Paterson NJ, Some nostalgia and few questions.

[LYNJ_OEM3298]

Though I reside in a nearby community, It has been some time since I monitored the City of Paterson. More like 20 years when I worked in Paterson. So I started listening to them again about 2 weeks ago. Some things have remained the same and of course some things have changed. Notably the Fire and EMS moving to 500 Mhz T- Band from their old 46 Mhz frequencies. I believe Paterson EMS or I read in a forum may have received equipment from Bergen County’s old 476 system before their move to a UHF P25 system. The preverbal and noticeable “Bee Dummp” courtesytype tone on EMS dispatch frequency is very reminiscent or identical to the one once heard on the old Bergen County system.

Police still have their 4 UHF frequencies. Their dispatch on 460.300 in my opinion has not changed format save the voices of new and younger dispatchers and officers. Their Police Ch 2 460.250 now carriers a new courtesy “beep” tone. Either they replaced the old Ch 2 repeater or added this feature to help officers in the field know what channel their on.
As it was 20 years ago Ch 3 460.225 & Ch 4 460.275 remain very quiet except for the occasional detective unit. Back then when I last monitored the Housing PD used either PF Ch 3 or 4.
And speaking of Housing PD over the last 20 years it seems they were on their own frequency 453.1000 & 453.6375 PL 192.8. But that too looks like it has come to an end. Housing canceled their WNNC394 license in June 2012 only to have the frequency picked up by the Police under WQQA446 in October 2012. Regardless, I have not heard activity on this frequency. They move or what?



Suggestions are welcome on any other changes in Paterson monitoring.



Thanks for reading.



Jersey_Ken

[Alarmguy]

The sound that you hear on EMS is no doubt coming from an old Orbacomm Console. But I know the tone you are mentioning. I have seen pictures of Paterson Fire Alarm and in it was an old Orbacomm console for the FD and EMS. As for the tone on Police 2 I thought it was some type of error tone for the repeater.

[LYNJ_OEM3298]

My next question.

Is 453.1000 being used by PD for Housing PD or some other function. The more ears listening the better chance to find out whats what?

J_K

[Sybex7254]

I thought Paterson Housing Police was absorbed into the regular Police Department and now there is just a Housing Division of the Paterson Police department (just like the traffic division) versus a seperate agency. Passaic did the same thing years ago with their Housing Police Department.

[LYNJ_OEM3298]

Originally Posted by Sybex7254

I thought Paterson Housing Police was absorbed into the regular Police Department and now there is just a Housing Division of the Paterson Police department (just like the traffic division) versus a seperate agency. Passaic did the same thing years ago with their Housing Police Department.

It's quite possible, its been 20 years since I last listened until very recently.
Since the HA License has been re licensed to the PD they now have 5th repeater channel. Ch 5? But if it has been assigned to detectives or other department within the agency. It's a good chance just like thier Chs 3 & 4 it will be mostly a quiet frequency.

Ken

[Sybex7254]

Yeah if memory serves Housing PD was once on PD CH2 and then on PD CH4. I do know that the Housing Authority has has 453.100 for some time now but can't say whether it was used by the Housing Police then or now. I guess if you are hearing PD activity on that channel it answers the question.

I hardly listened to Paterson PD when I lived in Passaic. It was always better to catch the action in Paterson on the Sheriff and Prosecutor's channels!

[902]

Originally Posted by Jersey_Ken

The preverbal and noticeable “Bee Dummp” courtesytype tone on EMS dispatch frequency is very reminiscent or identical to the one once heard on the old Bergen County system.

That's a not a courtesy tone, Ken. That's a tone remote command. The transmitter turns on when that's sent. If the repeater is still hanging when it's sent from the console, you might hear it, but sometimes if the transmitter is just keying up, it won't come through.

Bergen County cranked their line levels and compression. The tone remote format sounded like a low tone, then a high tone. That's a phenomenon of filtering, gains, and other system factors. The keying tone was still 2175/1950 Hz. And, if you backed down the levels, the tones would again start to sound like a high tone/ low tone. Those were industry standards, so you could use an Orbacomm, Motorola, GE, CPI, Vega, GAItronics, or whatever console with whatever base station or repeater.

Who knows what happened to the original bunch of equipment. The repeaters and voting receivers were all Micor vintage, there were a bunch of Mocom-70 consolettes, Maxars in sergeants' cars, and those big table radios bolted under the dashboard of non-supervisors' cars. I think they wanted to rebuild the old KEA334 37.38 system, complete with the Plectrons. Then SPEN came along and that was that (as well as the signal from Alpine wasn't exactly the best in Southern Bergen Co.).

Back in the day, I installed an MSF5000 for the county up at Stag Hill, so all of that was gone by 1992. That was around the same time they put those after-market unit ID encoders on their radios.

[902]

Ya know, I never got into listening to Paterson. I guess I never had a good enough radio to pick up their 46 MHz stuff from where I lived and never followed them to UHF when I was still living up there. I was always listening to NYPD, Jersey City, "Nerk," or just a mixture of North Hudson and Southeastern Bergen towns. That, and I always got lost heading up to Paterson and ended up in the Wallingto/Clifto-Passaic metropolitan region for whatever reason. Guess I was secretly looking for kalbas and pierogies, or just wanting to stop by Meridian and Rutt's Hut.

[LYNJ_OEM3298]

Originally Posted by 902

Ya know, I never got into listening to Paterson. I guess I never had a good enough radio to pick up their 46 MHz stuff from where I lived and never followed them to UHF when I was still living up there. I was always listening to NYPD, Jersey City, "Nerk," or just a mixture of North Hudson and Southeastern Bergen towns. That, and I always got lost heading up to Paterson and ended up in the Wallingto/Clifto-Passaic metropolitan region for whatever reason. Guess I was secretly looking for kalbas and pierogies, or just wanting to stop by Meridian and Rutt's Hut.

Rutt's Hutt Oy that's for another thread! (I am veteran of Rutt's Hutt, I was a bus boy there when I was a young lad!

[902]

Originally Posted by Jersey_Ken

Rutt's Hutt Oy that's for another thread! (I am veteran of Rutt's Hutt, I was a bus boy there when I was a young lad!

Walking distance, too, if I remember my geography

[LYNJ_OEM3298]

Originally Posted by 902

Walking distance, too, if I remember my geography

Ahy Yep !

[W2MR]

I remember when the police was on two low band simplex frequencies 39.86 and 39.68 MHz

Before that they were dispatched by Bergen County Police on 2430 kHz - WPFK

Before that they got messages from radio station WODA Paterson

Before that - smoke signals

[902]

Originally Posted by W2MR

I remember when the police was on two low band simplex frequencies 39.86 and 39.68 MHz

Before that they were dispatched by Bergen County Police on 2430 kHz - WPFK

Before that they got messages from radio station WODA Paterson

Before that - smoke signals

What was the reason for their switch from 39 MHz to 37.38?

[Robinsmark]

Guys, the also had GE MASTR PE UHF Portables at one time. The used a 82.5 hz pl tone. I had to work on one once a long time ago. Probably sold to them by Warner.

[ScanXO]

Paterson went FROM 37.38 to 39.86/39.68, as radio trafic got busier and Bergen was dispatching for many of the local towns from Lodi to-Mawah and upper Passaic County like ringwood/west milford-which was an increase work load, - so says a passed away county officer

[902]

Originally Posted by ScanXO

Paterson went FROM 37.38 to 39.86/39.68, as radio trafic got busier and Bergen was dispatching for many of the local towns from Lodi to-Mawah and upper Passaic County like ringwood/west milford-which was an increase work load, - so says a passed away county officer

I was confused about Mark's statement about 39 MHz. I thought he was still talking about Bergen Co, but he was talking about Paterson. All of the low band dispatching got very active before agencies moved off. Remember 33.86 with the different pockets of activity throughout the county? It was fun listening to all of the nightly tests from the East Bergen towns, Garfield, Lodi, Upper Saddle River, Mahwah, etc. When I was old enough to finally join the FD, they gave me a red tube Plectron [that was deafer than anything] on it. Last time I came home and listened, 33.86 sounds like a garbage can filled with one-way traffic from agencies who moved to UHF and decided to grace it with hard-patches from their UHF traffic.

[LYNJ_OEM3298]

Originally Posted by Jersey_Ken

Since the HA License has been re licensed to the PD they now have 5th repeater channel. Ch 5? But if it has been assigned to detectives or other department within the agency. It's a good chance just like their Chs 3 & 4 it will be mostly a quiet frequency.

Ken

And thus 453.1000 aka Paterson HPD (CH 5) frequency is a quiet frequency similar to their Channels 3 & 4. I have been monitoring the last week or so with software/recording nothing but a distant agency (from me) using PL 162.2 i.e Garwood, NJ PD.

[902]

Originally Posted by Jersey_Ken

...a distant agency (from me) using PL 162.2 i.e Garwood, NJ PD.

Yeah, in Jersey terms, Garwood is on the other side of the galaxy. There has to be half a million people and a thousand traffic lights in between. Believe it or not, on a radio scale, putting two different systems the distance of Garwood and Paterson on the same frequency would not be done anywhere else in the country.