Washington County going Digital

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jboczek

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Washington County will be upgrading its radio system soon and going P25 Digital for most of its communications. Fire and Ambulance dispatch will stay analog, due to the lack of digital pagers for those departments. Sheriff, health, highway, ESDA, and other "county" entities will be digital before the end of the year. Fire will stay analog but their dispatch frequency will change. Plans as of now are to page the fire departments and ambulance service on the same frequency. Ambulance will have its own digital frequency for ops, and fire will have their own frequency. Don't know fire frequency yet, as coordination is still going on and FCC application will then need to be filed. Big change for Washington County!
 
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WD9GHG

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Thanks for info

Thanks for the info Jack. I live in Mt, Vernon and monitor all the surrounding counties including Washington. Will be interesting to see how this all shakes out.
Tell brother Jim hello for me.
Alan Jolly
 

jboczek

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I'll tell Jim Hi! Seems I remember him mentioning your name somewhere along the line.
It's interesting that the "communications committee" only a couple months ago said the money wasn't there to go digital, hardly enough to make the improvements for narrowband. All of a sudden, last week, we were told about the digital move and, I might add, at about double the price of the original estimate. I hope it works out, both for the county and the radio vendor.
 

jboczek

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Just a little update on Washington County. Everybody should be narrowbanded, but the digital move is delayed for a while. And the different Washington County fire dispatch frequency will also be late in the making. So, for now, dispatch will still be on 154.430 for all fire in the county.
 

nick1427d

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What will the new frequency be and when do you expect it to be implemented?
 

jboczek

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Don't know the frequency yet. According to the guys that are supposed to know, it may be up to 3 months before the new fire frequency is implemented. They're trying to get registered for more height on that antenna (tower), then frequency coordination, then licensing. It'll be a while.
 

nick1427d

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Do they use a PL tone on 154.430?
 
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jboczek

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If they have, they haven't let the fire departments know. It is possible that Washington County Sheriff and Nashville Fire have put it on their transmit, since they have recently reprogrammed for narrowband but I don't know that for fact. Washington County dispatch is still carrier squelch. As a side note, Ashley Fire has gone online with repeater transmit 151.325, CTCSS 71.9 for local ops. Dispatch is still from Washington County Sheriff and Jefferson County Sheriff on 154.430. "Rumor" has it that Jefferson County Sheriff dispatch for fire will be implementing 032DPL on 154.430 in the near future. They're transmitting it now but receive is still open on their end.
 
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jboczek

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I just saw the database shows a 114 DPL for Washington County's Fire Dispatch frequency 154.430. Can somebody tell me where that information came from? I know there was a post that it showed up but nobody has told my fire department about it if they have implemented it. It would kind of upset me if they intend to use it since we just reprogrammed all our radios and would then have to do it again to put the DPL on.
 

nick1427d

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Even if a dispatch center is broadcasting a PL during transmit, you're FD radios will be able to receive if they are on CSQ. Now if your dispatch center has a PL receive then you will have to have your radios programmed with that PL during transmit or they won't hear you.

It's beneficial for a dispatch center to use PL tones. Especially on 154.430 they won't have to listen to other dispatch centers.

This also may have been a fluke and/or testing. I know St. Clair county broadcasts a PL tone on 154.190 it seems whenever they feel like it. It's not always there, and I know departments that are still on VHF with them that don't broadcast PL tones.

If you can program your scanner for Tone search and see what you come up with.
 

cubn

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I don't know if this was the case but when Farmer City used to page on 154.190 I used to get various PL tones showing up during the tone part of the page that weren't present when there was only voice.
 

jboczek

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I've now heard from 2 reliable sources that Washington County Sheriff will indeed be on Starcom. I haven't heard when, but apparently the testing was real and the switch will be made.Grant money paid for it?
 

stevelton

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This will be interesting. Thanks for the update. I will keep an eye out for new talkgroups while Im over that way.
Steven
 

jboczek

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The Washington County Sheriff has announced to the county board that he will purchase $53,000 worth of starcom radios with grant money and no cost to the county. No word on when they'll be on line, etc. There's been a strange turn of events in the county's radio systems lately. Guess it'll all sort itself out some day. Looks like county wide fire and ambulance paging will be on 151.1525. Some day.
 

jboczek

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I know the sheriff's office will be paying monthly fees for using their radios. I don't know how many mobiles/portables they bought for 53k but those user fees will add up. Dispatch consoles were replaced during the first round of upgrades and I'm guessing it'll only be a programming change to get the TWO consoles to work with the new dispatch starcom radios. I'm not really sure why they did this, since it's only the sheriff's office and no other agency in the county. ISP uses the county's high band frequency whenever they need to talk to a deputy or county dispatch.
Maybe a smooth talking salesman from Motorola....
 

jboczek

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Well, still no movement on the new fire and ambulance dispatch frequency for Washington County. I don't know what they're waiting for. They've got the frequency licensed and I was told they would be putting a PL tone on it but that "hasn't been determined yet". We haven't heard a word about it from anyone, not the county, not Motorola.
Also we're still hearing the sheriff on high band so it doesn't sound like they got Starcom going yet, either.
 
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