Washington DC Trip

I just spent a few days working in the Washington DC area. Too much to listen to there!!! Besides all the new trunked systems and military stuff, the federal bands are just hopping there with almost every federal frequency allocation being used.

Notes and frequencies from my trip will be featured in an upcoming Fed Files, but a couple of interesting notes:

In the July Monitoring Times Fed Files, there will be a feature on the Secret Service. As I noted on that column, the Secret Service has switched over the P-25 digital modes, but does not seem to be 100% full time encrypted. Some transmission on 165.7875 MHz (BAKER) were in clear P-25.

The Uniformed Division of the Secret Service is highly visible and very busy with encrypted P-25 operations on their VHF frequencies (also featured in the upcoming MT).

167.4125 MHz was busy with what sounded like a large, rolling surveillance operation by the FBI. Strangely it was all analog, in the clear. Perhaps units from different areas without the right encryption keys?

Most of the UHF federal band is full of Motorola and LTR PassPort trunked systems. But there are a few conventional systems in the UHF band there.

DoD military APCO P-25 trunked systems in the 380 MHz band are springing up like weeds in a back yard around the DC area. Hard to keep track of who's on first with those, as they are encrypted on about 80% of the traffic heard.