Montgomery County, PA hopes to end mixed signals for police

MotoSystemsTech · Apr 12, 2015

Montgomery County hopes to overcome this type of challenge by rolling out an upgraded radio system by early next year, said John Corcoran, deputy director of external affairs for the Department of Public Safety.

The county will spend $29.9 million on a contract with Motorola Solutions Inc. to replace the emergency dispatch radio system, creating a system across the county that communicates on the same frequency. It will no longer cost municipalities an extra fee to use an encrypted signal.

Montgomery County hopes to end mixed signals for police | Reading Eagle - NEWS

Septa3371CSX1 · Apr 12, 2015

Reading the article it appears there may be more encrypted police talk groups on the new system. Can't say that for sure yet but it sounds like all radios will have encryption and allow everyone to be on the same channel. It should be interesting to see what happens.

SOSBaseStation · Apr 12, 2015

Wonder if Berks and Montgomery will be on the same frequencies.

Article mentions tri-county communication will be several years away. Not sure why this would be the case.

Skypilot007 · Apr 12, 2015

Sounds like another county we will no longer be able to listen too.

cavmedic · Apr 13, 2015

SOSBaseStation said:
Wonder if Berks and Montgomery will be on the same frequencies.

Article mentions tri-county communication will be several years away. Not sure why this would be the case.

I Highly doubt they will be on the same system or even share frequencies.

They currently have tri county communications. You just have to use the 800 interops. The problem is getting people to USE them , KNOW how to get their radio there and BERKS to setup the patches...

cavmedic · Apr 13, 2015

MotoSystemsTech said:
Montgomery County hopes to overcome this type of challenge by rolling out an upgraded radio system by early next year, said John Corcoran, deputy director of external affairs for the Department of Public Safety.

The county will spend $29.9 million on a contract with Motorola Solutions Inc. to replace the emergency dispatch radio system, creating a system across the county that communicates on the same frequency. It will no longer cost municipalities an extra fee to use an encrypted signal.

Montgomery County hopes to end mixed signals for police | Reading Eagle - NEWS

The mentioned issue with Pottstown and the surrounding municipalities being able to talk could have been eliminated easily. All responding units could have utilized the secondary talk group for region two PD that is NOT encrypted.

radio_runner2003 · Apr 13, 2015

There goes another one

Well that will be another we can no longer listen too because you know they will encrypt it. Guess its time to think about just get rid of the scanners..

Septa3371CSX1 · Apr 13, 2015

Nothing in the article stated all police will be encrypted. It only said that everyone would be able to communicate on the same channel without needing to go through the county dispatch center. That to me says that while Region 12 (Pottstown) will remain encrypted, Region 2 (surrounding communities) may not be but those departments will be able to switch to Region 12 when called on to assist Pottstown. I do not know what radios the departments in Region 2 currently have but I wouldn't be surprised if some (or all) of the departments still have older analog only models or digital radios that don't have the encryption keys for Region 12.

cavmedic · Apr 14, 2015

i would not be surprised if the phase 2 transition by 2019 does not bring all law enforcement to encryption. Within the next year , the county should be rolling out the finance program for all departments to participate in the no interest loan for the purchase of all APX radios to replace the current Xts , XTL , MCS and spectras that still are In service.

I have already had discussions ( when I got my APX) with the County about those who run mutual aid with Berks, and getting the Berks system programmed into the radios and that is a good possibility that may happen. I can assume they would do the same for Chester( the tri county reference), pending on what system they switch over to.

I could imagine the logistical nightmare that would create for the system admins for respective counties with creating templates for all those radios , and back end for access.

We shall see what happens within the next 3 years.

HM1529 · Apr 14, 2015

cavmedic said:
i would not be surprised if the phase 2 transition by 2019 does not bring all law enforcement to encryption. Within the next year , the county should be rolling out the finance program for all departments to participate in the no interest loan for the purchase of all APX radios to replace the current Xts , XTL , MCS and spectras that still are In service.

I have already had discussions ( when I got my APX) with the County about those who run mutual aid with Berks, and getting the Berks system programmed into the radios and that is a good possibility that may happen. I can assume they would do the same for Chester( the tri county reference), pending on what system they switch over to.

I could imagine the logistical nightmare that would create for the system admins for respective counties with creating templates for all those radios , and back end for access.

We shall see what happens within the next 3 years.

Berks, Chester, Montgomery, and Bucks are all moving to compatible platforms in the same frequency range (700/800). There is no reason other than people and personalities why new radios cannot have multiple systems in them so users no longer need to have a batman belt full of radios if their agencies run in multiple counties. You would think, with Philly also on a compatible platform in the same range, that this would be an item for the SE regional taskforce to coordinate. Some NJ counties in the metro area, as well as New Castle County/DE state, would also be compatible...all with just a 700/800 radio. You also have the NJ state system(s) and the pending upgrade of the PA state system to P25.

This region is ripe for coordination when it comes to simplifying radio interoperability.

cavmedic · Apr 14, 2015

By the time all that possibly happens, the curent systems will probably no longer be supported.

SCPD · Apr 14, 2015

OUTSTANDING!!!!!

phillydjdan · Apr 14, 2015

My personal radio has every 700/800 system in service programmed into it, and it works fine. I never understood why cities and counties couldn't get on the same page and issue radio IDs to out of county agencies. I mean, there are a few instances of this between Montco and Bucks fire units, and some special units have Bucks radio IDs (Philly PD helo, Trenton Rescue 1, etc) but that's it. I've spoken to a police officer who works on the border of 2 counties and he wishes they would put the police district on the other side of his border into his radio, but they simply won't, even if it's in "listen only" mode. Government bureaucracy frustrates me to no end.

kh11 · Apr 15, 2015

FWIW: Montco's fire radio template includes Chester County talk groups for interop.

What ticks me off is they won't put the local Police zone on our fire radios. We have to resort to listening to scanners to be able to hear the initial reports from PD units responding to fire calls. They could at least give it to as a "listen-only" group.

phillydjdan · Apr 15, 2015

Wow, even Bucks has the police zones programmed in the fire radios. They can even transmit on them! lol

cavmedic · Apr 16, 2015

kh11 said:
FWIW: Montco's fire radio template includes Chester County talk groups for interop.

What ticks me off is they won't put the local Police zone on our fire radios. We have to resort to listening to scanners to be able to hear the initial reports from PD units responding to fire calls. They could at least give it to as a "listen-only" group.

If you are referring to Ccfd, Ccpd and Ccfp, or how they are labeled, ( on the old Xts radios , prior to the rebrand, were in the "d" bank) those aren't a talk groups , those are just simplex frequencies.

HM1529 · Apr 16, 2015

cavmedic said:
If you are referring to Ccfd, Ccpd and Ccfp, or how they are labeled, ( on the old Xts radios , prior to the rebrand, were in the "d" bank) those aren't a talk groups , those are just simplex frequencies.

Correct. None of the radios on Montco's current system can operate on Chester's current multinet system. The only thing shared is simplex channels right now. After the system upgrades in both counties, there are many more options. What will actually be done remains to be seen, I suppose.

kh11 · Apr 16, 2015

cavmedic said:
If you are referring to Ccfd, Ccpd and Ccfp, or how they are labeled, ( on the old Xts radios , prior to the rebrand, were in the "d" bank) those aren't a talk groups , those are just simplex frequencies.

Ah, thanks for the correction. I'd never really looked at them in detail since my company is too far away to ever really use that zone.

captaincab · Apr 17, 2015

Delaware county has a command channel that fire radios can use to access the police radio dispatchers and some fire departments with the county's ok i assume have the local police sector programmed to transmit in their radios.

phillydjdan said:
Wow, even Bucks has the police zones programmed in the fire radios. They can even transmit on them! lol

jwco16 · Apr 21, 2015

As of last month (March) no decision has been made regarding expanding the use of encryption in Mont. Co, PA’s new system. There are some issues they need to work out. The radios come with a Motorola proprietary software encryption, the problem -it’s not true “P25”, because it’s Motorola only. Adding DES-XL/DES-OFB to every police radio would cost over $400 per radio ($407 if I recall correctly). That would work, but could be cost prohibitive for some agencies. It would only take one PD to not spend the extra money to keep the County from widespread use of encryption.

I suspect the system will be mostly clear with some additional encrypted police “tac” channels, but that’s just an “educated” guess.

Currently all dispatch is clear, with the exception of 56DISP and PD12 (Upper Merion & Pottstown). The tac channels are clear except for SECURE1 to SECURE 5. County Detectives, Haz-mat/ Bomb Squad, and Public Safety Administration have dedicated encrypted channels.

Montgomery County, PA hopes to end mixed signals for police

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