St Johns Ambulance Frequencies

[Davie Boy]

I have had 153.7125 in my scanners for years now... this was always active with SJA and I often got hits on it but I have not heard it in use for donkeys years now... can anyone confirm if it is still in use by SJA? TIA. At a recent event I noticed their caravan/coms bunker had a VHF antenna... they had motorola radios but I never managed to get a hit from them.

[AndrewIrvine]

I've had it programmed in for years and heard nothing either. I visit Cheshire, Lancashire and Cumbria several times a year plus can hear into Merseyside when in Cheshire.

[Neil57uk]

Andrew

SJA and BRC still use 153.7125 at special events in England and Wales but not sure it was ever used by SAA in Scotland. It was used with the 163.xxx ones when the Queens visited the Mersey this year and came across it at a festival in Norfolk.

The 163.xxx dual freqs seem to be used more and more however. Happened on them at a festival in Cumbria this summer and one in Hampshire for example.

Some football grounds that were UKG seem to have moved to one of the 163.xxx freqs in recent times.

[db13]

Yep as 2E0AIV said they have a UK Wide UKG simple light licence and use the frequencies as listed in the post here across the UK (as do The red cross)...
http://ukradioscanning.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=8

They also have a UK wide licence which they can also use if they need better coverage for an event/incident anywhere in The UK with the following frequencies (Lic 0295652)...

St. John Ambulance UK WIDE
TX: 453.3625 MHz
RX: 459.8625 MHz

St. John Ambulance UK WIDE
TX: 166.7500 MHz
RX: 171.5500 MHz

<snip>

Also they still use their old VHF frequency quite often in areas and on events of 153.7125

TX? RX?

No point in having a frequency if you don't have both one or more TX and one or more RX on it.

Is TX what the base transmits on or what the mobile transmits on?

[G4RMT]

Base transmit is the lower one - mobiles transmit on the higher.

[m0lsx]

TX = Transmitter.
RX=Receiver.
When you see TX & RX, it generally means a repeater is in use. So in general think of RX as the signal you are least likely to hear. As it's going to be the ground level station such as the vehicle or operator using a handheld, while the base transmitter will be via a higher & better antenna that has been designed to be heard across all of the area of operation.
Under normal circumstances, you will hear both side of the QSO (conversation) via the repeater output, where on the input you will only hear signals that are strong to your own antenna.
On the amateur radio repeaters you will hear good operators saying they have checked the input & the decent ones then asking if the other station wants to move it to a simplex (radio to radio direct) contact, if they can hear each other on the input.
With business (PMR) radio the licences are either simplex or via a repeater (Duplex) So the option of changing frequency is not normally there if they are on a repeater.

[G4RMT]

Walking past the local Ford main dealer - there's a St John car derived ambulance in the service area - UHF radio only. No VHF permanently fitted at all.

[m0lsx]

St John does have a variety of contracts. So it could be a vehicle that is used on a specific job.