hear 5w portables all over the county. Besides, 95% of the time they run the fireground ops on the main channel anyway. It is rare to have two major incidents going on at that same time. So, I am going to do a bit of "rescheduling" of the Monthly Focus Items. February will be dedicated to working on the AmerenUE system and the second half of the Fire will now be done in August. This was done for a couple of reasons - firstly, February normally produces a major ice storm - which means there will be a LOT of traffic on the AmerenUE system. Secondly, with my acquisition of the PRO-107, I can do radio ID's as well as CC decoding that will let me really get into the schema of their system.

PRO-107

2010-01-29T08:17:00.000-06:00

Well, I decided to go for it and got one of these new scanners. So far I do like it and it seems to be working very well. I now have some additional capability for the monitoring station that I did not have before. First, I now have MilAir - something that I did want to have. Second, it will decode CTCSS/DCS tones automatically so I can fill in some missing "blanks". Third, it does radio ID's - very cool.

Only thing that I wish was different, was that the SD card was accessible without having to pull out the batteries. I understand the reasoning behind having to remove the card for updating - it would take forever by sending data via an interface cable.

Overall, I am happy with it and look forward to using it.

Fire Department Update #2

2010-01-27T08:41:00.001-06:00

As January comes to a close, I have derived a lot of new information about the county Fire Departments. I have identified the Cape city "mystery system", derived the Cape city FTO's and confirmed all non-Fireground frequencies except Millersville.

For February, I will focus on Cape county units and Jackson city. I may also do some work on surrounding counties (Scott, Bollinger, Perry in MO and Union, Alexander in IL) Fire Departments as well - after I get a better antenna up and running.

City of Cape Girardeau Fire Department FTO's

2010-01-27T07:49:00.001-06:00

I finally got TwoToneDetect working properly and today I was home for the daily 7AM communications check. Here are the tones that I got:

Tone 1 - 1122.5/1153.4
Tone 2 - 1122.5/1185.2
Tone 3 - 1122.5/1217.8
Tone 4 - 1122.5/1251.4
Tone 5 - 1185.2/1122.5

Now to determine the schema for these FTO's. I will set up a sidebar with these FTO's versus apparatus

154.130 Finally Nailed Down

2010-01-26T15:57:00.002-06:00

I was sitting watching TV and had the PRO-137 in hand - and then I heard the Batillion Chief for the Cape city FD ask for a radio check on "FIREGROUND". I glanced at the scanner and lo and behold it was on the 154.130 "mystery frequency'! Confirmed at last to what it was! The listed RR database FG freq appears to be for mutual aid in the county and not the prime FG freq for Cape city. A submission has been done. This may be the elusive channel 16, but I need to confirm that at a later date.

Cape County /City FTO's

2010-01-24T08:50:00.000-06:00

I am going to start working on deriving the FTO's for Cape County as well as Cape City this week. I will be using two different pieces of software to do this. First, to derive the tone I will use a piece of software called "Tone Generator" that I found online. It has a scope that will display the audio tone and I should be able to interprolate the actual frequencies of the tones. Then I will plug them into TwoTone Detect and see if they are valid. Once I have valid tones, I can then determine who is being toned out with which pair.

Cape County does a tone out at 7pm nightly and Cape City does it at 7am daily. I will start tonite with the County tones and work on the City tones starting Wednesday morning. Hopefully, I will be able to get most of these naild down before the end of the month.

Cape FD Repeater Back Up/ECFPD Repeater Strange Signal

2010-01-24T08:32:00.000-06:00

The Cape city FD is back on their main channel now. The repeater is back up and functioning, but this is the second time in less than a month that it was shut down/under repair due to bleed-over on PD Main.

Yesterday, I was monitoring at work (as usual) and I heard the ECFPD repeater come on with someone doing the "testing testing" bit. A while later I heard DIGITAL come over the repeater a couple of times. Not sure if it was standard P-25 or something else (it sounded a lot like the CGSO "Tac" signal) - possibly MotoTRBO. ECFPD is licensed for narrowband but F3E emissions only. Another mystery to solve!

Cape FD Repeater Update/ Other CGFD Data

2010-01-21T08:29:00.000-06:00

Cape Fire Main is still down as the CGFD is still operating on "RED" for dispatch. I saw the Battalion Chief's vehicle yesterday and noticed that there were three antennas on it - so there should be three radios in there obviously. One will be the standard FD radio and probably a scanner (would love to see what is programmed in it!) and another rig. I think that at some time during the year the FD does some type of public event that allows the citizens to peruse the equipment. I will keep my ears open and when this occurs, it will be a good source of intel perhaps.

Cape City FD Channels

2010-01-18T12:39:00.002-06:00

CGFD is having problems with their repeater bleeding over on the Cape PD frequency. They tried to go to "direct" (simplex operation on the repeater output) but that didn't work. The Battalion Cheif instructed all units to go to "Mutual Aid Channel 4" which subsequently monitored as 154.280 - commonly refered to as "Red". Earlier, he wanted another unit to contact him on "Channel 12", but I was unable to find that one. I do know that there is also a "Channel 16" as well - but again it is an unknown frequency.

UPDATE 1 - Cape FD (at least the Batallion Chief) has the capability to operate on the Cape PD repeater. I heard him instruct the PD to have all units go to TAC as they were trying to get their system back online. It was a FD radio as they have a digital burst on them when they key down. So, another potential channel for them to have in their radios!

Using the Car# Function on the PRO-137

2010-01-17T10:18:00.000-06:00

The PRO-137 is a great little scanner that has a lot of value for the price. It is, I think, the only scanner in its price class that has text tags for the frequencies. You can enter up to 12 characters for the text tag, but it also has a function that at first look doesn't appear to be useful to the non-race fan user. It is a keypad function that allows the user to instantly go to the car #'s primary frequency. For example, if the race fan wants to hear what the driver of car #005 is transmitting - you press [CAR] [0] [0] [5] and the scanner goes to the frequency set up at the primary for that car. I can see where this would be useful in a racing scanner, but it can also be useful for a regular user as well. I have developed a listing of the major agencies that I monitor and assigned each of them a three digit "car #" and assigned the main dispatch channel as the primary frequency for that car. Now, I can instantly go to the main dispatch channel for that agency with just a few keystrokes, no matter what bank it is in (you do not even have to be monitoring that particular bank for this to work). Below is a listing that I used for this.

CAR#          Agency

000     Cape County Sheriff
010      Cape Girardeau PD
020     Jackson PD
030      SEMO PD
040      Scott County Sheriff
050      Scott City PD
060      Missouri State Police
100      Cape County Fire
110      Cape Girardeau FD
120      Jackson FD
130     Scott County FD
140     Scott City FD

After some use, you get to be able to memorize the agency numbers that you have assigned and it becomes second nature.

Update #1 - Fire Departments

2010-01-14T09:01:00.000-06:00

I have been monitoring all of the main fire channels in the county and with the exception of some of the possible fireground channels, there has been activity on all of them except one frequency:

Frequency Emission Power Call
154.1300 11K2F3E 100w WQAE565

According to the ULS, the antenna is at 122' AGL and is about 2 miles from me. The license was first granted in 2004 and there just was an administrative update less than a month ago that changed the point of contact for the license. At first I thought that this might be the old legacy system, but the current system was in operation prior to this license being granted and this frequency, unlike the main dispatch frequency is a narrowband channel. It is a simplex system, and I should hear it if there was any traffic on it, but I have yet to hear a peep out of it. There are a few clues to its possible use - the point of contact on the license is now a battalion chief who, according to the FD website, is in charge of "special operations". According to some of my research, that means he is the liason with SEMO Homeland Security Response Team as well as being responsible for more specialized forms of rescues. This one is puzzling to say the least

January/February Focus Item

2010-01-03T08:56:00.000-06:00

The focus item for January and February will be the Fire Departments in Cape county. I hope to be able to determine the fire tone out codes, any CTCSS tones used as well as confirming the equipment numbering system used by the departments county wide. I will publish my results on the RR Wiki page when I am done sometime around the end of February.

Update # 5 (Final) - Cape County Verification Project

2010-01-03T07:32:00.000-06:00

I have pretty much finished this project and all updates/changes/deletions have been submitted to the RR database. 90% of the "critical" Cape Girardeau county area frequencies have been check and verified. There were several deletions from the database due to mis-identified systems and/or other errors. There are still a few entries that I have yet to confirm via monitoring and I will continue to keep after those. But now it is time to focus on specific user groups, i.e. Fire, Police, EMS, etc.

I plan on getting a BCT15XT this month so I can verify some of the more detailed information about specific frequencies such as the CTCSS tone as well as the fire tone outs used. Then there are the several trunked business systems that need to have the LCN's determined - so I still have a lot of stuff to work on this year.

Next year (2011) will probably be very interesting as this is when the new MO P25 Statewide system will start to come online. So there will be a lot of work determining TGID's and the like. In order to focus completely on that, I want to get all the loose ends tied up for all of the conventional systems/users before then.

Cape City, Cape County and Scott City FD's on Cape System

2009-12-31T10:31:00.000-06:00

I discovered that both Cape County FD and Scott City FD has the capability to operate on the Cape City FD repeater system. There was a two alarm structure fire in Cape city yesterday morning while I was at work. I had my VX-150 with me and was monitoring the situation. I was not all that surprised to hear the Cape County unit on the city frequency, but I was surprised to hear the Scott City unit on there - especially since Scott City FD does not have that frequency licensed to them. Not a problem though, as a letter of permission would all that would be needed to have that frequency programmed into the radio(s). I am sure that the Cape City trucks have Scott City FD freq's loading into them as well.

Another thing was that the on-scene commander told everyone to go to "Channel 16" for fireground operations. I was not able to hear anything on the Cape fireground frequency and given the rig I had, I was unable to search for it. So, right now Channel 16 is "unknown" for sure. Now, it may have been on the fireground channel but I was not able to receive it due to the location of the incident and my work location. However, I think I would have been able to hear it if it was being used.

*** Update ***
There was another two alarm fire early Friday morning and again a mutual aid request was sent out. This time I heard Jackson FD and East (Cape) County Fire Protection District engines were dispatched and both showed up on the Cape FD system. They operated on the main system this time and there is a problem with the main repeater creating interference with the Cape PD system. Cape PD sent all units onto the TAC frequency for the duration until everything was over.

Update #4 - Cape County Verification Project

2009-12-29T09:17:00.000-06:00

If all goes well, I should have everything done for the Cape city by the end of this week - to include the City of Cape Girardeau, St. Francis Hospital, Southeast Hospital, CCPA and SEMO State University. I have been focusing on these first and then I will be doing the city of Jackson and the county next. There appears to be some type of duplication in the county freqs - or perhaps they are dual use frequencies with the road and bridge department as well as the county EMA. I have about a dozen or so freqs that I need to verify for the city stuff and then it is on to the next step.

Once a block has been completed, I will remove it from the listing on the right side of the page so I can free up more space there.

Also, I am going back to verify the CSQ/PL tones on the VHF-HI frequencies with the VX-150 and send in any changes. Once I get another scanner that will do these tones, I will work on the other bands as well.

Update #3 - Cape County Verification Project

2009-12-28T09:16:00.000-06:00

I am getting real close to finishing this project as far as the critical blocks are concerned. I have found some discrepancies in the RR database that I need to elaborate on:
Block 1A - City of Cape Girardeau Police Department - There are two frequencies listed in the RR database that I have not been able to confirm. One is 155.640 MHz, which is not licensed to the City of Cape Girardeau according to the FCC. I do not know the origin of this entry and I have not heard any traffic on it at all, and I have monitored some "major events" that should have created traffic on that frequency. I feel that this frequency is invalid and I will probably discuss this with the db administrator. The second frequency of 155.970 MHz is one that is licensed to the city, but according to the license it is for 5w mobile (i.e. portable) units. I have also not heard any traffic on this frequency, but...... It is possible that this frequency is used by the SWAT team for on-site operations and they are rarely called out. I have not heard any SWAT operations as of yet, so I am leaving this one as a valid, yet unconfirmed frequency.

Block 1B - City of Cape Girardeau Fire Department - Again, there are two frequencies listed in the RR database that remain unconfirmed. One is 465.375 MHz and is listed in the RR database as a "Remote Receive Link" - I have not heard any traffic on this and, again, I have monitored some events that would have had activity on this frequency. The FCC license for this frequency shows it is used to transmit "land survey data". I think that this is an invalid entry and needs to be deleted. The second frequency of 154.130 is also licensed to the city as a fire department frequency and the FCC license shows that it was a simplex system. This may be the legacy system that the current system replaced and they still have it for an emergency backup, however I have not heard it on the air. This frequency I would also consider a valid, yet unconfirmed frequency.
--- UPDATE ---
I submitted the 465.375 MHz entry to be deleted as well as a 460.300/465.300 MHz pair listed for Cape city "Engineering". The 465.375 and 460.300 MHz freq's were on a single license that appears to be for some type of portable data transmitter used for surveying. The 465.300 MHz was not even licensed to the city.

Also, I checked the FCC license for the 154.130 Cape FD frequency and discoved it is for a narrow band FM emission! This makes me think that it isn't a legacy system but either a frequency set aside for future use or it was something that was going to be done, but the project was cancelled. Either way, it needs to be monitored for activity.

2009-12-28T08:27:00.000-06:00

Here is the current station setup that I use on a daily basis. It is a small desk in the bedroom where I have my three current rigs going. For monitoring the main local frequencies, I use a Vertex VX-150 (Yaesu) 2m hand held. It does double duty as my primary scanner as well as operating on 2m. You can see it sitting on the desktop clipped to a metal bookend. Above it are my other two scanners that I use. The one to the left is a PRO-137 that I just picked up and I use it primarially for monitoring other local non-trunked systems as well as for searching my "unknown/unconfirmed" frequencies. The text tag feature on it is great for identifying who or what the frequency is. The scanner to the right is my PRO-528 that I use for scanning trunked systems - mainly AmerenUE, but I am working on identifying several other business trunked systems as well. On the top shelf is my card file with the identified frequencies that I have logged. I don't have a computer on the desk, and I really don't plan on adding one due to space and interference issues. In the corner, you may notice the telescopic center load antenna hanging from the ceiling - this antenna is hooked up to the PRO-528. On the closet door to the right is a map for the city of Cape Girardeau and the map on the other wall is a Cape Girardeau county map.

I will eventually be getting another scanner or two because I currently don't have any mil-air or digital capability. I also need to upgrade the antenna system somewhat. I haven't decided what scanner to get next, but I am leaning towards getting the BCT-15XT as it is, IMHO, about as good as it will ever get with an analog scanner. Right now, I don't need a digital scanner (wanting one is another topic!) but I do know that I will need one in the near future. I think I will wait and get a digital one at the end of next year (2010) and hopefully there will be a new generation of digital scanners out. As far as the antenna is concerned, I still think I will eventually put up some small one in the attic. I do have access to the attic from my apartment, so it isn't a big deal to put one up in there. The access point to the attic is just inside the closet next to the monitoring position.

Update #2 - Cape County Verification Project

2009-12-23T09:45:00.000-06:00

There hasn't been hardly any traffic on the frequencies that I still need to confirm for this project. I was able to confirm a couple of Jackson Public Works frequencies but not much else. The main bright spot was finally nailing down the last Cape AmerenUE LCN for that system, so now it is complete. Most of the stuff that I need to confirm are frequencies for non-first responders (mostly local government/public works). I went thru my confirmed listings and updated the verification project status panel to the right. I really need to sit down and go thru everything in the database and see what is what. I am off Christmas Eve day, so I may do all of the little things I need to do then.

Dittronics UHF Trunked System

2009-12-22T17:50:00.000-06:00

I have been working on the Dittronics UHF (SEMO) System - Site 101 - and so far have determined the following:

Home Repeater 461.100 LCN 03

463.250 has data bursts
461.450 has data bursts

463.525 no signal heard
464.775 no signal heard

-----------
Site 101 Talk Groups:

0-03-001 Cape County Transit Authority Vehicle
0-03-002 Cape County Transit Authority Dispatch
0-03-003 Possibly Southeast Missourian (Local Newspaper)
0-03-004 ~~Possibly Concrete Company~~ Waste Management Company (Garbage Trucks)
0-03-006 Traffic About Welding

I need to post a "tech question" to the RR LTR Trunking Forum about the two freqs that I do not hear any data bursts from.

UPDATE:
I posted my question and got a response to it. It appears that even though there are 5 frequencies assigned to this system, only three are active. Now the trick is to determine what the LCN's are for the other two!

AmerenUE Cape Site Update

2009-12-22T08:59:00.000-06:00

Now that I have a second scanner, I should be able to finally get that missing LCN for the Cape site! I have been working on this for quite some time and I hope that I can get it nailed down today (I brought both of my scanners in to work).

UPDATE: Success!!! I finally nailed down the last LCN for the Cape AmerenUE site (855.1875 LCN 13) which I have verified by monitoring it and the system does track with the frequency in the right spot.

Block 1C Finished

2009-12-21T08:04:00.000-06:00

I did a submission to the RR Database last night to finish up Block 1C. All of the main EMS frequencies are verified. I did submit an entry for Southeast Missouri Hospital (HEAR frequency) as they do have it and they do have a license for it. I think that it was just an oversight in the RR database. I also added information into the RR Wiki about CCPA.

PRO-137 On Sale For $79.99

2009-12-20T11:35:00.000-06:00

Was on the RR board and saw that there was a sale on scannners at Radio Shack, so I went over and looked to see what they had. The PRO-137, PRO-107 and the PRO-164 are on sale until Jan. 2, 2010! I got my end-of-year bonus yesterday, and I have an "extra" $100 to spend on myself, so I called the local store here in Cape and they do have some PRO-137's in stock. So after work, I think I will go and get one. Yes I know it is an analog only, non-trunking basic scanner - but it does have text tags and all the comments I have read say that it is a good, solid performer. And for $80 I doubt if I can go wrong with it.

Besides, since I work during the day 7am-3pm (generally), I can use it at work to assist me in the Cape Girardeau database verification project. I can load in the ones I need to verify and monitor it throughout the day when most of the frequencies are active that I need to confirm.

Overall, it is a win-win situation for me.

UPDATE: I went and picked one up and so far I am happy with it. It seems to be even a bit more sensitive than my PRO-528. I have loaded the "unknowns" into it and will be monitoring it for the next few days as I try to finish up the verification project.

Update #1 - Cape County Verification Project

2009-12-20T09:28:00.000-06:00

I decided to expand on the "block" system for this project so as to more effectively prioritize this task - and that I forgot about the City of Jackson frequencies. Here are the new block categories.

Block 1A - City of Cape Girardeau PD
Block 1B - City of Cape Girardeau FD
Block 1C - City of Cape Girardeau EMS
Block 1D - City of Jackson PD
Block 1E - City of Jackson FD

Block 2A - City of Cape Girardeau Public Works
Block 2B - City of Cape Girardeau Other Government
Block 2C - City of Jackson Public Works
Block 2D - City of Jackson Other Government

Block 3A - County of Cape Girardeau SO
Block 3B - County of Cape Girardeau/Rural Fire/EMS
Block 3C - County of Cape Girardeau EMA

Block 4 - County of Cape Girardeau Other Government
Block 5A - Cape Girardeau Site AmerenUE EDACS System
Block 5B - Benton Site AmerenUE EDACS System

Block 6A - Schools/University
Block 6B - Commercial Trunked Systems
Block 6C - Commercial Discreet/Community Repeater Systems
Block 6D - Railroad/Marine
Block 6E - Amateur

Block 7A - State Law Enforcement
Block 7B - State Highway Department

Block 8 - Federal

For overall status on this project, see the Block listing on the right hand side of this page.

Latest Information

2009-12-18T08:59:00.000-06:00

It appears that the state of Missouri will be setting up a state-wide VHF P25 trunked system within the next few years. From the scant information that I have been able to derive, this will initially be a system set up for the MSP and other state users and have a minimum of 95% state-wide coverage for mobile units. They will allow other agencies to tie into the system, albeit on those agencies own dime.

The main question now is where the sites will be located at - here is a map for existing towers/transmitters used by the MSP Troop E in southeast Missouri:

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=113275348416932990502.00047aee5c603efc5936c&ll=36.374787,-90.124626&spn=4.174623,6.954346&z=7

As you can see there are several existing sites that will probably be converted to the new system and should provide reasonable coverage. They will need to probably add a few sites mainly in the north and west however.

Cape County Database Verification Project

2009-12-17T09:22:00.000-06:00

Well, I am finally getting back to working on this - my "day job" was taking most of what little free time I have, but it has quieted down now to the point I can get back to it. Here are the blocks that I am working on and the status of them:

Block 1 - City of Cape Girardeau PD/Fire/EMS - 95% complete and verified
Block 2 - City of Cape Girardeau Other Government - 75% complete and verified
Block 3 - County of Cape Girardeau SO/Fire/EMS - 40% complete and verified
Block 4 - County of Cape Girardeau Other Government - Not started yet
Block 5 - AmerenUE System - 50% complete and verified
Block 6 - Other Miscellaneous Frequencies - Not started yet

Once a block is complete and verified, I will submit any additions, changes or deletions to the RR database and/or RR Wiki.

Originally, I was also going to do some work on Scott county - and I still may yet do that - but as of right now I am going to hold off on that for the time being.

Update

2009-12-15T09:59:00.000-06:00

Somehow or another, I lost all the posts that were on here (I think it was "operator error") - but to be honest, there wasn't a lot of "high value" intel in them anyway :) I will try and reconstruct them if possible.

Dennis