Muscatine County New Digital Radio System

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roadrr

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I do know there going to be using the towers on the il side of the river, were suppose to be getting our new radios mid to late January
 

timkilbride

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I made my previous assumption from third party statements. Then the placement of towers made sense as to why they are possible going with StarCom21. EDACS is EOL 2017 with RACOM.

Furthermore, I found this:

Director of Emergency Communications and Emergency
Management Matt Shook and
Motorola Project Manager Nellys Flores updated the
Board on the MUSCOM P25
Project. Shook stated the project is on budget and
on schedule. Shook asked the Board
for direction concerning some non-contract expenses
. Shook stated the expenses are
within the budget and gave the Board a detailed exp
lanation of each cost estimate. Shook
stated activation of the P25 system is planned for
mid-January, barring any weather
delays concerning the antenna array installation.
Board consensus was to allow Shook to
proceed with the non-contract expenses per the esti
mates listed on the report.

Furthermore,

Discussion was held with Emergency Manage
r Matt Shook regarding a contract for a
Motorola P25 Emergency Communication Sy
stem. Shook stated the MUSCOM User
group and MUSCOM Board both voted unanimous
ly to purchase the Motorola system.
Shook stated the new system w
ill be installed in the base
ment of the Public Safety
Building with a switch over date to move fr
om the old system upstairs to the new system
in the basement. Shook stated the final phase will be the purchase of radios. Motorola
Representative Scott Schultz stated the cont
ract includes three ne
w sites and four new
dispatch consoles at a tota
l cost of $1,687,961. Bonebrake stat
ed he is confident they
have the information needed to move forwar
d with Motorola and Starcom. Sauer stated
he believes the whole project will come in well under the not to exceed number and the
new towers will provide good coverage. Schultz
stated the contract provides a coverage
guarantee. On a motion by Howa
rd, second by Sauer, the Chairperson was authorized to
execute a contract with Motorola Solutions
for a P25 Emergency Communication System
in the amount of $1,687,961, subject to review
of the contract by the County Attorney

Are they still joining StarCom21 or not?

Tim
 

emtcasey

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It is my understanding that yes it will be part of Starcomm 21 that is based out of Ill and will transfer over to the new state system when it is put into service. They are both being constructed by the motorola company out of Ill. that made the starrcom 21 system. and before anyone says the state is using RACOM please read.

Law enforcement urges Branstad to sign new radio funding bill | Local News - KCCI Home

although it does look like it has run into the "red tape" that things of this expense often do.

Treasurer blocks financing plan for Iowa police radio system
 

mikeydcg2003

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We received word that the final bills were signed and Motorola will get to work on the state system this spring. Will probably see a lot of action coming in 2016
 

emtcasey

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ok so the next question. The FCC site gives us the frequencies but how would someone find out the talkgroups.
 

mikeydcg2003

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More or less you have to wait till it comes online and then hit it up with a p25 based scanner. or setup a box with Unitrunker and monitor the control channel activity
 

xmo

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The listening fun should begin later this year.

The word is that Motorola has completed the staging of the equipment for the new State system and it has been shipped!

No doubt it will take many months to complete the installation - then the testing will begin. Listeners across the state will need to be on their toes to log the new sites as they come online.
 

emtcasey

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The Muscatine system is up but they are not using it yet. They are waiting for some of the tower work to be done in Conesville and Illinois. They have been testing it out and so far it sounds great. handheld to handheld from Wapello to Muscatine dispatch and from Conesville to several different areas in and around Muscatine (including under the bluff) is crystal clear and has really good audio quality. I have it programmed into my HP 536 with ID search on and only have 2 talk groups at this point. 26001 and 26002. my understanding it that they will have a lot of talk groups so myself or one of the other guys here in town will keep everyone as up to date as possible.


Also I saw the new site listed on the database. It is the Muscatine site (located at MCC) for Muscom there will also be West Liberty and Conesville when they are done. Tim, I think you take care of this not sure how we want to separate it with the site and different state.
 

timkilbride

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The Muscatine system is up but they are not using it yet. They are waiting for some of the tower work to be done in Conesville and Illinois. They have been testing it out and so far it sounds great. handheld to handheld from Wapello to Muscatine dispatch and from Conesville to several different areas in and around Muscatine (including under the bluff) is crystal clear and has really good audio quality. I have it programmed into my HP 536 with ID search on and only have 2 talk groups at this point. 26001 and 26002. my understanding it that they will have a lot of talk groups so myself or one of the other guys here in town will keep everyone as up to date as possible.


Also I saw the new site listed on the database. It is the Muscatine site (located at MCC) for Muscom there will also be West Liberty and Conesville when they are done. Tim, I think you take care of this not sure how we want to separate it with the site and different state.

I will add the sites as they come on. To add a new site,I need to frequencies and NAC.

Tim
 

roadrr

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muscom had a mtg last night, they used the new system for trumps visit last sunday, they say it worked great. also just one tower in operation right now, a lot of the police and fire dept. have mobile radios installed, handheld radios are enroute, still need programed there talking early springish.
 

emtcasey

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talk groups I have seen so far are. 26001, 26002, 26010, 26011, 26017, 26018, 26025. sounds like 26001, and 26002 will be Law 1 and 2. 26017 I heard Muscatine City fire paging tests. they have been doing a lot of radio testing they have been able to talk all over Muscatine county and Iowa City on just handhelds. the towers in Ill will be finished this week. West Liberty is up and running and they are all jumping at the bit to get switched over. They do not have the Conesville tower up yet and there is no time frame for it but they feel that the coverage they have will be enough. hopefully it will be up by the end of this month.
 

mws72

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Does the site in Muscatine give good coverage in the eastern county area. I would think there might be problem along old US6 by Stockton or east of Wild Cat Den State Park area along the river,
 

emtcasey

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Does the site in Muscatine give good coverage in the eastern county area. I would think there might be problem along old US6 by Stockton or east of Wild Cat Den State Park area along the river,


From what I have heard the only area they have a problem with was while IN Wild Cat Den, but from what I have heard that has always been an issue. They were looking at the Illinois towers to see if they could fix it but I do not think that will stop them from switching over. they were testing again last night in all the area towns and had no issues. They will be using 5 towers total. Joy, and Illinois City MCC, West Liberty and Conesville.
 

timkilbride

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I was wondering if anyone could post a update with any old conventional frequencies that were retained/deprecated.

Thanks

Tim
 
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owenmcc1

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All law enforcement ops are on the Starcom system now, minus Jail Ops, which is still using their 400 MHz channel. Fire and EMS ops are also now on the Starcom system, with county pages being simulcast on the old County Fire frequency (154.175, 167.9 PL), though I believe their DMR channels are still active as not everyone has their new radios yet. UnityPoint Health-Trinity Muscatine (hospital) has yet to make the switch, and the Conesville tower is not yet up.

Here's the rundown on the Talkgroups as of 5/18:

26001 thru 26003 - Law Ops
26004 - Law Info
26008 - Unknown (last heard testing back in March/April)
26009 - Jail? (heard the Jail calling MUSCOM on this TG a couple weeks ago, but nothing since)
26010/26011 - Unknown (same as 008)
26016 - Unknown (Same as 008)
26017 - Muscatine Fire 1 (Pages sent out on this TG, some response heard as well)
26018 - Fire 2 (Thought it was EMS response, but have heard fire response on it as well)
26019 - Fire 3?
26020/26021 - Unknown
26025 - County Fire 1 (County pages sent out on this TG)
26026 - County Fire 2?

That's what I have for you Tim.
 

mws72

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I heard radio traffic on 158.730 (127.3) analog this morning with mention of trailers. Sounded like maybe use by the road dept.?
 
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