[Scan-DC] Capitol Hill Monitors FAQ

[ka3jjz at netscape.com]

The Capitol Hill Monitors FAQ
As of: July 1 2006

I. What is the Capitol Hill Monitors?
  The Capitol Hill Monitors is an electronic club for scanner hobbyists covering Maryland, the District of Columbia, Northern Virginia and Southern Delaware. 

II. Are there any fees or dues?
Fees are charged only to cover the costs of mailing a hardcopy version of the newsletter, which is published irregularly. The newsletter can be downloaded free of charge from the website; you will need the free Adobe Acrobat© reader for the newer editions.

III. What does the Capitol Hill Monitors website consist of?
  The website has pages devoted to websites with useful frequency, trunking and system information for our coverage area. The site is open to all, regardless of membership. We have incoporated Wikipedia© links from the popular RadioReference website to allow the site to cover a much broader range of topics than would otherwise be possible. Articles (Wiki speak for pages) covering Trunktrackers (including the new digital tts), scanner antennas, military monitoring, the upcoming rebanding and much more are available. 

IV. How is the site organized and presented?
 The site is organized into seperate pages, each of which has its own function. Each page is now accessible from the main page. These include;

. The general links (intro) page; there's a little here for a lot of different interests; milair, railfans, NASCAR, aircraft are all covered in this section.  You will also find links to some popular magazines' websites, as well as for other mailing lists which might be of interest. Some Wikipedia© articles regarding ACARS, Military Monitoring, Antennas as well as an introduction to trunking are all linked here.

. The regional pages. Each region is covered by a single page seperated into categories, which include;

. Trunking information
. Conventional frequency information
. Amateur Radio Links - for those hams and scannists that want to know about repeaters in this area
. Online audio and IRLP - Here you will find online scanners for this area, as well as links to Internet Radio Linking Protocol (IRLP) sites. Basically, this is one of 2 popular packages (the other is called Echolink) used by hams to tie a repeater into the Internet using Voice over IP technology. So if you hear an exotic location on a local machine, chances are good that it is using one of these protocols
. A Wikipedia© article titled ‘Delmarva Military Monitoring’ has also been added to these pages and a link titled ‘Delmarva Milcom’ has been added to the main page. Military monitoring is one facet of this hobby that tends to attract a great interest these days; if you’re interested in contributing to this article, please join us on the RadioReference Maryland forum.
. Other mailing lists - There are a few other scanning related mailing lists besides Scan-DC; the most active of these can be found on the popular RadioReference website.  The Virginia page also lists 2 other scanning
related clubs.

. The Scanners page – This page has, by far, been the most impacted by the Wikipedia© migration. We now have links to articles covering Uniden, Radio Shack (including all the trunktrackers, past present and one or two future models), AOR, Icom and Yaesu receivers and scanners, as well as the popular line of WinRadio products. Links on rebanding, and some other scanner related pages are found here. In addition, numerous battery manufacturers and distributors can be found here. 

. Links to RadioReference and Strong Signals, the RadioReference Wiki section and other items are also linked on the main page.

III. I do not understand how to program the Uniden/RS Digital Trunktrackers. (BC250/785/796/296 or PRO 96/2096). Does anyone have a file to get me started?

  Yes, we do. We have 2 pages reserved for programming files; an ARC250 page, which supports programming files for the popular ARC250 program by Butel Software, and sold by Scanner Master. This program supports the BC250, BC296, BC785 and BC796. 
For those who have the PRO-96 or PRO-2096, we have a page reserved for files (with the extension of .p96, hence the name of the page) that are utilized by Win96, the most popular software for these scanners and written by Don Starr.   

IV. I work for a fire/ems company, and need a quick page that lists these frequencies used in my area. Do you have a page for this?
Yes, we do – we have 2 pages, one devoted to Maryland, the other for Delaware;
. The Maryland fire/rescue page - this page lists the known frequencies, by county, for fire dispatch and EMS operations.  Links are provided, where known, to RadioReference for talkgroup information.  As more and more
communities migrate from their conventional systems, these frequencies will change; your help is needed to keep things up to date

. The Delaware Fireboards page - this page lists the many vhf/uhf transmitters that communities have set up for relaying fire dispatches and some fire related trunking traffic.  These transmitters sometimes utilize low power with simple antennas, so hearing some of them is a challenge.

V. Where can I find this, and to whom do I address questions or send new/changed links?
   The URL to check for all this information is: http://henney.com/chm

   If you find a page that should be listed, broken links, and so on, please let     ka3jjz 'at' netscape 'dot' com know so it can be corrected. Files for the ARC250 and .p96 pages should be forwarded to alan 'at' henney 'dot' com for posting.  Thanks for reading this; 73s and enjoy the site.    
  


links editor,Capitol Hill Monitors
Utility Monitoring Central
editor, Strong Signals software page
Wiki Administrator, Radioreference.Com 

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