NC SHP High VHF

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C138NC

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Does anyone still pick up activity from NCSHP using their High Band Freq's in their vehicle or Low Band? I know VIPER has dead spots in parts of the state that their in car VHF/Lo-VHF can work better or are they currently deprecated?
 

KE4ZNR

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Does anyone still pick up activity from NCSHP using their High Band Freq's in their vehicle or Low Band? I know VIPER has dead spots in parts of the state that their in car VHF/Lo-VHF can work better or are they currently deprecated?

I believe SHP VHF High Band is a thing of the past....put it this way: I live a few mins from the NC State Fairgrounds in Raleigh and I keep the highband VHF frequencies in my radios...if there was going to be any use of them it would have been during the State Fair recently....and I heard nothing.

Marshall KE4ZNR
 

kg4uad

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I still occasionally hear activity on 155.445 131.8pl here in henderson county. Low band is still alive and well here and i believe that vehicular repeaters are still in use.

kg4uad
 

yardbird

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I know that SHP Highband 3 hasn't been online in the Cabarrus area for some time.

SHP High Band 7 Crowder Mtn. is still alive.

The last time I looked the three High Band Highway Patrol channels have been reassigned for Statewide/Common usage.

Look under the Statewide section in the database and you wil see how they are assigned now.

Hope this helps

David
 

mhodgson

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Like many local agencies, the VHF Hi Band spectrum licensed to the state was all subject to the same narrowbanding requirements the became law on 1 January 2013. With that said, all of the former NC Wildlife Resources Commission channels have been transferred to the State Highway Patrol and along with the previous SHP Hi Band channels, all have been relicensed to narrow band emissions. As for the long term future, stay tuned. Marshall, I am surprised you didnt catch the VHF Hi Band usage during the fair if you were listening since we did use it one day (Can Day) to equip and support the efforts of the NC Food Bank. As for the use of 155.445 PL 131.8, that represents the output of the VRS tied to the low band radios in the cars. Only the last of the Vertex in car repeaters (still a VRS to me) will do narrow band, along with the last of the HT1000's and the few MT1500's that were in service. Those configurations have remained in areas of the state where VIPER has not yet been completed. We now have every sworn member with an XTS5000 and I think that many are using them out of the car regardless of still having the VRS/LB combination.

M
 

KE4ZNR

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Marshall, I am surprised you didnt catch the VHF Hi Band usage during the fair if you were listening since we did use it one day (Can Day) to equip and support the efforts of the NC Food Bank.
M

Well I stand corrected :)
Thanks for the correction there Mike...I did have the ol' 680 programmed in but I must have missed the radio traffic that day. Of course I kept my work radio on the VIPER Statewide Event TGs when off duty and that consumed
the majority of my Fair monitoring this year.
I think back to the days of yall using Low Band Channel 19 at the Fair....the good ol' days :D
Folks this is another good example of why keeping those rarely used frequencies around in your radios is a good idea. You never know when they might become active again!
Happy Monitoring
Marshall KE4ZNR
 

RohnsRadio

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last i was told.
the high band repeaters were going back online to be used for "interop"
i hear a "keyup" on 154.68 and 155.475 here in kinston area once in a while.
i may just put them back in my scanner at the house. i have them in my radio on the truck.

as far as low band goes. i hear some stuff on low band but most seems to be "patched" from the almighty VIPER system.
 

C138NC

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I keep 68 and the other one on the radio, I heard key ups before and thats it, I wish i could put low band in because they still dispatch on low band, I guess simulcast but I have the scanner in the truck tuned in on fire and ems and highway patrol, wish they could simulcast on the VHF Hi but with all the talks about VIPER failing or having alot of bugs, some agencies are slowly going back to their old system until VIPER is fixed or most of them choose not to even go to viper?
 

KE4ZNR

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but with all the talks about VIPER failing or having alot of bugs, some agencies are slowly going back to their old system until VIPER is fixed or most of them choose not to even go to viper?

That's funny...I have never heard of this talk about "VIPER failing" or "having alot of bugs". I don't think those sentiments are correct at all.
Where there is coverage VIPER works very well. Is the SHP working to improve coverage in all areas of the state? Of course. Just like any radio system administrator the SHP is working to make VIPER better and better with each day that passes. But to say that VIPER has had system "failures" or has "alot of bugs" is just flat out wrong.
Marshall KE4ZNR
 

Drafin

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Yeah I gotta agree with Marshall. No one in the know is talking of any "bugs" or "failing". I think this is bad information at at best or some kind of scare tactic by someone trying to sell radio systems to non Viper agencies at worst.

To many built in redundancies with overlapping coverage from towers and hardware to have a total system shutdown. Any electronic system of any sort CAN fail. But I have never heard anything but glowing reviews from people that I have spoken with that use the VIPER system on a daily basis...

I'd also like to know what "agencies are slowly going back to their old system until VIPER is fixed"? I have never heard that in any county that has the tower build out plan completed. You either have coverage or not. There is no "fix".

As far as the "most of them choose not to even go to viper". Marshall , correct me if I'm wrong here, but the intention was never for all agencies to use VIPER as their primary source of communications. It was intended for interop between the agencies following the radio troubles experienced 9/11/2001 by the New York City agencies and a way for NCSHP to get standardized and allow them to communicate more easily with other agencies and county comm centers. A lot of agencies started jumping on the VIPER train when grants became available to fund a portion of equipment upgrades following the terrorist attacks of that day. I know at least one very high ranking administrator on the local level that knew his agency was due an upgrade in communications equipment and decided that offsetting the extra cost of the higher dollar radios (at the time), made using VIPER a no brainer.

Draf
 
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KE4ZNR

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As far as the "most of them choose not to even go to viper". Marshall , correct me if I'm wrong here, but the intention was never for all agencies to use VIPER as their primary source of communications. It was intended for interop between the agencies following the radio troubles experienced 9/11/2001 by the New York City agencies and a way for NCSHP to get standardized and allow them to communicate more easily with other agencies and county comm centers. A lot of agencies started jumping on the VIPER train when grants became available to fund a portion of equipment upgrades following the terrorist attacks of that day. I know at least one very high ranking administrator on the local level that knew his agency was due an upgrade in communications equipment and decided that offsetting the extra cost of the higher dollar radios (at the time), made using VIPER a no brainer.

Draf

The above is 100% correct. Hell the name tells you that: Voice Interoperability Plan for Emergency Responders. In the early days the primary concern was from State EOC in Raleigh to the Coastal areas in case the coastal areas had to be evacuated due to Hurricanes.
It was never designed (nor could it handle) every county using it as a day to day primary communications source. But it does work well as an Interop or backup communications option.
Marshall KE4ZNR
 

C138NC

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No its from some friends who work for the local agencies here. They either love it or hate it but they keep their vhf handy
 

C138NC

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No Police Officers, Burlington is on Greensboro's so I know they have no issues but im talking about everyone else in alamance that went VIPER, some dead spots here and there, Graham had to use one of their old radios after one of the officers who got hurt because no one heard him on 800 calling for help.
 

mhodgson

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For those of you who peruse these pages alot you will know that neither I nor the outstanding team members who make up VIPER rarely post responses to posts that we read on Radio Reference. It is as a rule better to remain neutral about things rather than fuel controversy on either side of an argument. With that said, I would like to entertain a few comments that I think everyone needs to ponder, be it about VIPER or any other modern communications system. Indeed these are my comments and mine alone;

In 1980 when I became a Wake County volunteer fireman, we had a single site, two frequency simplex VHF system and for the most part, two channel, 25w mobiles and 5w portables. We could not talk across the county, nor could we talk to anyone other than, on occasion, the rescue squads or Raleigh Fire Department. There was a primary transmitter and receiver base station tied to the communications center and a backup (alias for "the old one that we replaced with the new one). If either failed, they failed and a repairman was dispatched to restore service. The world did not end, it just meant that we had to overcome the "outage"...which we did...mind you we also had NO cellular phones to simply call 911 on if our radio did not work...

I say this simply to point out that in the "good ole days", the radio system wasnt perfect, yet we made do. The same is true for the Highway Patrol, we have had low band radios dating back to the late 1940's and had some semblance of a statewide system by the 1950's. I heard an individual remark the other day that the Patrol needed to maintain our low band system in the event that a tower were to be destroyed, or the microwave system that ties VIPER together were to go away. On the surface, the comment had merit however when one factors in that the same towers and microwave support not only VIPER but state and local legacy systems in many cases, removing a "brick" from the foundation, could lead to a collapse regardless of what system it is.

VIPER and other "trunked" radio systems have brought to the table a vast number of features and capabilities that were only dreamed about in 1979 but with that one has to consider that the more complex the systems become, the more points of failure that have been introduced. The problems, when they do occur, are always accentuated in many cases because virtually all the emergency responders are affected when an outage happens. There is a trade off for everything and like a "free lunch", there is no such thing as a 100% system. Just ask the President of White Star Lines, the day after the Titanic sunk, "is there an unsinkable ship?"

Specifically for those who have opted to use VIPER as a means of expanding their capabilites or replacing their legacy systems, yet found it lacking once they made the move, I think everyone needs to take a deep breath and consider some facts. When agencies, counties, cities, etc. are invited to consider VIPER, the system is typically operating to some extent in their respective jurisdictions. This affords them the ability to "test drive" the system prior to buying the first radio (each county received 20 at not cost to use for evaluations, in part). No one from VIPER has to my knowledge, ever forced an agency,et al: to join based upon the premise that "you have to take what coverage there is". If the coverage was determined by an agency to meet their need, then radios were purchased and activated. Unfortunately, reality is, just that...reality...and often once agencies are on line, the coverage really did not address all the areas that it was needed. In every instance VIPER has worked with its user community and partners to solve those issues, after the fact. I am thankful that only once have we had to relocate a tower after the system was operational and as one might expect, somethings changed when that move occured..they ALWAYS will.

VIPER is many things, an inter-operability solution for many, a primary communications system for others, or simply a "tool in the toolbox" for some. It is maintained by a committed team of professionals who work tirelessly to make it the best system that it can be and as is the case with virtually everything in life, it is as close to 100% as all of VIPER and our partners can make it but in my mind, there is no absolute 100% in anything....

M
 

Drafin

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Very well state Mr. Hodgson... very well indeed.

And to C138NC, "some dead spots here and there" is a far cry from your original statement of "VIPER failing", "having alot of bugs", and "agencies are slowly going back to their old system until VIPER is fixed".

I know for a fact that the law enforcement agency that I worked for has much better coverage with VIPER than they had with VHF/UHF. The VFD's were not pleased with VIPER but it had nothing to do with coverage and was all about funding to purchase the radios as well as the "problem" of not being able to tone out through the radios.

Draf
 

CCHLLM

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I really don't know how Mr. Hodgson keeps his cool when posting here. There is so much misinformation and so many outright falsehoods being passed around about VIPER that it is little wonder some question VIPER's capabilities. It goes without saying that no one from the State of NC has forced any entity or agency to join VIPER, but that doesn't stop some from making it up as they go. VIPER is offered to potential participating entities on a subscriber basis, and any necessary additional local infrastructure and equipment that is built out and placed in service is supported by the state system resources.

Without oversimplifying the premises of cooperative efforts between VIPER and local subscriber entities, the reality is that VIPER is aimed at 95% coverage statewide at street level. If XYZ County decides to join VIPER, and if they need 95% in-building coverage, then XYZ County is responsible for financing and obtaining the local infrastructure that will accomplish XYZ County's local coverage goals. The state will assist and participate in the respective entities' efforts to get the requisite financing and equipment needed. VIPER is a work-in-progress, and if there are glitches and problems, they will be rectified as quickly as possible and then resolved as the system continues to build out.

VIPER does have one glaring inadequacy however, and that can be summed up in the inordinately long, long time period it is taking to build out the system. From the outside, that flaw seems to land largely and squarely on delays caused by inadequate financing and shuffling of state money from Peter's account to Paul's account to Mary's account to pay Jeremiah before paying the piper. In other words, state politics as usual. So far, the build-out period has spanned at least three generations of MotherMoto's, and isn't completed yet. One doesn't need much imagination to comprehend how that must complicate the design and build-out process, much less how difficult it makes keeping system costs in bounds.
 
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