Category Archives: Road Trip

FRS/GMRS/MURS/CB: The Personal Radio Services

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Anyone can use one of several types of two-way radios, most of which do not require a license. From something the kids can play with to serious business uses there are a bunch of different types of varying quality and usefulness. These are called CB, FRS, MURS and GMRS. Only GMRS requires a license, the others do not. Each of the four services have different intended functions.

  • FRS: Family Radio Service (low power, short range, intended for families and individuals)
  • GMRS: General Mobile Radio Service (high power, longer range, intended for families)
  • MURS: Multiple Use Radio Service (mid-power, medium range, intended for business)
  • CB: Citizen’s Band Radio Service (low power mobile)

You ever go into Wal-Mart or Best Buy and see those cheap little two-way radios encased in one of the most devious inventions of man-kind (Bubble Packs)? They boast wild range figures (“35 mile Range!”) and are made by many different companies like Motorola, Midland and Cobra. These are called “FRS Radios” (Family Radio Service). FRS radios are restricted to ½ watt, non-removable antennas and are intended for short-range person-to-person communications. While titled as the Family Radio Service they are commonly used by businesses and government organizations. In my neighborhood I hear construction crews, hunters, the local school and the golf course maintainers on FRS channels. Just about everything but families… There are few restrictions on what you can use it for so business and personal communications are allowed.

FRS is actually pretty interesting to listen to in many cases. While a lot of the traffic is inane nonsense, like kids wearing out the noisemaking alert beep button, occasionally there is some interesting stuff to listen to. I live in a fairly isolated area 20 miles from the nearest town. There is construction going on and the crews use several FRS channels to coordinate activities. There is a school in the area that uses FRS radios too. The golf course guys use FRS when performing maintenance or to corral loose duffers. Local landscapers use FRS as well.

Listening to FRS channels at the mall or around amusement parks etc. can also be fun. The stores and shops often use FRS radios for clerks and stockers, customers use them to keep in touch with their family.

A lot of the FRS channels are shared with GMRS, so listening to one set of frequencies you may hear both services.

GMRS is a little different than FRS. Since a license is required and power levels are higher they tend to be used in a more formal matter. FRS also allows repeaters so you may hear traffic from all over the area. GMRS is often used by REACT and other volunteers as well as family businesses and often for just idle chit-chat and radio clubs. Sometimes it sounds a lot like ham radio.

MURS can be very interesting. It is on VHF and allows higher power than FRS but in many other aspects it is very similar. Like FRS there are few restrictions on what you can use it for. Since the radios tend to be a little more expensive MURS channels tend to be more business oriented.

CB these days is mostly a wasteland of unintelligible noise. It is still popular with the highway crowd but between high-power illegal amplifiers, over-driven power echo-mics and other noisemakers it is no longer a viable communications tool. It can be interesting to listen to however!

If you put these frequencies in your scanner you may find some interesting communications. You might also be bored silly but you won’t know until you try it.

General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS)

  • Freq (MHz)              Remarks                  
  • 462.5500                 Repeater Output/Simplex    (Repeats 467.5500)
  • 462.5750                 Repeater Output/Simplex    (Repeats 467.5750)
  • 462.6000                 Repeater Output/Simplex    (Repeats 467.6000)
  • 462.6250                 Repeater Output/Simplex    (Repeats 467.6250)
  • 462.6500                 Repeater Output/Simplex    (Repeats 467.6500)
  • 462.6750                 Repeater Output/Simplex    (Repeats 467.6750)
  • 462.7000                 Repeater Output/Simplex    (Repeats 467.7000)
  • 462.7250                 Repeater Output/Simplex    (Repeats 467.7250)
  • 462.5625                 Simplex (5 watts)
  • 462.5875                 Simplex (5 watts)
  • 462.6125                 Simplex (5 watts)
  • 462.6375                 Simplex (5 watts)
  • 462.6625                 Simplex (5 watts)
  • 462.6875                 Simplex (5 watts)
  • 462.7125                 Simplex (5 watts)

Family Radio Service (FRS)

  • Freq (MHz)              Ch #         
  • 462.5625                 1
  • 462.5875                 2
  • 462.6125                 3
  • 462.6375                 4
  • 462.6625                 5
  • 462.6875                 6
  • 462.7125                 7
  • 467.5625                 8
  • 467.5875                 9
  • 467.6125                 10
  • 467.6375                 11
  • 467.6625                 12
  • 467.6875                 13
  • 467.7125                 14
  • 462.5500                 15 (Shared with GMRS)
  • 462.5750                 16 (Shared with GMRS)
  • 462.6000                 17 (Shared with GMRS)
  • 462.6250                 18 (Shared with GMRS)
  • 462.6500                 19 (Shared with GMRS)
  • 462.6750                 20 (Shared with GMRS)
  • 462.7000                 21 (Shared with GMRS)
  • 462.7250                 22 (Shared with GMRS)

Multiple Use Radio Service (MURS)

  • Freq (MHz)                                                 
  • 151.8200
  • 151.8800
  • 151.9400
  • 154.5700
  • 154.6000

Citizens Band (CB)           

  • Freq         Ch #          Freq         Ch #         
  • 26.965    1                27.215    21
  • 26.975    2                27.225    22
  • 26.985    3                27.255    23
  • 27.005    4                27.235    24
  • 27.015    5                27.245    25
  • 27.025    6                27.265    26
  • 27.035    7                27.275    27
  • 27.055    8                27.285    28
  • 27.065    9                27.295    29
  • 27.075    10             27.305    30
  • 27.085    11             27.315    31
  • 27.105    12             27.325    32
  • 27.115    13             27.335    33
  • 27.125    14             27.345    34
  • 27.135    15             27.355    35
  • 27.155    16             27.365    36
  • 27.165    17             27.375    37
  • 27.175    18             27.385    38
  • 27.185    19             27.395    39
  • 27.205    20             27.405    40

Scanners and Camping!

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By Jonathan Higgins

Scanners and Camping!
When I’m not working at Scanner Master I like to spend my weekends camping in the spring, summer and fall.  My wife and daughter introduced me to camping and we started out tent camping.  It was an amazing feeling to pack up the car and hit the road to a new or favorite destination.  Enjoying the land like the early settlers had, spending the nights under the stars near a campfire.  I have grown to love this and we have now invested in a travel trailer, what we like to call our second home on wheels. Being the scanner geek that I am, I always pack a scanner on these trips.  Working at Scanner Master, I have many opportunities to try different products in the camping environment.
Getting there!
I tow my travel trailer with my pick-up truck which is already equipped with the Uniden BCD996XT, GPS Receiver, and the Uniden RH-96 Remote head.  It’s taken a while but I have most of the public safety agencies for New England programmed into it along with the GPS Data.  The scanner keeps me informed about any accidents or incidents along the way.

Recommended Programming – Getting There!
If you’re doing a lot of highway travel, be sure to program State Police/Highway Patrol and state highway departments.

You may want to program some of the secondary State Police channels/talk groups, these channels could be used for radar details.  States are trying to generate income from every avenue including giving speeding tickets.  Keep in mind some of these secondary channels/systems maybe non-repeaterized, and in-line of sight.

In some states the State Highway Departments are playing more of a roll with traffic incident such as accidents.  These channels can tip you off to lane closers and delays, most of time this info is relayed on these channels for the Highway Traffic Information boards.

At the Campground!
I would recommend a portable unit, you can run it on batteries and you wouldn’t be dependent on AC/DC power.  Before the trip I usually do research on RadioReference.com and then program my handheld scanner.   If you frequent the same area a few times a year you may want to store the programming into a V-Folder on GRE or a high number system on a Uniden unit with Dynamic Memory.

It’s always fun to listen to the campground communications.  Most campgrounds use two way radios for communications, such as MURS (Multi-Use Radio Service) or FRS (Family Radio Service).  Most scanners have both MURS and FRS/GMRS as preset service search.  Keep in mind these communications are not on a repeater they are in-line of sight (low power).   If they are not using the assigned FRS or MURS channels you can use Close Call (Uniden) or Spectrum Sweeper (GRE) technology.

NOAA Weather Radio
Summer can bring some wild weather… Your scanner can also act as weather station, with most scanners you’re one press away from a Local NOAA Weather radio station report.  There are more than 900 NOAA Weather stations across the United States.   Not only can you tune into a weather report anytime you want you can also set up your scanner for weather alerts.  This is very simple to set up once you’re at your destination, it will alert you about those surprise thunder storms.Camper Shack!
Uniden HomePatrol-1 in the sleeping quarters, using the Windshield Mounting Kit for the Uniden HomePatrol-1.

 Here is the SpecturmForce Wide band Antenna with Mag Mount and SMA outside of the camper using a Bracket for Mobile Scanner Installations.  This bracket was a perfect surface for the antenna, and can be easily removed when traveling.

Scanner Master Road Trip – Upcoming Dayton Hamvention

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By Richard Barnett

Dayton Hamvention 2012
Location: Dayton, OH – Directions
Dates: Friday, May 18, 2012 – Sunday, May 20, 2012
Booth: #402 – Show Map

Scanner Master will be back at its usual inside booth #402 at the Dayton Hamvention in Ohio from May 18th-20th. Rich Barnett will be there along with Gommert Buysen of Butel ARC Software. If you’ve never been to the Dayton Hamvention it’s the world’s largest gathering of Ham radio operators including a great many scanner enthusiasts. GRE, Icom and others will have booths and Rich and Gommert will be in the Scanner Master booth to answer any questions and of course sell scanners and accessories.

Please stop by and say hello and take a look at some of our new products and accessories.

Make sure you check the Scanner Master Blog for updates from the road to Dayton, OH.

Scanner Master Road Trip Boxborough, MA Police Department

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By Richard Barnett

Boxborough, MA – Scanner Master has sold and installed the equipment for a Rangecast monitoring system to the Boxborough, Massachusetts, Police Department. In this image you can see four BCT15X Bearcat Scanners mounted in a Scanner Master two-hole rack-mounting panel which is installed in the police department’s computer room at their station. The scanners are connected to a discone antenna mounted on the department’s tower and a Stridsberg multicoupler splits the feed to the four scanners while recovering loss with a small amplifier . A quad-core PowerSpec PC is connected to the scanners via a custom Rangecast Sound Hub which allows four scanners to simultaneously feed into one PC and upload to the Internet. The Boxborough Police use Rangecast to follow and record their department’s communications along with all surrounding local and State law enforcement. Rangecast is a powerful, easy-to-use and low-cost IP-based communications monitoring system. For more information on Rangecast visit Rangecast.com or contact Scanner Master.

Scanner Master Road TripLas Vegas Part 2

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Scanner Master Road Trip
By Jonathan Higgins

Part 2
Race Day at Las Vegas Motor Speedway – Sunday, March 11, 2012

What to bring with you?
I would recommend packing all your scanner gear into a cinch bag, this light weight bag can be worn on your back. You can bring non open bottles of water into the track. Don’t forget the camera!

My Cinch bag had the following:

Getting the track!
This was my first time attending a race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, so it was quite the experience. If you’re staying on the strip I would recommend checking out the shuttles available. If you want to get there early like I do, I would recommend renting a car. If you don’t plan on having a car for the full vacation, I would recommend getting the rental car the night before. I would recommend reserving a rental car well before your trip, cars can be hard to get on Race weekend. For the best selection of rental cars and companies I would recommend renting from the McCarran Airport.

Our Hotel was the Luxor on the southern part of the strip, the track is north of the strip, approximately 30 minutes away without traffic. The Track is easy to get to, Simply get on to I-15 North to Exit 54 “Speedway Blvd” and follow the signs.

Tickets
Our seats were just before turn 4 on the top row in the “Blue seats”.

Neon Garage
We also purchased two “Neon Garage” passes. You can peer into your favorite driver garage stall as they are getting the car ready for the race. You will also have access to pit road before the race. There is live entertainment, and food available inside the Neon Garage area. This area can be access via a tunnel under the track near the start/finish line.

Listening at the track
You can get frequencies for the upcoming race from Racing Frequencies Online (from Scanner Master), you can also purchase a frequency list at the track for $5.00 at Racing Electronics Haulers.

Driver Channels
These channels change week to week. Most driver have about 4 channels but they only use two channels during the race.

Example
Carl Edwards #99
466.2750 – Primary
468.8250 – Alt. Channel

  • The Primary channel is used for driver communications between the spotter and crew chief.
  • Alt. Channel, is used as a back-up if the primary is having interference issues .
  • Some teams use NEXEDGE Digital for non driver communications, this type of communications cannot be monitored by a scanner at this time. For example Carl Edwards team uses the NEXEDGE channel for communications between the spotter and crew chief. The channel acts as a relay if the main channel is tied up.

Track Officials
461.2000 – Race Control 461.2000
464.6000 – Race Control / Back Up
451.2250 – Safety
451.5750 – Qualifying
MRN/PRN Radio Broadcast
454.0000

Track Operations
For track operation frequencies I would recommend checking RadioReference.com. Here is what I found for Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Putting the Uniden BC125AT to the test at the track
Great scanner for the race track! The large display made it simple to see who talking. I had to enter a few more frequencies at the track, it was super simple to field program without a PC. Audio and reception was great! If you’re looking to replace or buy a scanner for the race track, I would consider the Uniden BC125AT Scanner for sure!

Make sure you check out Part 1
Visiting and listening to Las Vegas!

Scanner Master Road Trip Las Vegas Part 1

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Scanner Master Road Trip
By Jonathan Higgins

Part 1
Preparing for the trip
Monitoring on The Las Vegas Strip

Destination: Las Vegas, NV and Las Vegas Motor Speedway

Last weekend my wife and I took a weekend vacation to Las Vegas to see the NASCAR Cup Race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Before we the trip we pack our gear for the race which includes:

We spend our long weekend checking out the sites, Las Vegas Strip, Hover Dam and Grand Canyon West Rim. Our accommodations were at the Luxor Hotel on the Southern Part of the strip. I brought the BC346XT for the race and to monitor the public safety in Las Vegas area.

Programming in the BC346XT

My Favorite Drivers
(Systems 1-10)

Las Vegas Metro Police
-All channels (System 11)

Clark County – South Nevada Area Communications Council (SNACC)
Motorola Type II SmartZone (System 12)
– Las Vegas Fire Talk groups
– North Las Vegas Fire Talk groups
– North Las Vegas Police Talk groups

Nevada Shared Radio System
EDACS Networked Standard Analog (System 13)
– Nevada Highway Patrol Talkgroups

Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
LTR Trunking System (System 14)
– All talkgroups

Excalibur Hotel and Casino
Motorola Trunking System (System 15)
– All talkgroups

Monitoring Notes

The Uniden BC346XT was a great unit for the Las Vegas area. All of the systems in Las Vegas is using analog conventional and analog trucking.

Las Vegas Metro Police
Most of channels on Metro Police System are using the (Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department) – OpenSky Trunking system, but they are simulcasting on the old VHF System. The short time monitoring the simulcasted channels, it seem like the OpenSky System is plagued with problems. Multiple times I hear the dispatch “could you please repeat that”. At one point I hear the system get stuck, the officer audio was studding. Very much like the audio I heard from the story out of West Palm Beach FL reported on back in May 2011.

Clark County Trunking System & Nevada Shared Radio System
Pretty descent coverage, lots of towers to choose from we were in range of a few towers from our Hotel. You can hear the NV Highway Patrol on this system.

Monitoring the Hotels
I would say the Security talkgroups were the most interesting to monitor. I wasn’t able to monitor the Trunking system in the Luxor because it’s a Nexedge Standard Trunking system.

Make sure you check out Part 2
Race Day at Las Vegas Motor Speedway – Sunday, March 11, 2012

Road Trip back from Dayton Hamvention

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By Richard Barnett

Destination: Dayton, OH
Event: Dayton Hamvention
When: Friday, May 20 – Sunday, May 22, 2011

Dayton Hamvention Report

Gommert Buysen of Butel Software and I just returned from the Dayton Hamvention in Dayton, OH. The Hamvention is the world’s largest Ham radio show and has been held every year in late May since the early 1950s. For the past dozen or so years Scanner Master has had a booth at the show where we meet scanner hobbyists and amateur radio operators, talk scanners and show and sell scanners and accessories.

We drive out to the show each year from our Massachusetts offices and this year we brought with us the Uniden HomePatrol HP-1 for the ride and mounted it on Uniden’s new windshield suction-cup mount along with our Garmin GPS receiver kit to provide the HomePatrol with constant automatic position data. This set-up was simply amazing. We did not have to touch the HP-1 more than a couple of times on the entire route from near Boston to the far side of Ohio. The radio constantly updated the active channels based on our location. As we drove the State Police/Highway Patrol was always active and the county sheriffs and local police channels enabled and disabled automatically as needed. If we wanted to listen to fire services as well we just pressed the menu key, pressed the select service types key, and the fire key. That’s it.

At the show the HomePatrol received universal praise from other very serious hobbyists as well as Ham radio operators for its ease-of-use and, like us, everyone who drove to the show with the GPS functionality on were simply wowed at how well it worked. As the RadioReference database which fuels the HomePatrol gets better and better every day the radio becomes more of an incredible tool. Yes we’re gushing, but this scanner deserves every accolade it gets.

We’ll have more on the show and other radios that people loved in an upcoming posting.

Rich Barnett

Road Trip to Dayton Hamvention

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Destination: Dayton, OH
Event: Dayton Hamvention
When: Friday, May 20 – Sunday, May 22, 2011

Scanner Master will be back at its usual inside booth #402 at the Dayton Hamvention in Ohio from May 20th-22nd. Rich Barnett will be there along with Gommert Buysen of Butel ARC Software. If you’ve never been to the Dayton Hamvention it’s the world’s largest gathering of Ham radio operators including a great many scanner enthusiasts. GRE, Icom and others will have booths and Rich and Gommert will be in the Scanner Master booth to answer any questions and of course sell scanners and accessories.

Please stop by and say hello and and take a look at some of our new products and accessories.

Hara Arena – Map
1001 Shiloh Springs Rd.
Dayton, Ohio 45415

Scanner Master Road Trip – I-95 Maine

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By Jonathan Higgins

Last weekend, the Higgins family took a road trip to Northern Maine to visit with family! Oh yes, cozy Maine, with its 60 plus lighthouses, 6,000 lakes, 32,000 miles of rivers, and digital communications systems. Yes, digital communications are coming to Maine! In past road trips to Maine I have that Biddeford Police used Project 25 (P25), in this trip I found more areas using digital. They are using a VHF conventional digital system:

Auburn Police – 159.1500 NAC 293
Augusta Police – 153.6275 NAC 770
Biddeford Police – 159.9450 NAC 51 (Dispatch),
and 156.2100 NAC 703 (Secondary)
Lewiston Police – 158.7900 NAC 293

Maine State Police
Soon the Maine State Police will be upgrading their Analog VHF conventional system to a new Project 25 VHF Digital trunking system called MSCommNet (Maine State Communications Network). Right now this system is in the planning stage. They hope to have this up and running by fall of 2012.

You can read more about this system on the Maine.gov website.
http://www.maine.gov/oit/services/radio/mscommnet/index.html

Handy Frequencies…
Maine Turn Pike Ops – 151.0700 CTCSS 107.2
Great channel to monitor for accidents, or lane closures. You can hear the motorist assistance trunks.

Railroad Buffs
A great place to stop anytime you’re making your way into Maine is the Seashore Trolley Museum, located in Kennebunkport, Maine.
Main Dispatch – 160.4700 CSQ
Secondary Channel – 160.5000 CSQ

Below is a photo of Wheeling Traction Co. #639
1924 Cincinnati Car Co.
Photo Taken by Jonathan Higgins
(Seashore Trolley Museum Members Day 2009)

Scanner Master Road Trip – Hopkinton, MA

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By Greg Jolly
Road Trip to Hopkinton, MA

On Friday April 16th the Scanner Master crew, Rich, Jonathan and myself, traveled to the center of Hopkinton, MA and the start of the Boston Marathon. Our purpose for this visit was to install a very custom programming job into a Uniden BCD996XT that was located in the new State of Massachusetts 911 Telecommunications Mobile Command Center.

The custom programming job, created by Scanner Master, will allow the operators of this communications vehicle to monitor the public safety agencies of any of the 351 cities and towns within Massachusetts along with a variety of statewide agencies.

The telecommunications vehicle will allow for backup operation of existing 911centers and major event communications. We were able to witness the newest state of the art technology in communications while there, as the vehicle has just been placed into service.

This programming job provided another successful partnership between Scanner Master Corp. and the public safety community, of which we are very proud.

The Uniden BCD996XT inside the Massachusetts 911 Telecommunications Mobile Command Center