Papal Visit - April 17 Monitoring

Yesterday was a long day, but I got a ton of good monitoring in. I left Fredericksburg at 5 AM, and arrived at Gravelly Point an hour later. For the next thirteen-and-a-half hours (!), I monitored just about every frequency range or trunked system I thought might be in use for the events.

I brought four handheld scanners: the GRE PSR-500, Uniden BCD396T, BC246T, and BC250D. The 500 was searching 162-174 and 406-420 MHz. The 396 was monitoring a bunch of things, including the 800 and 460 DC trunked systems, the analog and P25 Arlington trunked systems, a bunch of "special" frequencies (itinerants, low-power, common public safety), the 461-465 band, and several miscellaneous frequencies such as Catholic U, the Red Cross, Park Police, etc. The 246 was searching the marine band. And the 250 was scanning the Metro trunked system and the Airport Authority trunked system. The 250 conked out after several hours, so I set the 396 to scan those two trunked systems.

What follows is a list of what I found. I was able to hear operations inside Nationals Park for the Mass, because apparently the organizers rented radios. The four repeaters they used made it to my location just north of Reagan National just fine. Judging by the frequencies they used, they may have rented the radios from Bearcom.

Since I was scanning for the entire day, I also logged 30-40 more frequencies unrelated to the day's events (mostly federal and business). I'm looking forward to sifting through these over the coming days.

157.0500 [ CSQ] Coast Guard (Marine Channel 21A)
157.1500 [ CSQ] Coast Guard - Primary Operations (Marine Channel 23A) (some DES encryption)
158.8500 [NAC 001] MPD Motorcade Detail (patched to DC Trunked System talkgroup 18480) (encrypted)
159.1500 [NAC 653] MPD Motorcade Detail (unencrypted)
166.7250 [127.3] Park Police (Channel 1) (street closures)
170.1750 [156.7] Capitol Police (Channel 3)
409.0000 [NAC 293] Disaster Medical Assistance Team (encrypted/unencrypted)
461.5000 [ d243] Pope John Paul II Cultural Center Security
462.3750 [ 88.5] Red Cross (unknown if used for event)
463.4375 [ d465] Catholic University Engineering
464.5750 [100.0] Catholic University Security
464.6000 [206.5] Mass at Nationals Park - Organizers (R)
464.6250 [210.7] Mass at Nationals Park - Organizers (R)
464.6500 [218.1] Mass at Nationals Park - Organizers (R)
464.7000 [225.7] Mass at Nationals Park - Organizers (R)
464.8125 [ d155] Mass at Nationals Park - Audio/Visual

DC Trunked System Talkgroups:
1952 DCFD ("radios to give out")
2160 DCFD (Medical)
2176 DCFD (Medical) (patched to 868.0125)
9840 DCFD (Hazmat, etc.)
10032 DCFD Unknown
18288 MPD Special Operations Division Alternate
18320 MPD Harbor Patrol
18416 MPD Protection Detail? (unknown if used for event) (encrypted)
18480 MPD Motorcade Detail (patched to 158.8500) (encrypted)
33840 Emergency Management Agency ("HHS" and "JTF-Med")
33904 Emergency Management Agency
34448 Department of Health
35536 Emergency Management Agency 1
35600 Traffic Management Center
36880 Hospital Roll Call
59952 MPD Special Operations Division (Simulcast)

Metro Trunked System Talkgroups:
50192 Transit Police Tac 6 (crowd control at Navy Yard station)
58032 "EM" units (coordination at Navy Yard station)

Arlington Trunked System (Analog) Talkgroups:
33840 Motor Units/Escorts
34096 Metropolitan Medical Strike Team

Arlington Trunked System (P25) Talkgroups:
34 "MMRT test"