Tower going up, emergency radio transition progressing

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kenabos

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Tower going up, emergency radio transition progressing - News - The Kansan - Newton, KS - Newton, KS



By Nicolas Wahl
Newton Kansan
@NWahl_Kansan

Posted Aug. 6, 2015 at 12:01 AM

Newton, Kan.

With conversion of the county-owned tower at Camp Hawk nearly complete, construction of a new 800 MHz tower about one mile northeast of Zimmerdale is now underway.

*full text of article deleted. Please read http://forums.radioreference.com/forum-rules-guidelines/113848-reposts-news-stories.html before posting any more news stories. Thanks*
 
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nec911

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kenabos said:
Tower going up, emergency radio transition progressing - News - The Kansan - Newton, KS - Newton, KS



By Nicolas Wahl
Newton Kansan
@NWahl_Kansan

Posted Aug. 6, 2015 at 12:01 AM

Newton, Kan.

With conversion of the county-owned tower at Camp Hawk nearly complete, construction of a new 800 MHz tower about one mile northeast of Zimmerdale is now underway.

*full text of article deleted. Please read http://forums.radioreference.com/forum-rules-guidelines/113848-reposts-news-stories.html before posting any more news stories. Thanks*
Click to expand...

Good article Don.
 
dgruver911

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Yes, Nick does a great job. He and I have had several conversations about the radio project, and about how to present the information in a good fashion. He asks good questions and takes constructive advice very well. This is his first journalism job and I think he is going to do very well.

Back to the point, yes it is so good to finally see some movement on this thing. We got so bogged down in red tape and environmental studies. The tower should start going up next week, all the concrete is poured. They plan to break ground on the Burrton tower this week, if the rain stays away. Our go-live date has been moved back to November. We should have the system frequencies from the FCC any time so we can start programming radios.
 
Redneck0410

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Don, is it going to be somewhat possible to be able to hear traffic over there from here in Hutch or is it going to be somewhat limited to HV county?


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dgruver911

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Redneck0410 said:
Don, is it going to be somewhat possible to be able to hear traffic over there from here in Hutch or is it going to be somewhat limited to HV county?

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There will be a tower NE of Burrton which should provide reception into Hutch. Our 3 towers will be simulcast, so anything that is heard on one will be heard on all 3. We do NOT have frequencies for our 3 towers yet. Waiting on those from the state and FCC.

Something people need to understand...if there is not a radio set on one of our talkgroups affiliated with a certain tower, that tower is NOT going to broadcast our talkgroup. That's why scanning these systems is so problematic, for radios or scanners. But, it keeps the towers from busying out by being overloaded with talkgroups. Yes, our world is changing....But all of our talkgroups except a very small handful are loaded into the towers in Reno, Sedgwick, McPherson, Butler and Marion County, so it is possible that our talkgroups could be heard on them from time to time if a unit is closer to them then one of our towers. And as we are not standalone, our towers will broadcast any traffic from anybody passing through Harvey County that is on KSICS, and I expect a lot of eastern Reno County traffic to bounce off our system when they can't hit a Reno County tower first.
 
nec911

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dgruver911 said:
There will be a tower NE of Burrton which should provide reception into Hutch. Our 3 towers will be simulcast, so anything that is heard on one will be heard on all 3. We do NOT have frequencies for our 3 towers yet. Waiting on those from the state and FCC.

Something people need to understand...if there is not a radio set on one of our talkgroups affiliated with a certain tower, that tower is NOT going to broadcast our talkgroup. That's why scanning these systems is so problematic, for radios or scanners. But, it keeps the towers from busying out by being overloaded with talkgroups. Yes, our world is changing....But all of our talkgroups except a very small handful are loaded into the towers in Reno, Sedgwick, McPherson, Butler and Marion County, so it is possible that our talkgroups could be heard on them from time to time if a unit is closer to them then one of our towers. And as we are not standalone, our towers will broadcast any traffic from anybody passing through Harvey County that is on KSICS, and I expect a lot of eastern Reno County traffic to bounce off our system when they can't hit a Reno County tower first.
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Unfortunately we have folks out there with radios that don't understand that concept. We had a chase start in Shawnee County, end up on the KTA and involved Topeka, KHP-B, KHP-A, KTA, Douglas County, Leavenworth County and KCKPD all talking on different channels. Not quite sure how they kept from crashing that tower over east there but I am sure it was close with all that radio drag.
 
dgruver911

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We got our frequencies yesterday. I'll get them and our talkgroup ID's submitted to the database in the next day or 2. Still not looking at system live until October/November. As of yesterday they still hadn't started putting up the towers but I still look for that to begin this week.
 
Redneck0410

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dgruver911 said:
We got our frequencies yesterday. I'll get them and our talkgroup ID's submitted to the database in the next day or 2. Still not looking at system live until October/November. As of yesterday they still hadn't started putting up the towers but I still look for that to begin this week.
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Thanks for the update, Don.


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dgruver911

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Just thought I'd update you all; the north tower is up and the antennas are up, feedline for both voice and microwave should go up this week. They expect to begin erecting the west tower mid-week, and finish up at Camp Hawk the next week or two. Once everything is in place, they can hook it all up and start programming and tuning everything. Hope to start programming and installing radios soon (there are about 500 new radios and 100 existing radios that need to be programmed, and about 200 new mobiles to install). Still looking at sometime soon after Thanksgiving to go live.
 
Redneck0410

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If it's anything like it is here in Reno County, where paging is done through the VHF (which is also heard on the 800), without knowing the complete ins and outs of their system, I would venture to say the paging will still be done on VHF in Harvey Co. as well.


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dgruver911

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tdhooge said:
Don,
Will Harvey county Fire dispatch simulcast VHF to the 800 system or will the VHF be fore paging only?

If I asked that right LOL
Click to expand...

They will be patched together during the transition, if necessary, but once the system is up and running and everyone has their 800 radios installed, VHF will go to Paging only. Based on a meeting yesterday, sounds like only one or 2 agencies are even going to keep VHF radios locally.
 
dgruver911

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Burrton tower was finished yesterday, they should be hanging antennas and dishes today. Still much work to do on the ground. We're looking at a cutover date in early to mid December at this point. If you have our talkgroups plugged in on the Reno or Sedgwick towers, you may have heard some "testing" the past week. Have one portable programmed up and been playing with it a bit. :) It goes back in the box today to get ready for the mass programming taking place next week. 650 radios....
 
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