Wash Co Fire
Washington County Fire now uses a simulcast system on 2 different freqs throughout the county on (if memory serves) approx 5 towers. Therefore, unlike the old system, the page for forest lake can now be heard all the way down in Denmark Township as it uses all towers instead of the Forest Lake tower only.
This simulcasting was able to be done once the county moved over to the ARMER system and vacated the old freqs.
As for the CW this is due to the fact that the 800Mhz traffic from the Fire N tkgrp is patched to the Fire Paging N VHF freq, as well as Fire S tkgrp is patched to the Fire Paging S VHF freq. In addition both Fire tkgrps are patched together also. Therefore, ALL fire traffic on main tkgrps are patch to the VHF paging. Thus, the CW needs to take place due to the patching, and of course, FCC law.
As for the old fire freq it will go back on line someday as a VHF freq that can be patched into the 800Mhz by Wash Co for interop with the VHF'ers (i.e. St Croix Co, Pierce, Polk, Chisago Co, etc...) They will run off 2 towers with one in Forest Lake and the King Stack, and these will only be when the need for interop takes place.