Not sure what I was hearing on 162.425 MHz as far as the station's ID goes. Odd conditions today (23 July) too. Well, this morning anyway.
Noted activity on 162.400 but lots of fading - likely either WXM57 or WXL42, considering the marine forecasts heard, I'm leaning more towards WXM57. 162.450 was coming in very strong at points, but didn't seem to have anything underneath it (compare to the July 17th records, where there certainly was another station underneath the usual KZZ28 station on 162.45 MHz). Propagation today was decidedly worse than the previous days.
My best bets for the UNID station underneath, and at points, mixing with KZZ28 are WWG33 or WNG736. Unfortunately, when the conditions are good, KZZ28's mountaintop transmitter location means it is booming into Richmond, and at points sounding like the local WX station for Richmond (WXK65 on 162.475 MHz, which is transmitted from a tower about 5 miles ESE of downtown Richmond proper). KZZ28's transmitter location on Mount Oliver really helps.
I have a feeling its WWG33 fighting with KZZ28 on 162.450. WWG33 is roughly 65-70 miles (almost due south) from my receiver, and KZZ28's transmitter is about 73 miles west-north-west from my receiver. Looking at the KZZ28 coverage map, it would seem that the transmitter is on the eastern side of the mountain, favoring transmission towards the eastern half of Virginia.
Then there's WZ2500 on Sand Mountain, 205 miles from my receiver (doing only 300 watts, but has elevation on their side, if tropo ducting is present) That's a longshot but I believe I've heard it before (underneath KZZ28 yet again) when propagation to the west of my location was favorable. 162.525 MHz is likely KJY99 on Virginia's Eastern Shore, or KJY86 out of Halifax, VA (97 miles from RX site, compare that to KJY99 which is...97 miles from the RX site!). I'm leaning towards KJY99 over KJY86 based on what was heard on 162.525. Considering I'm equal distance from the two closest transmitters on 162.525 MHz, that makes 162.525 an interesting frequency to listen to during these early morning openings.
162.425 MHz is another wildcard. 162.425 MHz could be WZ2527 out of Fredericksburg, VA. Like WZ2500, WZ2527 is another 300 watt "filler" transmitter. Then there's WXM72 on 162.425 (doing 1000 watts from the top of a mountain.....clocking in at just under 190 miles from receiver site). Considering the Washington, D.C. area and Chesapeake Bay-related forecasts on 162.425, I believe its WZ2527.
Captured two more videos - both have been uploaded to the same YouTube channel -
https://www.youtube.com/user/R4002/videos).
Propagation was doing something this morning, even though it wasn't as good as it has been in days past, as I could hear the mystery pager on 152.120 MHz (while in the parking deck!!!) - 152.12 MHz appears to be another local (or local-ish) pager. All three of those, 152.12, 152.63 and 152.69 are so strong in the downtown Richmond area that they de-sense some VHF gear, including scanners, when they're transmitting. I have the same issues on the UHF band due to the extremely dense concentration of high powered UHF systems operating in the downtown area. The local bus/transit system (Greater Richmond Transit Company aka GRTC) operates an extremely powerful DMR trunking system on 452.825 MHz, 452.850 MHz, 453.375 MHz and 461.025 MHz. The 452.825 MHz frequency transmits 24/7 (it's used for GPS data location tracking on the buses, in conjunction with a 4.9 GHz system).
The 452.850/453.375/461.025 frequencies are used for digital voice and all four frequencies are transmitted from a tower on top of City Hall, 453.375 MHz is licensed for 237 watts ERP and the 452/461 MHz frequencies are licensed for 75 watts ERP. Considering how the 452.825 MHz GRTC data signal gets into everything on UHF, I have a feeling its doing more than 75w ERP. When I'm trying to scan the UHF business frequencies and FRS/GMRS, the DMR signal on 452.825 causes a major headache, just like the powerhouse 152 MHz pager signals on VHF.
There are several other powerful UHF systems in the area that desense the hell out of my scanner in the downtown area (the Greater Richmond Convention Center has its own DMR trunking system, and of course Philip Morris has literally hundreds of frequencies, most of them high power repeaters on UHF, licensed to them - a mixture of digital voice with some analog stuff).
The 452.8250 MHz DMR data signal mixes with other signals (likely when the other UHF repeaters located at the same site transmit, as anyone who has monitored a bus/transit radio system knows, there's a
lot of chatter), I get intermod on the frequencies I'm trying to monitor, specifically several of the FRS frequencies (462.6250, 462.6375, 462.6500, 462.700,0 462.7125 and 462.7250 MHz are the worst hit) and several of the UHF business band/itinerant frequencies (namely 466.0375, 469.5000, 469.5500, 451.8125, 456.8125 and several other itinerants are also obliterated when 452.825's signal mixes with another UHF signal at or nearby. It doesn't help that the local power company operates a very powerful UHF repeater network (mostly analog FM, with some isolated digital/DMR voice usage) on 451 MHz and 452 MHz. The mixing products of these high power signals make my Pro-96 scanner very unhappy. The attenuator does nothing. The best spot I have for scanning the lower power FRS/GMRS/simplex business band chatter I'm trying to hear is also about 1200 feet from the City Hall roof transmission site.
In addition to the local pagers on 152.630 MHz and 162.690 MHz, I could hear the Fork Mountain STARS Project 25 control channel on 152.7125 MHz (with the squelch open anyway). The 152.0375 MHz signal is the local (Richmond) STARS control channel and the 152.7575 MHz signal is another local-ish STARS frequency.
The STARS system makes extensive use of the old Part 22 paging frequencies for both P25 voice and data, but usually the control channel (152.03 MHz - 152.24 MHz and 152.51 MHz - 152.81 MHz), often with 7.5 kHz offsets (152.0375 MHz instead of 152.030 MHz, 152.7575 MHz instead of 152.750 MHz, etc) and, in the western portion of Virginia, the 161 MHz "B" (shore) marine channels 161.8000 MHz to 161.9500 MHz in 12.5 kHz steps, I believe they had to get a special authorization from the FCC to use those frequencies, and only in certain areas. So, if you hear digital signals between 161.8 and 162 MHz, chances are you're hearing one of the western Virginia STARS sites:
https://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?sid=3783Unfortunately they do re-use frequencies to a certain extent, so a Project 25 trunking scanner is needed to further narrow down which site you're hearing for sure.
The control channels are on 24/7 and make great propagation indicators.