Scanning Oddities

[Box 2565]

I have to confess to be inspired for this topic after seeing something similar on Firehouse.  Anyway, why type of strange transmissions, skip, or other weird stuff have you heard come in over the scanner?

One of my favorites was always going to Detroit.  Between the Greenfild Village muster, Devil's Night, and having relatives living in the Motor City I was often there several times a year in the 1980's and early 90's.

One night I was getting into my car at home (Covington, Ky) and clear as a bell heard DFD dispatching.  It only lasted a few minutes though!

 :!:  :twisted:    

[SixbyFire]

I originally posted this in rec.radio.scanner on 6/4/98 when I was still living in Cleveland, Ohio. The story has a Mahoning Valley connection and I'm sure many might remember the incident in question. I've picked up a lot of strange skip, unusual signals, and even some strange cell phone calls (before it was illegal, heh), but none are as strange as this:

Jeff Christner


From: Regult (regult@aol.com)
Subject: Re: Weirdest Thing Heard - Suicide (long)
Newsgroups: rec.radio.scanner
Date: 1998/06/04
 

I would have to say that the weirdest thing that I have ever heard is a
suicide.

This happened about 4 years ago, during the winter....

Cleveland Fire dispatched a box alarm to Burke Lakefront Airport for an
aircraft alert. It was reported that an aircraft was going to ditch in Lake
Erie. I started monitoring aircraft frequencies and came across a pilot talking
to air traffic control about wanting to ditch in the water. The pilot did not
sound very stable and kept saying things like he did not have a good day today.
He was flying in a single engine plane at about 13000'. ATC seemed to think
that he was suffering from oxygen deficiency, and they just wanted him to land.
Eventually he turned his aircraft to the east, and Cleveland Fire returned all
units. A Coast Guard Helo was enroute from Detroit, but when he started flying
over the land, they were also returned. ATC got him to switch to a more
discreet channel, and at this time, he was out of fuel and decending, he made a
joke about in flight refueling. His comms started to break up at this point.
During this whole time I was on the phone with one of my friends who is also a
scanner buff. I hung up with him, and called my parents. They live in
Lordstown, 60 miles east of here. I had given my dad a 20 channel scanner as he
is a volunteer fireman there. My mom was home and I told her how to program the
scanner and told her to turn the squelch way down. I maintained contact with my
friend via two way radio while listening over the phone with my mom. It was
learned that the pilot had been flying for over 5 1/2 hours, after taking off
from Akron Fulton Airport, and he was still circling, decending, and now
wanting vectors to a lake, again, so he could ditch his aircraft. ATC did an
excellent job in giving him vectors and getting him to want to land, but the
pilot did not listen to them. The pilot eventually got low enough and he told
ATC he found a lake, keep in mind that this is winter and the lake was frozen
over, the pilot knew it was a lake because he said there were no lights there.
As he decended, his last transmission was "Thanks for all your help." and that
was it. It was not known by ATC exactly where he went down, so the Civil Air
Patrol was dispatched. I listened to them for a couple of hours, while they
mobilized, but they did not find the plane till morning. The aircraft was found
in the Shenango Reservoir on the Ohio/Pennsylvania border. The pilot was dead.

All in all it was an interesting night, but as stange as it sounds, the story
did not end there.

About 5 nights before this happened there was a fatal hit and run near Akron. A
man, who was drunk, was walking in the road, at night, when he was struck and
thrown into a snow bank. It was later found out he died because of suffocation,
and not from injuries sustained in the hit and run. The only clue was a side
mirror. Police checked out some shops and found out that someone did indeed get
a side mirror replaced. The police in fact later revealed that they were not
going to press charges for murder or whatever, because the man was in the road,
and visibility was poor, they really said they just wanted to talk to the
driver to get their story. But before they could, the driver of that car took
off in his plane from Akron Fulton Airport for one last flight....

This is also the only thing that my mom has really listened to on the scanner,
and she is still a bit shaken up over it to this day.

Jeff C.

[Box 2565]

Jeff that one is really out there!  Sounds like an episode of a television series!

For many years I was abe to listen to the Los Angeles City F.D. from home.  I don't know why (sun spots?), but they would come in just as clear as a bell for hours just about every day.

I kept hearing companies calling OCD (Operations Command Dispatch-I think) and I thought I must be loosing it.  Turns out I wasn't.  Started hearing runs to UCLA and remarks concerning references to other famous landmarks out that way.

While on the phone with a friend that lived in LA, we were both listening to the same dispatch!

So, how do we get these sun spots back!

[Box 2565]

I was flying to Reno in August of 1988.  Although you can't have a radio operating on a plane, I may have left my scanner (with an ear piece) in a small carry on bag that I left in my seat.

From the moment I turned it in it was incredible!  For the most part I don't even know who I was listening to, but there was a lot of traffic.

I probably heard Chicago for 45 minutes to an hour and St. Louis and Kansas City came in nicely also.  Sure would like to repeat the experience!
 

[yfdgricker]

I caught a good instance of scanner skip a number of years ago. I was in Youngstown and heard one of  Southeastern Florida's county fire dispatch frequencies for quite a while.

[SixbyFire]

When I was in the USAF in Hampton, Virginia, I was able to pick up Cleveland on 33.90 mhz, this was in the early 90's. After I got out of the USAF and was back in Cleveland, I was able to pick up Hampton, Virginia on 46.06 mhz. Sort of a full circle deal.

Some of my better VHF skip was picking up all the FDNY boroughs while in Virginia. I used to stay awake for hours on end just listening. It was truly amazing.

A few years ago I was able to pick up Chicago Fire, both Main and Englewood?, from Cleveland, but South Bend, Indiana came in fairly frequently, Chicago just that one time.

Another weird one was long distance mutual aid call. Where I am at in California now, a city called Pacifica got called mutual aid to Colorado! I thought I was hearing things at first, but they operate one of those California OES rigs and had to send it along with 4 others from the area as a strike team. They've been in Colorado for about two weeks now.

Jeff Christner

[Box 2565]

I'm picking up skip on 154.25 from Jefferson County, Kentucky at the moment.  This is roughly 100 miles from here and it's unusual for me to hear those folks.

Jefferstown F.D. is working a major fire at the high school.  They began an interior attack but went defensive due to the large volume of fire.  All of the J-Town units are committed on this incident and Midlletown & McMahon were just dispatched for another fire in Jefferstown.

More action down there than around Cincinnati this morning...

[Box 2565]

The Louisville area was busy this morning!  After my previous post I heard two more working fires.  One was on the Jefferson County West frequency (154.37) and the was on 460.625.  I think that last one was New Castle in Henry County.  All the skip traffic stopped about 30-45 minutes ago...

[jim trk 1]

Hey Everyone,  
  I have been picking up some good skip recently.  I can hear Raliegh Fire Control from West Virginia clear as a bell.  I also get the normal stuff Dayton/Kettering etc.    I also get a lot of departments, that I have never heard of.  The skip seems to be better at night, but sometimes comes in during the day.  The best one so far, was a dept in Kentucky or Virginia, that marked a Working Fire when they left the station. They could see the orange glow of the barn fire.

[sbfdpics]

i pick up atwood fire all the time up here in south bend ,in

[sdavey]

Saginaw Michigan was on the same frequency as the Main Fire Office in Chicago for many years. It became such an issue with skip that they used the stations street names  on the radio (Engine 1 was Federal Pump, etc..)  This ended a few years ago when they switched to an 800 MHZ system.

[nappc]

Back in the late 70s or early 80s while living in the Texas Panhandle we had low band radios that picked up skips all of the time. The best one I remember was from a fire department in New Hampshire.  We would also listen to departments in Alabama and south Texas.

[FAO25]

For many years the cities of Worcester and Somerville Massachusetts shared a radio freq.of 33.86 Mc. Being on VHF Low band and so close together it didn't take much for their transmissions to overlap. For this reason there was a "Sitdown" and they decided that one community would use callsigns for it's apparatus. Reportedly Somerville lost the toss and had to change. So they assigned 3 digit identifiers to their apparatus. Chiefs and Admin units were 3XX, Engines were 4XX, Ladders were 5XX with the Rescue being 505.This was fairly common around the country. At the time most of the Somerville Engine Companies ran as two-piece, with Pumper  and Wagon. Engine 1 Pump would be 401 and the  Hose Wagon was called 401A. 
What's unusual though is the catalyst. Reportedly, I have been told this multiple times but have no way to confirm, Somerville Engine 7 was stilled out for an outside fire on Cedar St. near the railroad tracks. A few minutes later the Fire Alarm Operators were startled by an order to "Strike the Box". Standing on Cedar St., Booster in hand, soaking a small patch of smouldering grass, Engine 7 was startled to see 2 Engines, 2 Ladders, a Rescue and District Chief arrive. In the meantime a very lonely crew from Worcester Engine 7 was wondering where the help was for the working fire they found in the lumber yard when they were sent out on a still for an outside fire. Well, if it ain't true, it's still a good story.
Who needed a TV back then? In those days Metropolitan Boston was an interesting place. The cities of Boston, Brookline, Newton, Cambridge and Somerville Fire Departments were all on 33.XX Mc's. Woohoo!