Cullman City/County Fire

[johndeere7880]

Cullman County Fire/Cullman City fire is live. I will try to get more Live Audios as soon as i get a outdoor antenna

[nasadave]

Great news. Can you post the frequencies covered?

[johndeere7880]

they are Cullman City fire 154.2350
Cullman County Fire 158.7450
Cullman County EMS 154.7250

[nasadave]

What happened to the feed?

[johndeere7880]

it is back on

[codeplug]

Cullman County - Association of Volunteer Firefighters.

It looks like Cullman County Volunteer FD's may be getting ready to move to P-25 sooner or later.
Is this P-25 Phase 1, FDMA or P-25 Phase 2, TDMA? Emission 8K10F1W

Here is the License & Pending Application for new Emission to be added.
http://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/UlsS...licKey=1225922
http://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/Appl...applID=7200759

Frequencies:
Output - 158.74500 / Input - 153.99500 - Current Emission: 20K0F3E, New Emission: 11K2F3E, 8K10F1W - Callsign: WNMN460

Cullman County Sheriff & Hanceville Police are P-25 but both are currently showing Wide-Band Emission.
I wander why they haven’t changed their emission to P-25 or Narrow-Banded yet.
Are they going to change to new Narrow-Band Frequencies and then add the P-25 Emission.
Or will they add it when they renew their license which will be expiring soon in 2013?
Any Ideas?

[Avery93]

Originally Posted by codeplug

Cullman County - Association of Volunteer Firefighters.

It looks like Cullman County Volunteer FD's may be getting ready to move to P-25 sooner or later.
Is this P-25 Phase 1, FDMA or P-25 Phase 2, TDMA? Emission 8K10F1W

Here is the License & Pending Application for new Emission to be added.
ULS License - Public Safety Pool, Conventional License - WNMN460 - CULLMAN, COUNTY OF
ULS Application - Public Safety Pool, Conventional - 0005489085 - CULLMAN, COUNTY OF

Frequencies:
Output - 158.74500 / Input - 153.99500 - Current Emission: 20K0F3E, New Emission: 11K2F3E, 8K10F1W - Callsign: WNMN460

Cullman County Sheriff & Hanceville Police are P-25 but both are currently showing Wide-Band Emission.
I wander why they haven’t changed their emission to P-25 or Narrow-Banded yet.
Are they going to change to new Narrow-Band Frequencies and then add the P-25 Emission.
Or will they add it when they renew their license which will be expiring soon in 2013?
Any Ideas?

The 8K10F1W emission designator is for P25 Phase I (FDMA) voice and data, the same P25 we all know and love. As far as I know Phase II (TDMA) is currently being used only on trunked systems; although theoretically I believe it can be used on any system as long as a repeater is in use to synchronize the two time slots (similar to MotoTRBO).

As far as the LE agencies in Cullman County using P25, I really don't know why they didn't modify their licenses after they switched over. Likely they don't even know it is a requirement, although the radio shop they bought their equipment from should have at least informed them about it. Cullman City PD actually did modify their license recently but they only added an analog narrowband designator.

[codeplug]

Good to hear that it will be P-25 Phase I (FDMA).
It surprised me when I saw that they were adding that emission.
I wander when the VFD's will be changing over to P-25.

Maybe the LE may be going to wait untill they renew their licenses to add the new emission.
I would assume that if the LE changed their emission to P-25 and are no longer using analog then they would have to send in a modification
application to the FCC to add the P-25 emission designator.
I know that for TRBO that is usually what happens before they use that type of system if they are upgrading their system from analog to TRBO,
but TRBO may be different since those systems are going from FM to TDMA,
But in my opinion it shouldn't matter what type system or radios they are using I think they should still be showing a P-25 emission.

[askdaniel1]

I will remind the County and Hanceville again about the modification.

EMS is going P25 P1 (exactly like LE) very soon, within days, but I am not directly involved so I do not know exactly when; County Fire will be a while. (lots of radios, lots of units, lots of stations.. we have about 30 VFDs) Last I heard trying to figure out the alerting was still a hold up. They are very, very attached to quick call paging.


When I modified our (City PD) license we were in transition and are still subject to be. The repeater is configured for narrowband FM voice, though everything other than the ID is P25 P1 provided nothing goes wrong.


The radio vendor, at the time of the LE project, told each agency that they had to handle the license themselves.

[Avery93]

Thanks for the info!

I figured Cullman County EMS was switching over soon, as over the past couple of months I noticed it sounded like they replaced all of their mobile and portable radios with Motorola P25 gear. Their repeater is on the same frequency as one of our local simplex CSQ channels and you can hear them pretty often, so I imagine it will get very annoying once they switch over.

County Fire should be able to keep 2-Tone paging by running in mixed-mode operation, with paging in analog mode and everything else P25. Franklin County uses this setup and despite the system being very badly programmed, and the cheap Midland equipment, it still seems to work acceptably (more so in analog mode than P25). If Cullman County fire is planning on using Motorola or Kenwood gear I imagine a setup like this would run a lot smoother.

As far as the emission designators go, I would make sure everyone knows how important it is to have the correct designators coordinated and applied for on the license. In the past I have seen several Notice Of Violation/Notice of Apparant Liability letters issued to public safety agencies for using digital modulation when they were only licensed for analog FM.

[spd640]

I guess we are not going to be able to monitor another radio system thanks to fixing something that is broken and cost more money good luck with that....

[Avery93]

Originally Posted by spd640

I guess we are not going to be able to monitor another radio system thanks to fixing something that is broken and cost more money good luck with that....

Nothing keeping you from monitoring unencrypted P25. There have been P25 capable scanners for years, and you can find used models on ebay for almost nothing.

While analog may not be "broken", P25 (and other flavors of digital) offer a lot of advantages, most notable in my opinion are the signalling features. Radio ID, emergency, radio inhibit and paging are just some of the things built into the P25 Common Air Interface that are extremely useful to public safety agencies. With digital you will also have very good audio right out to the end of the coverage area, where many people may not be able to understand analog traffic because of noise.

Just be glad Cullman County is going with a truly interoperable (and easily monitored) format, and not MotoTRBO or NXDN.

[spd640]

More money spent needlessly on new equipment for the purpose of lining the pockets of radio companies at tax payer expenses even if they receive a grant,which does not cover down the road.I do not see the need to go digital our systems next door to Cullman do well like they are and we do have identifiers on the vehicles so nothing new there as far as range I do not get where it will cover to the edge of the coverage area any better and the addition of extra repeaters when the single one has the same coverage analog but go figure what do I know.Needless to say mutual aid will be more difficult from other counties since not all waste money on digital so they have to rely on dispatch to relay info from one area to another which waste time,the same reason Walker Co went back to the old system they had no mutual aid in a chase and decided to go back to the way things were just saying....

[Avery93]

Originally Posted by spd640

More money spent needlessly on new equipment for the purpose of lining the pockets of radio companies at tax payer expenses even if they receive a grant,which does not cover down the road.I do not see the need to go digital our systems next door to Cullman do well like they are and we do have identifiers on the vehicles so nothing new there as far as range I do not get where it will cover to the edge of the coverage area any better and the addition of extra repeaters when the single one has the same coverage analog but go figure what do I know.Needless to say mutual aid will be more difficult from other counties since not all waste money on digital so they have to rely on dispatch to relay info from one area to another which waste time,the same reason Walker Co went back to the old system they had no mutual aid in a chase and decided to go back to the way things were just saying....

I don't wan't to turn this into another "digital vs. analog" thread but I will say that the main reason Jasper PD went back to analog is because the radio shop apparently told them they HAD to use full time encryption, which of course meant nobody else could hear them even if they had a P25 radio. Jasper PD also either had no capability (due to bad system design), or no training to fall back to analog during times of interop with non-P25 capable agencies, namely Walker SO.

As long as Cullman County agencies have solid protocols for falling back to analog when interop with non-P25 agencies is needed, or has gateways to patch analog channels to digital channels, then they should be fine as far as mutual aid goes. Besides, more and more agencies in Alabama are buying P25 capable radios, even if they do not have immediate plans to convert to digital themselves. This means that before long, agencies that are using P25 may not even have to fall back to analog for mutual aid.

[spd640]

I am not going to argue the point of the expense to counties who can't afford it and every other gov agency needs that to keep their nose out of local affairs,as far as a P25 scanner I can't afford one I am not well off as some and will not worry with trying to get one either,I only listened to keep tabs on my wife's grandfather when the FD was dispatched to his residence.I am not a scanner thrill seeker,I am a former police officer and heard enough of it then.............

[medic9351301]

man i hate that i used to hear all of cullman county stuff good but not now.

cullman ems would boom in here guess it had something to do with tornado nocking down trees lol

digital is not like analog by any means

[Avery93]

Cullman County EMS switched over to P25 sometime last week, but I just now got around to actually monitoring them with a digital radio. The NAC is $420.

They did seem to reduce the output power of the repeater, as I can't hear them near as well as I used to. Before, you could pretty much hear them all over Northwest AL, often on portables. I wouldn't be surprised if another licensee of 154.725 complained about it, causing them to reduce the power.

[morganAL]

I have heard that when switching from analog to digital the coordinators automatically reduce the output power because of interference issues.

[jody_clarke]

Live in the Crane Hill community in Cullman Co,, took me a while to notice the switch to a digital format along w/ the major cut in power as you mentioned. When Cullman LE switched, didn't notice any loss of power perhaps even some gain? Am guessing prhaps you are correct about a potential complaint from another local 154.725 licensee? Seriously wonder if this switch as is will be enough to service entire county, most likely will, yet am guessing it is stretching it @ current power levels?