Friday, May 11, 2007

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory


The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the San Francisco Bay area operates a multi-site UHF trunked system with sites all over. The system info was removed from the RadioReference web site at the request of the LLNL.

On a recent trip through San Francisco I found that there appears to be a site on this system located in or near downtown San Francisco. It is a Motorola Type II UHF system that is using P-25 voice. The system ID is 5434 and I found Site 6 to be coming in full strength with no antenna on the radio while I was at AT&T Park. Here is the site info:

406.1500 MHz - Control Channel, System 5434, Site 6

407.8625 MHz - Voice Channel

408.3875 MHz - Voice Channel

416.8625 MHz - Input to 407.8625

417.3875 MHz - Input to 408.3875
UPDATE: I have been informed that Site 6 of this system is in fact located at the Lawrence Berkley Lab, across the bay from San Francisco.

Hoover Dam


I had some spare time on a recent trip to Las Vegas, so we decided to take a trip out to the Hoover Dam and see what had changed in the last 10 years since I was there last.
As it turns out, quite a bit had changed. There is a fabulous new visitors center, a great parking ramp and the construction of the new bridge over the dam is quite impressive. But traffic still slows to a crawl well before you get to the dam, due mainly to the new security checkpoints that all vehicles must pass through.
Here is what I picked up on the scanner while at the dam:
163.1250, P-25 - Hoover Dam Police repeater
165.6000, P-25 - Hoover Dam Police input
166.3000
167.1500
169.8000, 173.8pl
170.0500
172.6000
Some of these frequencies are related to the Lake Mead National recreation Area. I also spotted a UHF omni and a UHF Yagi antenna mounted at the center of the dam, both pointed down towards the bottom of the dam. It might be that the dam operations are using UHF, but never found any active UHF frequencies while there.