Changes coming to Colonie's Radios & Operations

[LathamScan]

I just heard this last night at the fire station. For those of you who are familiar and regularly monitor the Colonie Digital 800 TRS, there will be some upcoming changes to the way we operate on it (on the fire side, at least).

Currently, when a fire call is dispatched, the dispatcher has four fire operations talkgroups (Fire Ops 1-4) they can assign a call to, and everyone involved on the call moves to that groups and stays there unless moved or until the call is terminated. The Fire Dispatch group is where calls are simulcast from the paging channel, and also just a general talkgroup you can use if you are in mobile service and not assigned to an incident.

Beginning 10/1/08, calls will still be assigned a fire ops talkgroup, but it will be for fireground operations only. Units that need to communicate with dispatch will need to be on the Fire Dispatch talkgroup, then switch over to the assigned ops tg. Dispatch will no longer monitor the Fire Ops TG's. Because of the way the radios are currently programmed, Fire Dispatch will be moved from the fifth channel position on the radio to the first. Fire Ops 1-4 will then fall behind Fire Dispatch.

Also, there will be two more analog simplex frequencies added to the radios, bringing the number of analog simplex frequencies up to three total. This is being done due to increased issues with firefighter's portable radios not being able to get out of some buildings or areas back to the trunked system reliably. Since the system was turned on, the fire services have noticed that there are more places (mostly inside larger buildings) where their portable radio can't talk back to the system.

Kevin

[DaveNF2G]

My information indicates a total of four simplex channels, including Region 30 EMS.

See the note at the bottom of my 01D6 system page....

http://nf2g.com/scannist/ny_alba/01d6.html

[LathamScan]

Dave,

I checked one of my Engine portables this afternoon. For conventional channels I currently only have the following...

Corporate Woods
Colonie Center
Region 30 All

Interestingly, Corporate Woods and Colonie Center are in P-25 digital mode on different frequencies (I think they were 853.8625 and 853.8125). Region 30 All was the only analog frequency on 853.9875.

I tried to get some more info on the new analog simplex channels but I'm not getting anywhere. The Town does have licenses for all of the Region 30 channels, which are (or were):
Region 30 Fire - 868.8625
Region 30 EMS - 868.8875
Region 30 Law - 868.9125
Region 30 All - 868.9875

Also, the town has licenses for the national channels as well - 866.0125, 866.5125, 867.0125, 867.5125, 868.0125

My understanding is due to re-banding those frequencies are moving from 868.xxxx to 853.xxxx. I suppose, though I dont know for sure, that we may get region 30 fire and region 30 ems, but the channel names are going to be talkaround 1 and talkaround 2. When we get back from vacation the radios will have been re-programmed so I will go get a portable off the engine and check it out.

Kevin

[kc2kvz]

95% coverage townwide at the center of the street.... that's why some depts have acquired their own system....Hope your not in the 5% zone....

[DaveNF2G]

Thanks for the two digital freqs. My source wasn't sure because they weren't in his radio.