
A lot of folks are wondering what has happened to radio traffic from the various bureaus of the Treasury Department, and particularly the IRS. In the March, 2007
Monitoring Times, I tried to answer that question.
Sometime in the late 1990’s many of the radio frequencies used by the IRS seemed to go silent. Looking back, this seemed to occur about the same time that various reforms in the IRS organization were signed in to law. The IRS Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998 may have changed what the various divisions of the IRS were responsible for and may have changed their radio communications needs. Shortly after these frequencies seemed to go silent, the Treasury Department also entered in to a plan to consolidate and restructure their radio communications system. They had originally started a pilot project to develop their own integrated wireless network, however they have since joined forces with the Justice Department’s IWN project.
But where are the Treasury and IRS communications today? The only thing I have actually confirmed as being active with the IRS lately is the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration or TIGTA,
http://www.treas.gov/tigta/. TIGTA was created when the 1998 IRS Restructuring and Reform act was passed. TIGTA has two frequencies that they have been heard using. One is a repeater on
164.5375 MHz with
172.6375 MHz input and the other is also a repeater, but on
165.9500 MHz with
167.0000 MHz as the input. I have also received information, but not confirmed, that TIGTA may be using
165.3375 MHz as a tactical frequency. However, since the IWN trunked system has become active in the Portland, OR region, these frequences have been rarely heard.
I recently came across this report from the Treasury Department's Wireless Program Office. You can read the brief report here:
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/osmhome/spectrumreform/Spectrum_Progress_Reports_FY2008/Treasury_FY08_Progress_Report_Policy_Initiative.pdf. In this report, there is a clear indication that some agencies of the Treasury have moved to commercial cellular and mobile data communications systems rather than continue using federal land-mobile systems.
Treasury Department communications are out there, but they may have begun to shift frequencies, perhaps in anticipation of the future Integrated Wireless Network. So keep in mind that the Treasury and IRS communications could have moved. But here is a list of previously known Treasury frequencies, so check these out and see if anything is active in your area:
163.1250164.1000164.2500164.5375165.9125165.9500166.2000166.4625 - TREASURY COMMON166.5375166.5875166.9750167.0000 - NATIONWIDE ASSIGNMENT167.1000167.1500167.9750172.6375173.0250173.8625411.5250411.5500412.2250414.3250414.7000414.9000 - NATIONWIDE ASSIGNMENT415.0000 - NATIONWIDE ASSIGNMENT415.1000 - NATIONWIDE ASSIGNMENT415.4250415.5500415.7250 - NATIONWIDE ASSIGNMENT415.8000415.8750416.8000 - NATIONWIDE ASSIGNMENT417.6500418.1000418.1750 - NATIONWIDE ASSIGNMENT418.2000 - NATIONWIDE ASSIGNMENT418.2250 - NATIONWIDE ASSIGNMENT418.2500 - NATIONWIDE ASSIGNMENT