Kingston Fire and Rescue Going Digital

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gfdfortynine

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I'm told KFR is finally making the switch to digital end of next week. I don't know many details other than there will be 7 TAC channels. I guess they are still having some issues with coverage in some buildings and are installing additional repeaters for that.
I sold my digital scanners a year ago when I retired from the fire service so this will probably be the end of the Kingston Area Fire stream.
 

mikewazowski

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Kingston Fire (East) has a lot of 700MHz P25 frequencies licenced as fixed, mobile and portable:

769.94375 Central Water Tower
770.19375 Joyceville, Pitts Ferry, Elginburg, McAdoo
770.44375 Joyceville, Pitts Ferry, Elginburg, McAdoo
770.69375 Joyceville, Pitts Ferry, Elginburg, McAdoo
770.94375 Joyceville, Pitts Ferry, Elginburg, McAdoo
771.19375 Joyceville, Pitts Ferry, Elginburg, McAdoo
771.44375 Joyceville, Pitts Ferry, Elginburg, McAdoo
771.69375 Joyceville, Pitts Ferry, Elginburg, McAdoo
771.94375 Joyceville, Pitts Ferry, Elginburg, McAdoo
772.24375 Central Water Tower



There are also some 800MHz frequencies which are licenced as mobile only:

866.0125 Interop Repeater
866.1875 Mobile Repeater
866.6875 Mobile Repeater
867.1875 Mobile Repeater

All of the above were licenced in December 2015.

The repeaters are showing a height above ground level of at least 200m.

I think I would plug these in and start checking.
 
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gfdfortynine

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I'm told the switch over is today
Actually there are 9 TAC channels, so that coincides with the 10 frequencies.
I think 800 Mhz frequencies are for MCTs.
 

SCPD

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Is there a control channel buzzing away on one of these 700Mhz channels? that would indicate a trunked system vs conventional. And have we heard voice yet? encrypted or clear?
 

gfdfortynine

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Anyone know if HP-1 does 770Mhz. I'm considering the keeping the Kingston feed alive and HP-1s are the cheapest digital scanners I can find so far. Also gotta find out if they are encrypted to see if its worth the bother.
 

gfdfortynine

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Hows that? DSD+ I often wondered if it was possible to supply feeds using the software. I tinkered with it when the local PD went to MotoTRBO. Just kinda lost interest in the scanner stuff when I retired from FD. A couple Fire Depts are inquiring about some things for them (I'm way cheaper than Glentel or I'm Responding, ie FREE) so I'm becoming interested again.
The feed in its hey day did all of Leeds Grenville, Frontenac and Lennox an Addington Counties which today would be 18 Channels. Can DSD+ supply a feed of 18 channels some of which are analogue?
 
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SCPD

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I'd be willing to bet there will be a Motorola P25 control channel buzzing away on one of those 700Mhz channels as soon as it's near ready, I thought I read that the city of Kingston was going to a P25 trunked system for all city services. 100% encryption or not remains to be seen but I believe your new fire chief is the old chief from Guelph and he is so hell bent on encryption he went ahead and spend the money and told council after he did it and they were not happy.
 

Jay911

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One $20 dongle can RX all ten channels simultaneously. Just sayin...

The $20 ones typically have a max bandwidth of ~2.5 MHz. I need to use 2 devices to handle 769-775. Something like an AirSpy with 10 MHz bandwidth could do it all but they're ~$299.

To gfdfortynine: Yes, the HP1/HP2 and other such radios (x36HP) handle the 700 MHz band just fine.
 

gfdfortynine

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I'd be willing to bet there will be a Motorola P25 control channel buzzing away on one of those 700Mhz channels as soon as it's near ready, I thought I read that the city of Kingston was going to a P25 trunked system for all city services. 100% encryption or not remains to be seen but I believe your new fire chief is the old chief from Guelph and he is so hell bent on encryption he went ahead and spend the money and told council after he did it and they were not happy.

Yes Kingstons new chief is from Guelph. Hmmm I'm told the KFRs Pulse Point App is coming to an end so maybe encryption is in the works. KPD have been encrypted for some time.
 

mikewazowski

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I've edited my original post with the locations of the tower sites.

Looks like 4 towers outside of Kingston licenced on 7 700MHz frequencies. Probably a simulcast or voted system.

2 frequencies are licenced in Kingston on the Central Water Tower. I'm not sure if they just forgot to licence the other 7 frequencies at this site or they're for dispatching. They are also licenced at a different date from the other frequencies.

The 800MHz frequencies appear to be licenced for digital voice.

The first frequency is 8CALL90D which is an interop.

The 3 remaining frequencies are mobile repeaters on the trucks.

I'd start looking at those frequencies for a 9k6 control channel. The worst part is it looks like the system will be simulcast which scanners don't handle well.
 

gfdfortynine

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Heard a little more info today.
Its not supposed to be encrypted.
There's 3 types of Radios. Fire Fighters have a radio with just an A band which has 10 TAC channels. Captains have a radio with a B band which included things like OFM. Chiefs have a radio with a C band which has things like inter-ops or Police.
I've seen pages for about a year showing "use TAC1a" just assumed that meant analogue.... guess not. I recently saw a page with a "TAC1b" so will be interesting to see outcome.
 

Dan19

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Anyone pick anything up on these yet? They've been assigning calls to tac 4, on one right now at Belle Park
 
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