Kenwood TK-8180 - School Bus Radio Chatter - First Day of School - 8/17/2016

This is a video I recorded back on the first day of school, August 17th.

The school bus radio frequency was a beehive of activity, as bus drivers dealt with missing students, broken buses, not knowing directions, and other problems faced on the first day of school. Many of the drivers were walking over each other, which just means transmitting while someone else already is. It creates an incredibly annoying sound when two radios are feeding into the repeater at the same time. Anyway, the dispatchers, as well as the shop, did a great job keeping everything in order.

For the afternoon, I had my power supply and antenna running into the back of the TK-8180. This was the first time I recorded school bus chatter on this unit.

At the time, I had the FleetSync ID on this unit set to 1104456, which is the ID a good majority of the bus radios have. It causes the radio to go into selective call alert when the matching ID is received from another radio. I've since given this radio, along with my NX-800 units, its own ID.

Most of the bus radios you hear are Kenwood NX-800 units, with several TK-8150 and TK-8180 units mixed in.

One of the dispatchers heard in this video, Sarah, left the company a few weeks ago. Stephanie and Sherita are currently the only two dispatchers.