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Has anyone heard any traffic on the VTAC Channels and VCALL frequencies? I see where a few counties in Eastern Washington have them programmed in the sheriff mobile and portable radios, but I have not heard any traffic here in the Moses Lake area. I usually monitor ALL local/state from 7am til almost 6pm.

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Spectrum Communications, Inc.
526 S Locust Lane
Moses Lake, WA 98837

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Kenwood/Relm-BK/Vertex-Standard/David Clark/USAlert/Swissphone. Serving You Since 1978!
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http://www.scml.us
http://www.insp.com
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no, pretty dead. I programmed them all in my Icom and I get an image on VTAC 1 or VCALL from an adjacent transmitter. I think it's there to be there when something big happens.

OSCCR is supposed to move to 12.5 spacing after July 08

" The bandwidth of OSCCR transmitters shall be 25 KHz. After July 1st 2008 the bandwidth of OSCCR transmitters shall be 12.5 KHz."

Did OSCCR ever move to narrowband? I am still programming it wideband in all radios.

_________________
Spectrum Communications, Inc.
526 S Locust Lane
Moses Lake, WA 98837

- - - - -
Kenwood/Relm-BK/Vertex-Standard/David Clark/USAlert/Swissphone. Serving You Since 1978!
- - - - -
http://www.scml.us
http://www.insp.com
- - - - -

I'm making an educated guess here but it sounds like VTAC/CALL is the VHF equivalent to ITAC and ICALL here in 800MHz land. If that's the case I wouldn't expect much activity except for the occasional volunteer keying up on the wrong zone in the radio.

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I taste copper.
Comments, views, opinions - and trails of destruction - are my own.

A lot of the NB spacing hasn't occurred as quickly as assumed. I read somewhere that the NB spacing for railroads is off for several years. How many VHF radios even have VTAC's? It's taking up 5 slots in my radio and I would like to program something else there.

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"I was installing un-programmed radios"

I have never heard of VCAL/VTAC in the Seattle metro area but then again you don't hear people say 'switch to I-TAC 3' either, yet it's there. If I remember right, ICALL/ITAC are there in the event of a system failure but I always questioned that; how can 5 channels manage thousands of radio users? This is a Sean question. It's been too long since I was involved at that level to say for certain.

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I taste copper.
Comments, views, opinions - and trails of destruction - are my own.

ITAC / ICALL I don't think is for a system failure I believe it is for a national mutual aid system. I can take my 800 Mhz radio from Washington State and in Florida I can reach a dispatch agency on Icall or ITAC. I'm sure someone out there will correct me if I'm wrong.

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Realistic Patrolman PRO-48, Uniden BC-800XLT, Radio Shack PRO-2018, Uniden BC-895XLT, Uniden BC-245XLT, RCA RP-6100,
Realistic PRO-2006, Uniden BR330T, Uniden BCT15X

OH OH! That's right I remember now. Ya you hit it. I went to a conference in Georgia several years ago and it was mentioned.

EDIT: So in that case you'd think VHF agencies in Seattle metro would have the VHF ones. I wonder if there is a never used patch on 800 somewhere. Never seen one by name in the radios but it could be patched to a MARS or LERN-ish talkgroup on an infrastructure level I suppose.

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I taste copper.
Comments, views, opinions - and trails of destruction - are my own.

Down here in the Portland Metro, VCALL and all that I have heard used by a few firefighters and once in a while OSP if a unit wants to talk to another unit nearby direct.

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Mt Wave SAR member
Support Search & Rescue: Get Lost!
http://www.mwave.org

You wont hear much action on VCALL or ITAC our 800 Mhz radios have I believe 6 Banks ABCDEF and each hold 15 Talk Groups. Thats 90 TG's and everyone is loaded. I can talk to almost every TRS system in the state

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Realistic Patrolman PRO-48, Uniden BC-800XLT, Radio Shack PRO-2018, Uniden BC-895XLT, Uniden BC-245XLT, RCA RP-6100,
Realistic PRO-2006, Uniden BR330T, Uniden BCT15X

Like what Clark County/Las Vegas has done? They linked the 800 mhz I-Call/Tac freqs to VHF ones since most every LE agency down there is VHF, but fire is 800.

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President-in-Exile, Seattle Area Radio Communications And Scanner Traffic Intercept Crew (SARCASTIC)
Don't feel bad if you can't use your STD100/200; there are still people using Digital Frequency Search!
Bunnery definition for the under-fives

I hear units call in on Benton Co. talk group 4880 , by saying 'WSP xxx calling Benton Co. master control on LERN" but I have never heard LERN being used at the same time.

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"I was installing un-programmed radios"

Im of the thought that all these frequencies should be repeated, and connected cross band.

They seem very under-utilized...

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"A well regulated breakfast, being necessary to the healthy start of the day, the right of the people to keep and eat food shall not be infringed."