Lincoln PD radio woes

[Dak48]

I noticed a lot of traffic today on LPD channel 20. Seems like a lot of dispatching is being done it for some reason. I also noticed they did a sweep of one of the lower income trailer courts in Lincoln, and they were running a ton of record checks on channel 21, normally this is done on channel 50.

Anyone have an information as to what is going on with the system?

[Astrak]

They were probably just running some sort of a taskforce or detail and instead of tying up the regular info channel 50 and main dispatch channels they used 20 and 21. If you have a myspace, LPD has a myspace page and the officer that runs it is real nice and responds fairly quickly to any questions you might have.

[Dak48]

While they were doing a task force yesterday, I did hear dispatch say on channel 20 "we are still having radio problems on some of the dispatch channels... radio shop is advised and working on it, and we are using 20 until the problem is solved."

It was strange though, because chans 1, 3 and 5 are used for dispatch, though I didnt see 1 being used as much, 3 and 5 appeared to working ok, so it must have been channel 1 that was having the most serious of problems.

I don't know, maybe I missed it, maybe they were working for the backup communications center. Fire was coming in weak yesterday, and that always seems to be the case when dispatchers are working from the backup center.

[NeFire242]

Yeah I noticed Fire was a little weaker than normal, might explain it if they're using their backup.

[Dak48]

I found this article about a special warrant detail that was running the day that I noticed LPD was having radio troubles. So between radio troubles and this detail, things had to be a little crazy I'd think.

60 Warrants Served in Special Detail

[Dak48]

This afternoon I began hearing LPD dispatch indicating they were having problems receiving units in the field, as they have been heard to say "we are having some radio trouble."

I'm hearing dispatch just fine myself, but have been having a hard time copying all the units, they sound very faint or full of noise/static. It's pretty bad, and everyone is having to repeat themselves.

[Dak48]

Lincoln Fire is having the same issues as LPD is. At this time I'd suspect that there is a system wide problem, affecting all agencies in public safety and public works.

Another thing I noticed today, lots of open carriers, not sure what causes that, unless someone is sitting on the mic.

Will keep updates coming.

[Dak48]

By 11pm Friday night, the radio issues the City and County were experiencing seem to be rectified. Saturday morning bases and mobiles were coming in crystal clear.

I was talking with a cop friend about it, everything was working fine until around the 5pm hour and then things went south. I thought maybe a lightning strike might have accounted for the issue, but the storms that rolled through we well over by 5pm.

I asked my friend if she knew what the issue was, but they never tell officers anything.

[Dak48]

I went to the Chief's blog that he has (link to follow), and asked what the issue was Friday with the communications system. This is what he had to say:

"As I understand it, we lost a microwave link at one of the two sites for a while, requiring a technician to go out and effect the repair.

There are several levels of fail-soft, including single-site and conventional, but apparently it was resolved quickly enough that we didn't get very deep on the list. I didn't hear about it until I read your comment.

I really don't know how long it lasted, and whether we actually went to conventional (non-trunked) or single site (non-simulcast) or just muddled through. I called down this morning to ask, but nobody knew much about it. Maybe someone else who was on duty can tell you."

For those of you not in the know, Tom has a pretty decent blog and writes to it frequently. It's worth a read and if you are curious the link is pasted below.

The Chief's Corner