Message posted by lone wolf on May 24, 2004 at 21:25:18 PST:

I monitored the NTS trunk system about two weeks ago now and heard the countdown for the Armondo test. Either this story has it wrong, or I heard a practice count down. [I have the audio of the test recorded.]

Los Alamos uses talk group 2000 on the NTS trunk system. You need an Astro capable scanner (Pro-96 for example). From Cold Creek, you can use control channels 406.15, 406.625, and 406.925. All have base 406.1 step 12.5 and offset 380. System is motorola. These are mulitple trunk systems all carrying the same traffic. I suppose there are parts of the NTS where you can only hear one of these systems at a time, so the simulcast is an attempt to get better coverage. Some people at the NTS get satellite phones, so I assume that even with 10 radio sites the system still has holes.

There is a similar trunk radio system at the DOE's North Las Vegas facility. It might repeat the trunk radio from the NTS, meaning this monitoring could be done from Vegas. I haven't investigated this myself, but the link below has more information.

In Reply to: New nuke test for NTS posted by CoyoteUgly on May 24, 2004 at 14:35:27 PST:

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