Scanning Canada Scanning John David Corby, VA3KOT Report [email protected]

Into the Icefields

Scanning Canada reader writes with of the Cayoosh Mountain. I had put my rental car Pemberton area. If you head out of town into a request: -a brand new, full-size Toyota - into low gear to the surrounding country looking for the source "I live in Calgary and I was so avoid over -heating the brakes as we hugged the of these signals, beware, this is bear country! pleased to see your column in Monitoring Times. curves down the long, steep, winding drop into I used to listen to the city police here quite a bit. the River valley. The road had many pull- Logging Operations but a few years ago they switched to a digital outs for runaway trucks, but I had managed to 152.960 157.620 158.310158.550 158.580 165.000 system and I was out of luck. Finding frequencies keep the vehicle under control during the very. 167.940168.060 - Various commercial logging and trucking from Industry Canada is like asking them to pull very long descent. companies out all of their own teeth without any freezing. By the time we hit the valley the car's 'Fire, ambulance, police and armed forces frequen- transmission smelt badly overheated, but the First Nations Bands cies are not given out to the public.' is what I was fairly flat road into Pemberton allowed the car's 154.310 Mt.Currie firehall - Lillooet Tribal Council told on numerous occasions by our fine govern- fluids time to cool. Not so quick to cool was 159.030 Mt.Currie Bond Council - Forestry ment employees. The Industry Canada web site my XYL (= "wife" for non -hams) who watched is not much help either. me fiddle with my scanner while en route down Government Departments 8 Utilities "Do you know of any of the above from the mountain. "It's for the Monitoring Times 163.125, 163.830, 163.890, 163.995 - Ministry of Forests Fire Calgary or any scanning clubs out here`' column," I had explained. A cool silence in re- Base really enjoy your column and hope that you are a turn indicated that maybe it was time to focus 143.415, 148.585, 414.0875, 414.5625- Ministry of Transpor- regular contributor to the magazine for years to on the driving. tation and Highways come. Thank you for your time and any informa- Our picture this month shows the BC Rail 142.365, 142.605, 149.110, 149.260, 149.680- Ministry of tion that you can send my way." station at Pemberton. The inset gives a close- Health Ambulance Service (e-mail from Alvin Brownell) up view of the antennas on the roof of the sta- 419.9125, 462.4625, 463.5125, 461.4625- BC Hydro 8 Power tion. The larger, vertically polarized lobe is the Authority Thank you for your kind comments on VHF railroad frequency antenna. A complete the column, Alvin. You are partially correct: set of railroad VHF frequencies was listed in Adventure Industry Canada (the federal government de- the November 2002 column. In Pemberton, the 159.690 - Outward Bound Western Canada partment responsible for administering radio most active frequencies are 159.57 and 160.305 160.170 - Whistler Jet Booting, Pemberton spectrum in Canada) does restrict certain sen- MHz. 123.200 - Air Traffic Frequency Pemberton Airport sitive frequencies, but many other emergency The lower antenna is a stacked Yagi array 161.310 - Pemberton Helicopters Pemberton Airport service frequencies are available. Can any read- with folded dipole driven elements. This an- ers in the Calgary area help Alvin with unpub- tenna is used for BC Rail's UHF link on two Leaving Pemberton, BC Rail's line winds lished frequencies and trunk groups in use in frequency pairs: 413.1625/4 I 3.4125 and its way up the slopes to the northeast behind that city? Write to me at the e-mail address at 418.1625/418.4125 MHz. The purpose of the the Cayoosh Range, tracking alongside a long, the top of the page and I will include reader UHF frequencies is not precisely known, but slender pair of mountain valley lakes towards contributions in a future column. one source lists a trackside alarm site using these the Fraser River Canyon. We will take a final frequencies. look at the BC Rail line next month as we near 0 Further into the Mountains As ScanCan drove alongside extensive sec- the northern end of BC's Highway 99 and say Last month Scanning Canada rode the rails tions of the BC Rail track during a recent visit our farewells as the tracks head north into the up alongside 's Sea To Sky High- to BC, I noted that folded dipole VHF antennas interior of British Columbia. One last brief stop way as far as the ski resort of Whistler. This month seemed to be located at almost every station features what may be the loneliest railway sta- we travel another few miles up the line and deep along the track. Presumably, the mountainous tion in Canada. 73 till then. into the mountains to Pemberton. terrain requires the use of The small town of Pemberton nestles snugly many repeaters to main- between the and the Lillooet tain line -of -sight signals Range. Mid -summer snow lingers idly on the between trains and con- mountaintops all around Pemberton. The famous trol points. The folded di- Pemberton Ice Fields and a cluster of glaciers lie pole design affords a wide just to the west between glistening peaks grazing bandwidth to cover the the sky at over nine thousand feet above sea level. relatively broad slice of Scanning Canada will visit even higher peaks fur- the VHF spectrum occu- ther east in Alberta's Continental Divide, in the pied by the railway com- midst of the Rocky Mountains, but here in panies. Pemberton we are just an easy hour and a half's The following table drive from sea level at Squamish. lists some other interest- ScanCan arrived in Pemberton from further ing frequencies that will east, descending cautiously by car from the heights break squelch in the"Pemberton's BC Rail Station wills close-up viewof stationantennas.

30 MONITORING TIMES February 2003