[Scan-DC] Analog Virginia State Police transmission on 700 MHz

[D.R. Watkins III]

Hi Andy,

Just out of curiosity, were you able to confirm that it was analog FM?
Close call automatically decodes digital for me, and I've heard some
transmissions that were so good, that I couldn't tell that they were digital
if I hadn't already known.

Dewey

-----Original Message-----
From: scan-dc-bounces+drwatkins3=rcn.com at mailman.qth.net
[mailto:scan-dc-bounces+drwatkins3=rcn.com at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of
Andrew Clegg
Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2007 14:45
To: scan-dc at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [Scan-DC] Analog Virginia State Police transmission on 700 MHz

For my birthday last week, my XYL got me a Bearcat 996T for the car. Over
the weekend, I took a very long (20 hour) car trip and got to play with the
996T quite a bit in analog mode (I haven't tackled digital yet). It is an
amazing piece of hardware.

Late last night (Monday night), I was driving back to DC out on I-66, and
passed what I believe was a VSP officer on a motorist assist, on the
shoulder. Just as I passed, my close-call fired up, and tuned into the
officer reporting the assist, in analog FM voice on a 764 MHz frequency.
While I am aware that public safety is moving a lot of their operations to
700 MHz, I was very surprised to hear analog on the very new channels. RR
reports this frequency as part of the VSP APCO 25 system, but I would have
thought it would have been digital from the get-go. Is anyone on Scan-DC
able to provide some background on the VSP's use of 700 MHz?

Thanks!
Andy