Boulder County: Change is Coming

Spitfire8520 · Nov 25, 2015

Here we are approaching the end of another eventful year of monitoring! As time moves on, so does the development of radio systems. For those of you who monitor Boulder County, you may already have some idea of what this topic is about. For everyone else, here are some of the latest developments for our little island.

Boulder County has recently implemented a new channel naming scheme and has moved away from their color coded channel names on the week of November 8, 2015. There is still plenty of back and forth between the new and old names, but I believe it is largely out of habit and familiarity.

For those that aren't aware, this coincides with plans by the Boulder County Sheriff's Office to move from VHF to DTRS in the future. Additional talkgroups for Boulder County have already been added and patching between VHF and DTRS has increased. Boulder County will be adding additional sites for coverage in the future, one of which I believe will be located on Lee Hill.

Note that the DTRS is not yet a reliable way of monitoring Boulder County outside of TG 9100 and sometimes TG 9104. The whole rule of user affiliation is still required before anyone can hear the patches. A vast majority of the users still access the system using their VHF side and will likely continue to do so for the immediate future.

Boulder County Law

Green is now County Law - Patched to 9100
Yellow 2 is now Law 2 - Patched to 9101
Yellow 1 is now Law 3 - Patched to 9573
Purple is now Data - Patched to 9571
Copper is now L-Tac 1 - Might be patched to 9566
Black - Unknown new name

Now Boulder County law isn't the only ones who get to have fun. The fire departments also get some action with renaming and patching as well. If you're lucky enough to catch these patches, then you can enjoy the expanded coverage of a couple of the simplex tactical channels.

Boulder County Fire

Red 1 is now County Fire - Patched to 9104
Red 2 is now F-Tac 2 - Might be patched to 9105
Red 3 is now F-Tac 3 - Patched to 9106
Red 4 is now F-Tac 4 - Unconfirmed
Red 5 is now F-Tac 5
Red 6 is now F-Tac 6 - Unconfirmed
Red 7 is now F-Tac 7 - Unconfirmed

lsmith8706 · Nov 25, 2015

While it will be nice to listen to then the same way we do the rest of the state, I am sad they are moving away from vhf. I love being able to listen to them from Denver to Wyoming. Obviously a full transition is a ways away, and I would guess the mountian towns will be like Larimer county and stay vhf.

GrayJeep · Nov 25, 2015

Thanks for keeping us updated!

Spitfire8520 · Nov 25, 2015

Seems like I need to revise one of the assumptions that I made with the Fire Tac channels. According to whoever hosts the Boulder County Fire Tac - Red6 and Red3 feed, Red 6 is actually "CMD" which probably means Command. This makes me wonder whether or not the assumption for Red 7 is correct.

PJH · Nov 25, 2015

Quick question as I am not down that way too often long enough...

Are they still primarly a "VHF" system patched to DTRS or are field radios split between VHF conventional and DTRS radio?

In short, is the county on VHF but have the 800 links to make it easier for outside agencies to come in and play?

Spitfire8520 · Nov 25, 2015

PJH said:
Quick question as I am not down that way too often long enough...

Are they still primarly a "VHF" system patched to DTRS or are field radios split between VHF conventional and DTRS radio?

In short, is the county on VHF but have the 800 links to make it easier for outside agencies to come in and play?

I would classify it as a split between VHF and DTRS. I believe they describe it as a hybrid system. Boulder County SO does still use VHF as much as possible, but I'm fairly sure that they have rotated out all their old radios with Motorola APX multi-band radios and can switch to it at any time. They have been occasionally heard DTRS when VHF coverage is poor.

They also dispatch for numerous other municipalities who add to the mix of radios. Erie PD is the largest user of DTRS that is dispatched by Boulder County, hence why TG 9100 is heard almost constantly on sites that cover the county. Louisville PD is also another agency that's looking to move to DTRS, but doesn't have any radios in service as far as I'm aware.

On the fire side, there are actually a fair number of agencies that have some digital radios as well. Most still try to use VHF for primary communications, but it is not uncommon to hear a unit calling in using DTRS. I would say that this trend is increasing.

ecanderson · Nov 28, 2015

"For those that aren't aware, this coincides with plans by the Boulder County Sheriff's Office to move from VHF to DTRS in the future."

Someone change the laws of physics (or level a few mountains) recently? Back in the day, I saw the propagation projections and actual field reports for their mountain territory for DTRS and much of it was (as one would expect) bloody *awful*. I can see the 'flatlanders' using it around most of the county, but areas of foothills and west ARE going to need to stay VHF, right?

Spitfire8520 · Nov 28, 2015

ecanderson said:
"For those that aren't aware, this coincides with plans by the Boulder County Sheriff's Office to move from VHF to DTRS in the future."

Someone change the laws of physics (or level a few mountains) recently? Back in the day, I saw the propagation projections and actual field reports for their mountain territory for DTRS and much of it was (as one would expect) bloody *awful*. I can see the 'flatlanders' using it around most of the county, but areas of foothills and west ARE going to need to stay VHF, right?

For now, Boulder County will maintain their VHF infrastructure since a number of local agencies do not have digital radios. They have committed to building out new sites to increase coverage for DTR. Eldora that went online in August was part of this project. As previously mentioned, I also believe they have plans for a DTR site at Lee Hill.

That said, I don't know what the plans for VHF are afterwards.

An aside, I recall an instance sometime before the new Eldora site where they were having an awful time trying to communicate near Twin Sisters Peak. Interestingly enough, the digital radios worked while VHF struggled to hit the receivers.

I also have a revision to make to my original post as I have more information regarding the changes to Boulder County:

Booking is a new unknown VHF frequency - Patched to 9102
Red 6 is now FCMD - Patched to 9108
FTAC 6 is a new unknown simplex VHF frequency
FTAC 8 is a new unknown simplex VHF frequency - Patched to 7GTAC57

So, to summarize the VHF channels:

Boulder County Law

County Law (formerly Green) [9100]
Law 2 (formerly Yellow 2) [9101]
Law 3 (formerly Yellow 1) [9573]
LTac 1 (formerly Copper) [9566]
Data (formerly Purple) [9571]
Booking (new/unknown) [9102]

Boulder County Fire

County Fire (formerly Red 1) [9104]
FTac 2 (formerly Red 2) [9105]
FTac 3 (formerly Red 3) [9106]
FTac 4 (formerly Red 4)
FTac 5 (formerly Red 5)
FTac 6 (new/unknown)
FTac 7 (formerly Red 7)
FTac 8 (new/unknown) [7GTAC57]
FCMD (formerly Red 6) [9108]

ecanderson · Nov 28, 2015

Will have to go back and see if I can find the actual field survey that was done around the time of the advent of DTRS along the Front Range. I recall how the report looked, but can't for the life of me remember where it was located. Pretty sure it was a document somewhere on a BoCo site, not some 3rd party, and probably a PDF. Anyone else remember seeing it?

soundchaser · Dec 18, 2015

Adding to info from previous posts:
From the county's Form 205 Incident Radio Communications Plan for 2016:

FTac 6: Freq: 155.4075 PL: 186.2 (simplex)

Another change I spotted from previous years is that Air/Ground 9 will be used for initial operations.
AIRGND 9 166.9125

And for those who don't have 7GTAC57 at hand:
FTac 8: Freq: 770.99375 NAC: 293 (This is a digital freq and won't work on an analog scanner)

Spitfire8520 · Dec 18, 2015

soundchaser said:
Adding to info from previous posts:
From the county's Form 205 Incident Radio Communications Plan for 2016:

FTac 6: Freq: 155.4075 PL: 186.2 (simplex)

Another change I spotted from previous years is that Air/Ground 9 will be used for initial operations.
AIRGND 9 166.9125

And for those who don't have 7GTAC57 at hand:
FTac 8: Freq: 770.99375 NAC: 293 (This is a digital freq and won't work on an analog scanner)

Good catch on FTAC 6!

I'm still searching for the frequencies for Booking and FTAC 8, but identifying FTAC 6 actually made me realize that I was originally on the right track. I know Booking is being used nearly daily now, but I haven't been able to hunt it down. Getting a positive identification for the VHF FTAC 8 is probably going to take a major incident.

Spitfire8520 · Dec 19, 2015

Another addition and speculation on the last frequency.

Booking is 155.3550 MHz, 118.8 PL.
FTAC 8 might be 154.1075 MHz, but this is not confirmed.

To clarify on my previous reply, I originally suspected that WQVN597 would be the key to the 3 new VHF channels since it is Boulder County's newest VHF license. I ended up not pursuing these frequencies and decided to do general search among the VHF public safety frequencies which was not successful.

Being able to confirm that FTAC 6 belongs to WQVN597 prompted me to revisit my original thought. As a result, I have confirmed the Booking frequency using TG 9102. This leaves one final unidentified frequency associated with WQVN597 and could very well be FTAC 8. It will likely be hard to confirm FTAC 8 until there is an incident that uses it, or until they test the patch with 7GTAC57.

AI7PM · Mar 17, 2016

Any new news? Seems odd for them to join a Phase1 system, with Phase2 already being implemented by others along the Front Range.

Spitfire8520 · Mar 18, 2016

K5BBC said:
Any new news?

Hygiene FD extremely recently (ie. less than 2 weeks ago) joined DTRS on TGID 9574. They are calling it HTAC 2.

The rest of the information for DTRS is almost pure speculation. TGID 9567 through 9570 and 9572 are non-patched Boulder County Law related talkgroups, but have not been used in any large capacity and are difficult to confirm. TGID 9570 and 9572 are encrypted.

Louisville PD might have gotten a couple of radios to trial, but I have not yet heard any of them being used. I think TGID 9562 through 9564 are allocated to them. There has been no traffic on any of these TGs.

All the information mentioned previously has held up so far. I am still awaiting firm identification of FTAC 8. I have heard the 7GTAC57 patch once, but have not heard FTAC 8 directly.

Overall, the usage of DTRS in Boulder County is slowly increasing. As previously stated, Erie PD is almost entirely on DTRS at this point. A couple deputies have been using DTRS full time and they have used DTRS for some special events and certain calls. A couple of the police departments on the eastern side of the county have limited numbers of radios that they are testing. DTRS is still not yet a reliable way of monitoring Boulder County Law outside of dispatch.

A fair number of the fire departments on the eastern side are using a mixture of radios and are using DTRS more frequently. Boulder County Fire Dispatch can be heard constantly on DTRS now, and FTAC 2 and FTAC 3 can be heard on DTRS for most major calls.

The database is somewhat accurate, but a few alpha tags and other miscellaneous changes got lost somewhere along the line. If someone else wants to make an attempt to get it corrected, feel free.

The full reference for the changes can be found below.

Code:

[B]Boulder County Law[/B]

[U]Conventional[/U]
Name            Frequency      Tone      Notes
LAW North       158.8500     162.2 PL    North Simulcast Repeated, Patched to DTRS
LAW Central     155.1450     179.9 PL    Central Simulcast Repeated, Patched to DTRS
LAW South       159.2700     136.5 PL    South Simulcast Repeated, Patched to DTRS
LAW 2           155.9250     123.0 PL    Repeated, Patched to DTRS
LAW 3           155.6550     179.9 PL    Repeated, Patched to DTRS
LTAC 1          155.8050     146.2 PL    Simplex, Patched to DTRS
DATA            155.4150     173.8 PL    Repeated, Patched to DTRS
BOOKING         155.3550     118.8 PL    Simplex, Patched to DTRS

[U]DTRS[/U]
Name            TGID    Notes
LAW             9100    Patched to Conventional
LAW 2           9101    Patched to Conventional
LAW 3           9573    Patched to Conventional
LTAC 1          9566    Patched to Conventional
DATA            9571    Patched to Conventional
BOOKING         9102    Patched to Conventional
LTAC 2?         9567    Not Confirmed
LTAC 3?         9568    Not Confirmed
LTAC 4?         9569    Not Confirmed
LTAC 5?         9570    Not Confirmed, Encrypted
SWAT?           9572    Not Confirmed, Encrypted
Louisville PD?  9562    Not Confirmed
Louisville PD?  9563    Not Confirmed
Louisville PD?  9564    Not Confirmed

[B]Boulder County Fire[/B]

[U]Conventional[/U]
Name            Frequency      Tone      Notes
FIRE North      155.5350     141.3 PL    North Simulcast Repeated, Patched to DTRS
FIRE Central    154.2200     141.3 PL    Central Simulcast Repeated, Patched to DTRS
FIRE South      151.3550     179.9 PL    South Simulcast Repeated, Patched to DTRS
FIRE Direct     154.3250     179.9 PL    Simplex, Patched to DTRS
FTAC 2          154.2050     179.9 PL    Simplex, Patched to DTRS
FTAC 3          154.4150     179.9 PL    Simplex, Patched to DTRS
FTAC 4          153.8300     179.9 PL    Simplex
FTAC 5          153.9500     167.9 PL    Simplex
FTAC 6          155.4075     186.2 PL    Simplex
FTAC 7          155.8500     203.5 PL    Simplex
FTAC 8          154.1075     192.8 PL?   Not Confirmed, Simplex, Patched to 7GTAC57
FCMD            154.3700     131.8 PL    Repeated, Patched to DTRS

[U]DTRS[/U]
Name            TGID    Notes
FIRE            9104    Patched to Conventional
FTAC 2          9105    Patched to Conventional
FTAC 3          9106    Patched to Conventional
FCMD            9108    Patched to Conventional
HTAC 2          9574    Hygiene FD Tactical 2

K5BBC said:
Seems odd for them to join a Phase1 system, with Phase2 already being implemented by others along the Front Range.

Not really. They joined a Phase I system that a large portion of the state is already on and still uses. There was already several sites that cover much of the eastern portion of the county, so all they really needed was to buy some more equipment to expand on it. Any other option would have required them to invest significantly more. Phase II is the next evolution of P25, but Phase I is far from being outdated.

tyytor · Mar 18, 2016

hi, so what is this 7GTAC57 ?? just curious, thanks for the post.

PJH · Mar 18, 2016

General government 700mhz channel defined in NIFOG

Spitfire8520 · Mar 18, 2016

tyytor said:
hi, so what is this 7GTAC57 ?? just curious, thanks for the post.

It was mentioned above by soundchaser. It is part of a group of frequencies defined by the National Interoperability Field Operations Guide (NIFOG) as mentioned by PJH. They can be found under Interoperability in the Nationwide Frequencies category.

soundchaser said:
And for those who don't have 7GTAC57 at hand:
FTac 8: Freq: 770.99375 NAC: 293 (This is a digital freq and won't work on an analog scanner)

SCPD · Mar 18, 2016

ecanderson said:
"For those that aren't aware, this coincides with plans by the Boulder County Sheriff's Office to move from VHF to DTRS in the future."

Someone change the laws of physics (or level a few mountains) recently? Back in the day, I saw the propagation projections and actual field reports for their mountain territory for DTRS and much of it was (as one would expect) bloody *awful*. I can see the 'flatlanders' using it around most of the county, but areas of foothills and west ARE going to need to stay VHF, right?

Properly placed towers help out with proper engineering studies. However you will still have gaps. This is why many still hold vhf or uhf licenses and won't degrade them. With multi band radios at reach it is not a problem to maintain the old in event convenational vhf is needed in a given area.

soundchaser · Mar 19, 2016

FYI, I've done some logging on the new Eldora DTRS site. It denies everything that is not Boulder County or RTD. So you won't hear any state agencies on it such as CSP or CDOT. There are a few MAC's allowed, but that's it. I'm guessing that RTD gave some money to the County for use of the Eldora site, just like they paid the City to use the Gunbarrel site. At the moment, they are the primary users of the site.

AI7PM · Mar 19, 2016

The reason I posted in the thread (resurected?), I was reading the Business Plane prepared for the State by Federal Engineering. It's primarily a document addressing DTRS, but refers to other systems for reference.

At one point it mentions Boulder County, and how moving to DTRS will replace 20 existing VHF sites. Sounds a bit off to me, so I figure they must have been refrencing base stations, the jail, and other facilities beyond the three repeater sites.

It does point out that two more sites are necessary for BC to have the coverage requirments met.

As I stay here a good bit of the year, I listen, and am curious as to the changes being made, both as a hobbyist, and somewhat from a professional position. I'm not finding much information out there.

Boulder County: Change is Coming

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