WV Apco 25 systems

[Captpicard]

I work at RS and we have an increasing number of customers who want digital scanners. We are having trouble with counties that "supposedly" are going to go digital, might go digital, have gone digital. In particular we get a lot of questions about WV State Police.

Today we have a customer who insisted that Calhoun County was going all digital, but the database simply lists everything as FMN.

1) How can we determine if a county has or will go digital?
2) Have the WV SP gone digital or digital with encryption
3) Is there a simple inexpensive way to upgrade the Uniden Home Patrol1 for newer digital
systems.

Many thanks and we recommend RadioReference to all our customers. It's a great site!

 

[RDGDigital]

I'm not in West Virginia, but looking at the database most all of West Virginia (State, Counties and even some local system) is on the West Virginia Statewide Interoperability Radio Network (SIRN) Trunking System, Statewide, West Virginia - Scanner Frequencies system, which is already a digital system.

Just glancing at the State Police trunk groups only a few of the TGs are encrypted, usually CID or other investigative units. If you look at the "Mode" column a "D" means Digital and an "E" means Encrypted.

Most all of Radio Shack's digital scanners should be able to pick up this system. The PRO-651/652, WS1040/1065 & The Uniden models BCD436HP, BCD996XT, BCD396XT and the Home Patrol-1/2 should all work for this system.

Like I said earlier, I'm not in WV and knowing how much of WV is very rural there may very well be some areas that are still using the older analog radios.

There really isn't an easy way to know when systems are going to be upgraded. You could monitor the West Virginia forum here on RadioReference. Other then that it's would be keeping watch on what your state and county official are proposing, what the media is saying or watching the FCC filings.

 

[jonwienke]

I listen to WV-SIRN most of the time, and I have yet to run across any encrypted traffic for the state police, or any county sheriff, EMS, or FD (Jefferson, Berkeley, or Morgan counties). If they have sensitive stuff, they use cell phones or send a text message through CAD (computer-aided dispatch). I doubt encryption will happen anytime soon.

 

[flythunderbird]

I work at RS and we have an increasing number of customers who want digital scanners. We are having trouble with counties that "supposedly" are going to go digital, might go digital, have gone digital. In particular we get a lot of questions about WV State Police.

Today we have a customer who insisted that Calhoun County was going all digital, but the database simply lists everything as FMN.

1) How can we determine if a county has or will go digital?
2) Have the WV SP gone digital or digital with encryption
3) Is there a simple inexpensive way to upgrade the Uniden Home Patrol1 for newer digital systems.

Welcome!

I noticed in the database that Calhoun County Multiple Dispatch's FCC licenses expire next March, so it's possible that the agencies will be changing to SIRN.

To respond to your questions ...

1) The SIRN website lists the participanting agencies in the various counties - here's the list for Calhoun County:

Details

I don't know how often this list is updated.

Short of someone at an agency telling you if/when that agency has gone digital, one way to know if a county, etc. has changed is if their current frequencies go quiet. You'd then have to search to find the new frequencies, or keep an eye on the FCC database. Alternatively, an amateur radio club might be able to help you out.

2) As RDGDigital and jonwienke said, the State Police has already gone digital on SIRN. I think they still use their old VHF frequencies for simulcast, but I could be wrong - I haven't listened to the VHF analog frequencies in quite some time.

3) The Home Patrol-1 is already capable of handling P25 Phase I digital systems.

Hopefully, more people will chime in with answers to your first question.