Key West DSL in trouble

UPDATE: 17:32 - That was quick! The telephone man got the line rearranged so things are back up and running. I hope it stays up for a good long time now.

***

The Key West feed is down. Its DSL pair must have gotten a surfeit of H2O yesterday with the rain storms training over Key West. I hope to get it repaired by the end of the weekend.

If Sol comes out and dries it out before then it might come back on its own, who knows?

Navy Southeast Region Fire Dispatch

Recently I noticed that NQX (Boca Chica Naval Air Station-Key West) fire department units responding to daily radio checks from "Regional Dispatch".

Further investigation reveals that the Navy's Regional Dispatch Center in Jacksonville, Florida began an upgrade to their dispatch center in 2012 that continues through 2013 and beyond. The RDC currently dispatches for six installations including NAS Boca Chica/Key West, NAS Jacksonville, NS Mayport, Naval Support Activity Panama City, Naval Construction Battalion Center Gulfport, and NAS Meridian.

The downside to this is that instead of hiding out in rinky-dink Key West and only hearing calls for the island, you get to hear fire and rescue calls for the Navy's whole southeast region, so it makes the NQX system a whole lot busier even though I'm only monitoring the fire and important talkgroups on that trunked system.

From monitoring the networked talkgroup I have determined the following unit number series in use:
200 - Mayport
500 - Meridian
900 - Key West

I'm tracking what I hear on one of the many Radio Reference wiki pages for this system.

Key West Run and Parade

Never shy about throwing a party, at 19:00 Thursday Key West will shut down Duval Street for the Southernmost Runners and the Duval Street Mile. Then at 20:00 or thereabouts begins The World's Longest Parade (is it really??)

BSO CAD and Radio Troubles

Late Saturday morning Broward Sheriff's Office consoles and/or computer-aided dispatch (or both) failed. As of 12:50 there was a county-wide announcement that 8TAC91 (851.5125MHz) would be reserved for emergency traffic only in case the radio system failed again.

Apparently as the technicians are working on the radio system they are dispatching for a 20 minute window via hotline telephone and reserving that conventional frequency above for emergencies only.

Air and Sea Show

The Fort Lauderdale Air and Sea Show is back, minus the military components. The Federal gummint forced itself into a diet so the Blue Angels and other military participants that are usually big attractions are absent this year. Fleet Week was also cancelled, so no drunken sailors getting into fist fights downtown either, sorry. It's mostly civilian stunt aircraft and aircraft restored by hobby groups.

Bote's Mixer Board has the EMS detail traffic, although it's quiet right now. Bote's Wild Feed isn't very wild, with the usual lineup of all 3 Fort Lauderdale police districts, plus BSO 7A which is Oakland Park, Lauderdale Lakes, and the wild, wild, west of unincorporated Fort Lauderdale. The air show police traffic is not very interesting, just a lot of administrative b.s.

NQX is BACK!

The Boca Chica-Key West Naval Air Station trunked system is back in the scan list of Bote's Southernmost Feed.

I don't know what programming error caused the scanner to stop tracking it and I haven't figured out what change caused it to work again, but I'm not arguing with success at this point. It works.

If it breaks again, I'll figure it out then.

As before, it normally will scan the NQX fire talkgroups and a few unknown ones that I am trying to identify. If there is a military exercise I might open it up in an attempt to identify mystery talkgroups. Since the air base is 10 miles out of Key West while Truman Annex and b.o.q. facilities are in town, it is good to monitor since sometimes Key West fire and rescue run onto their property. I have seen Navy fire apparatus screaming through Old Town running from one facility to another across the island, which is what prompted me to add this system to the feed in the first place.

Enjoy.

Bicycle event in FLA Keys

This weekend, 20-21 April, 2013 will see a bicycle event that should really foul up traffic on U.S. 1 The Overseas Highway and generate a lot of radio traffic on the Monroe County sheriff talkgroups.

On Saturday from about 09:00 to 17:00 the Maroone MS 150 Bike Tour takes bicyclists down Card Sound Road to Key Largo Park at the 99 milepost.

Then on Sunday morning the bicyclists retrace their route back to Dade County, leaving at 06:00 during which time traffic should be lighter.

Stay tuned to Bote's Southernmost Feed for all the festivities.

Key West feed is BACK

Thanks to a friend down in Key West, Bote's Southernmost Feed has been restored to service. The feed computer locked up in some weird state with gibberish on the screen so I lost all control of it remotely. He cycled the power on it and now all is well.

Key West feed intermittent

The Southernmost feed in Key West is acting up and I don't know why. I think there's networking trouble, but when it works everything checks out, logs show no bad things happening. Then the feed drops and I can't access it. If I ever figure it out I'll post about it here. Until then keep trying. if it's up, enjoy. If not, you'll hear music.

A1A Marathon 2013

Fort Lauderdale hosts the A1A Marathon Sunday morning 17 February, 2013. EMS detail units are using fire channel D which is their special events talkgroup. Listen to the Mixer Board feed for all the gripping action. As of 06:30 they are already underway and scheduled to be finished by about 08:00 or so.

Quantum Sailboat Races in Key West

Quantum Racing sets sail this week in Key West with a regatta featuring races all week long.

I have opened up the bank with the marine chit-chat channels since they seem to be running the races on channels 71-74 so far.

You might commercial fishermen whining about this, that, and the other and some conversations in Spanish by Cubans running close to Key West. This traffic is not interesting which is why I keep that bank locked out typically.