National Park Service--Filling in the Blanks

Anyone have information on some of these National Park Service parks in the Northern Virginia/DC area?

• Manassas National Battlefield Park: I have 163.120 [NAC 375], but suspect this may be incorrect.  The George Washington Birthplace National Monument uses this same frequency and NAC, so that's why I'm suspicious of it being used at Manassas.  I think I remember seeing an old listing for Manassas in the 170.xxxx range.
• C&O Canal National Historical Park: This park has supposedly switched from analog frequencies to digital ones.  It's unknown if their old ones are still in use (166.9500/168.3000).
• National Capital Parks - East: This group of parks was monitored briefly on 168.4250 [NAC 293].  This was the frequency they used before switching to digital.  They may change frequencies in the future.  Note that there is also another analog user on this frequency, who can be heard from the DC area and from Fredericksburg.  The user sounds like a security operation, and transmits CSQ.
• Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park: This park continues to use 166.9500 [127.3].  Unknown if they'll be switching to digital.
• Shenandoah National Park: I can hear five simulcast repeaters from my location in Fredericksburg.  The Park's digital radio system has been installed for several years.  The inputs to the various repeaters are not known.  Encryption is in use somewhat frequently, mostly by law enforcement units.

Prince George's County New 700 MHz Licenses

Prince George's County was recently licensed for many 700 MHz frequencies.  The county will be building a Project 25 Phase II radio system--one of the first in the country.

WQJS917

WQJS918

Prince George's was also licensed for some 800 MHz frequencies, which are to be used in Metrorail tunnels.

WQJS954

Aerospace Corporation FCC App

Aerospace Corporation, a research and development center near Dulles Airport, has been granted a license by the FCC.  The license calls for a UHF repeater on 461.4375.

Sunrise Assisted Living FCC App

Sunrise Assisted Living at George Mason (4300 George Mason Blvd., Fairfax) has an application pending before the FCC.  The app calls for five UHF simplex frequencies.

461.9875

463.9125

464.6625

464.7375

464.9625

Prince William Forest Park New Freq/NAC

I found the new frequency and NAC for the Prince William Forest Park today.  They're using 172.5000 with a NAC of 754.  I don't know the repeater input.  Base appears to identify as "Central."

Inauguration Logs Coming

I have a TON of logs from the Inauguration.  I'll try to clean them up and post them to the website in the next few days.  Stand by...

Raw Data Cleaned Up

I've edited all the frequency info from yesterday's monitoring (see previous post).  It came out to a good list.  Here's a rundown of the primary things I was listening to:

Searching 162-174

Searching 406-420

Searching 461-470

Searching 451-453

Metro Trunked System

Fort Myer Trunked System

Arlington P25/Analog Trunked Systems

Airports Authority Trunked System

Fairfax County Public Safety/Services Trunked Systems

DC 460/800 Trunked Systems

LTR Trunked System used by organizers on Mall

Virginia State Police

"Special" Frequencies (itinerants, public safety common, etc.)

Raw Data from Today

I have put some very raw data that I collected today from Gravelly Point.  There are many abbreviations, etc.  Some of the frequencies are not even related to the Inaugural events, but most are.  In short, use caution with this data until I get a chance to process it.

Go to this address: http://davidschoenberger.net/scanning/dc/washington.htm#Special Events.  The raw data starts several lines down, and is clearly delineated.

Lincoln Circle Associates FCC App

Lincoln Circle Associates, which manages a building at 555 11th St. NW in DC, has an application pending before the FCC.  The application calls for five UHF simplex frequencies.

451.4375

451.6375

452.7875

452.8375

456.6375

Other Pre-Inauguration Finds

Here are a few more pre-Inauguration finds:

• 866.0125 [156.7] (used as an interoperability channel among numerous agencies)
  
• DC TRS 37648 (unknown use, probably related to Inauguration)
  
• Arlington TRS 136 (Coordination 2)
  
• Fairfax TRS 20640 (encrypted, unknown use, probably an NCR channel)
  

CBP Active in DC

The Customs and Border Protection helos are active over DC.  They're on the nationwide CBP frequency of 165.2375 [100.0].

From my location in Fredericksburg, I heard a few calls from the helos on the input frequency of 166.4375 [100.0] this afternoon.  (The repeater out freq is very weak.)

Quantico Fire Using Prince William Numbering?

It appears that fire apparatus from Quantico Marine Corps Base are now using Prince William's numbering scheme.  I have heard Engine 533 on Quantico's FD freq (149.3500).

FLASH: LTR System In Use for Inaugural Set-up

The people setting up the various stages/platforms and the audio/visual systems for the Inauguration are using an LTR system on the National Mall.  Here are the details:

452.0375 (1), 452.2875 (2), 452.4875 (3), 452.6875 (4), 452.8875 (5)
 

0-01-010	"looking for shuttle"
0-01-011	Runners/Transport?
0-01-012	Lights?
0-01-014	Dispatch
0-01-015	talking about scheduling workers, etc.
0-01-018	Security
0-01-019	Cranes? "Staging 1"?

There are several other talkgroups in use, but I could not identify their uses.  Talkgroups referenced included "Staging 1," "Staging 2," and "Catering."

Note that this system is fairly low-powered, so one needs to be fairly close to receive it.  (I was monitoring yesterday from Gravelly Point, and was able to receive fairly well.)  452.0375 appears to have better signal strength than the other four repeaters.

This system may also be used during events on Inauguration Day.

CHM Inauguration Issue--Notes (Part 4)

MPD Conventional Frequencies

158.8500 [NAC 001] MPD Motorcade Detail (encrypted)

159.1500 [NAC 653] DC Interop 1

168.8750 [NAC 653] DC Interop 2

CHM Inauguration Issue--Notes (Part 3)

Disaster Medical Assistance Team (DMAT)

409.0000 [NAC 293] (encrypted/non-encrypted)

Department of State

All five repeaters listed use NAC 0F0.

Secret Service

Channels Baker, Charlie, Mike, Oscar, Papa, and Tango use NAC 001.

Uniformed Division, Secret Service

162.0750 [NAC 201] White House 1 (mostly encrypted)

163.3125 [NAC 202] White House 2 (mostly encrypted)

162.3125 [NAC 211] Foreign Missions 1 (mostly encrypted)

164.4375 [NAC 212] Foreign Missions 2 (mostly encrypted)

166.2000 [NAC 202] Vice President's Residence (mostly encrypted)

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

165.2375 [100.0] may use digital as well

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF)

165.2875 [NAC 650]

Joint National Capital Region (JNCR)

Talkgroups 201-210 are almost always encrypted.

306 Fort Myer Fire Ops 1

311 Fort Myer MP

312 Fort McNair MP

Talkgroups in the 400 range will probably see the most use for actual Inaugural events.

White House Communication Agency (WHCA)

166.7000 [NAC 001] November

166.5125 [NAC 001] Sierra

CHM Inauguration Issue--Notes (Part 2)

National Park Service

172.4750 [NAC 4C5] National Capital Parks - Central (Park Police Ch. 5) (input 171.6750)

172.7500 [NAC 4C5] National Capital Parks - Central (S)

169.7750 [NAC 4C5] George Washington Parkway (input 163.3375)

Federal Protective Service

415.2000 [NAC 201] (mostly encrypted)

411.2750 [NAC 202] (mostly encrypted)

414.4750 [NAC 203] (mostly encrypted)

417.2000 [NAC 201] (mostly encrypted) (obsolete?)

CHM Inauguration Newsletter--Notes (Part 1)

Not to take anything away from the work done by Alan Henney and the other contributors to the CHM Inauguration issue, but here are some additions/corrections to it:

Capitol Police channels: The CTCSS tones are incorrect for channels 1-4.  Here's the current Capitol PD line-up:

169.2250 [110.9] (Channel 1) (input 164.0500)
165.5375 [146.2] (Channel 2) (input 164.3250)
170.1750 [156.7] (Channel 3) (input 164.6000)
162.2500 [173.8] (Channel 4) (input 164.6250)
162.6125 [127.3] (Channel 5) (input 164.8000)
173.5250 [167.9] Unknown (input 166.4500)

Other Capitol Hill channels:

170.3750 [CSQ] House Democratic Pager

173.6375 [NAC 293] Supreme Court Security (encrypted/non-encrypted)

408.5125 [d632] Capitol Tours (input 417.5125)

409.8375 [74.4] Capitol Tours (input 418.8375)

Capitol Hill Monitor Inauguration Issue

The Inauguration issue of the Capitol Hill Monitor (CHM) is available.  This PDF is an excellent resource for scanning the Inauguration.

Popular Communications Article about Inauguration

The January 2009 issue of the magazine Popular Communications has an article about the Inauguration.  It's written by Alan Henney, a DC scanning expert and veteran of previous Inaugurations.  I haven't read the article, but I'll be checking it out the next time I'm in Borders.