Saturday, September 24, 2005
September meeting of TRAMA
We had our monthly meeting of the Three Rivers Area Monitoring Association today and despite a relatively low turn out we had very productive and interesting meeting.
There were seven members in attendance and we discussed rumors that Allegheny County might be considering an MA/COM trunked radio system in the next few years. Apparently they have applied for and received new 800 mHz frequencies from the FCC. The big question for scanner listeners will be if the Open Sky protocol will be used in the system. If so then Allegheny County will “go dark” for scanner listeners unless GRE or Uniden come up with a compatible radio which based on the proprietary nature of Open Sky doesn't seem likely.
We also discussed programs for upcoming meetings. I'm really excited about the October meeting which promises to be a good one. We are going to move down the spectrum somewhat and talk about the North American AM and FM broadcast bands. One of our members is a retired broadcast engineer and I plan to have him along with two others who spent a number of years working in the business have a panel discussion at the meeting. They will talk about the history of broadcast radio and give us a taste of what it was like to work in the business in the days before everything was syndicated, satellite fed and cookie cuter programs that sounded the same no matter where in the country you were. Make yourself a note because you are not going to want to miss the October meeting. I will be posting additional details in the coming weeks.
We STILL had a meeting after the meeting in the parking lot! There just doesn't seem to be anyway to avoid that. Not that I mind, every chance to talk about monitoring with other knowledgeable people is always welcome to me. When the meeting after the meeting concluded several of us retired to Kings in Waterworks Plaza for lunch where we ate a hearty meal and continued the conversation on monitoring and also solved several of the worlds more imposing problems while we dined. All in all a very enjoyable morning and afternoon. Thanks guys! Hope to see all of you at next months meeting of the Three Rivers Area Monitoring Association.
There were seven members in attendance and we discussed rumors that Allegheny County might be considering an MA/COM trunked radio system in the next few years. Apparently they have applied for and received new 800 mHz frequencies from the FCC. The big question for scanner listeners will be if the Open Sky protocol will be used in the system. If so then Allegheny County will “go dark” for scanner listeners unless GRE or Uniden come up with a compatible radio which based on the proprietary nature of Open Sky doesn't seem likely.
We also discussed programs for upcoming meetings. I'm really excited about the October meeting which promises to be a good one. We are going to move down the spectrum somewhat and talk about the North American AM and FM broadcast bands. One of our members is a retired broadcast engineer and I plan to have him along with two others who spent a number of years working in the business have a panel discussion at the meeting. They will talk about the history of broadcast radio and give us a taste of what it was like to work in the business in the days before everything was syndicated, satellite fed and cookie cuter programs that sounded the same no matter where in the country you were. Make yourself a note because you are not going to want to miss the October meeting. I will be posting additional details in the coming weeks.
We STILL had a meeting after the meeting in the parking lot! There just doesn't seem to be anyway to avoid that. Not that I mind, every chance to talk about monitoring with other knowledgeable people is always welcome to me. When the meeting after the meeting concluded several of us retired to Kings in Waterworks Plaza for lunch where we ate a hearty meal and continued the conversation on monitoring and also solved several of the worlds more imposing problems while we dined. All in all a very enjoyable morning and afternoon. Thanks guys! Hope to see all of you at next months meeting of the Three Rivers Area Monitoring Association.
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