DoE Hanford Update

I was able to spend a couple of days monitoring the goings on at the Hanford Site in Richland, Washington recently. I was primarily trying get an update on the status of a P-25 VHF trunked system that had shown signs of coming on the air the last two or three times I was in the area.

But this trip, I found no sign of any P-25 control channels! I don't know what happened to the system, but in past visits I have monitored a P-25 trunking control channel (System ID = def) on 164.3500 MHz and 164.4125 MHz, but nothing on any VHF frequency was found. I did hear the same, rapid Morse ID that appears on all the Hanford VHF frequencies on 164.4125, but no other activity.The other analog VHF radio nets for Hanford (Patrol, Fire, etc.) continue to operate as normal.

Another interesting thing is the UHF EDACS trunked system located at the Hanford Site is still up and running, but over two days I never heard a peep out of it. In the past this system has been fairly active during certain shifts with a lot of construction and maintenance operations. I've always thought it was mostly for contractors operations:

http://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?sid=2681

And new system that I saw on Radio Reference claims to belong to Bechtel, a major nuclear energy contractor. However, this system does not appear to be on the air at this time:

http://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?sid=5109

Campaign Communications

I've finally seen a report of some political campaign communications being monitored.

During the time around the New Hampshire primary, the local Secret Service office was heard operating in P-25 mode on the USSS BAKER frequency (165.7875 MHz) with RENEGADE CP in operation. It was pretty much assumed that RENEGADE is the call sign for candidate Barack Obama, and is confirmed in this story:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/16/AR2007061601079.html?hpid=topnews

Also, during the Iowa Caucuses I received a report of USSS OSCAR (164.8875 MHz) being used for a motorcade in Davenport. The original information guessed that this was for John McCain, but as far as I can determine at this time, the only candidates that have Secret Service protection at this time are Clinton and Obama. Also, McCain has stated that he is not interested in Secret Service protection.

I have been surprised at the lack of postings or information about the security details at these early campaign events. I'm not sure if it's just a lack of people willing to search for activity, or folks are just keeping it quiet.