Woodford Sheriff to test Starcom21

The Woodford county Sheriff is going to conduct a thirty day test of Starcom21 in the next few weeks. ILEAS loaners tied into the existing vehicle repeaters by Supreme (Moto) on four vehicles to see if it solves the coverage problems on the legacy UHF system. A radio will be set up at Woodcom as well.

The county already has a group on Starcom21. 5806 has been used by the sheriff and other command staff before (Washburn tornado).

City PD's will have to use F4 (155.145) to talk car to car with the SO vehicles during this time as the UHF radios will be removed.

Audio of the Feb 14 public safety committee meeting where this is discussed at about 22 minutes in

https://www.woodford-county.org/agendacenter

At the March 12 meeting Sheriff Smith said the test would start by the end of the month or beginning of April.

n9lob said:

The Woodford county Sheriff is going to conduct a thirty day test of Starcom21 in the next few weeks. ILEAS loaners tied into the existing vehicle repeaters by Supreme (Moto) on four vehicles to see if it solves the coverage problems on the legacy UHF system. A radio will be set up at Woodcom as well.

The county already has a group on Starcom21. 5806 has been used by the sheriff and other command staff before (Washburn tornado).

City PD's will have to use F4 (155.145) to talk car to car with the SO vehicles during this time as the UHF radios will be removed.

Audio of the Feb 14 public safety committee meeting where this is discussed at about 22 minutes in

https://www.woodford-county.org/agendacenter

At the March 12 meeting Sheriff Smith said the test would start by the end of the month or beginning of April.

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Last March, a unit using a "WF" prefix (RID 462002) was reported on talkgroup 5806. Have any other RIDs been observed in use on this talkgroup? Perhaps the 462xxx range of RIDs has been set aside for Woodford County? Have any other Woodford County talkgroups been observed in use in the past?

Thanks in advance....

kevino said:

Last March, a unit using a "WF" prefix (RID 462002) was reported on talkgroup 5806. Have any other RIDs been observed in use on this talkgroup? Perhaps the 462xxx range of RIDs has been set aside for Woodford County? Have any other Woodford County talkgroups been observed in use in the past?

Thanks in advance....

Click to expand...

The report you cited is the only reason I knew Woodford had any county specific group on SC21. I did talk to someone who would know and was told it was SO only with less than five radios. There are no other Woodford county talkgroups to my knowledge and Sheriff Smith said the existing group would be used in this test.

Been hearing activity on 5806 in the last few days. Testing has begun.

I haven't heard them yet, but am listening for them on the Germantown Hills tower.

I imagine they'll have pretty decent coverage, given the tower locations in/around the county.

I've heard them on the Congerville tower so far. I've been traveling to the east, and I pick that tower up as far away as the Grand Ridge area, which is north of Streator. I presume that it will come off the Metamora (Germantown Hills) tower and the Peoria County STARCOM simulcast as well.

So after reading the notes in the public safety meeting agenda it appears as if their only testing mobiles. To me that kinda defeats the purpose. Curious to see how well it work for portables, or are using extenders to feed to the mobiles.

IE: Portable radio to car radio, car radio to Woodcom. So-vhf or uhf (portable) to starcom 21 700/800 radio.

RADIOGUY2002 said:

So after reading the notes in the public safety meeting agenda it appears as if their only testing mobiles. To me that kinda defeats the purpose. Curious to see how well it work for portables, or are using extenders to feed to the mobiles.

IE: Portable radio to car radio, car radio to Woodcom. So-vhf or uhf (portable) to starcom 21 700/800 radio.

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The Starcom radios are tied into the existing VHF vehicular repeaters. I dont know if portables would have sufficient outdoor coverage but I'm fairly sure they wouldn't have indoor coverage. During a disaster drill a while back Sheriff Smith tried to use his Starcom portable inside the county EOC at Roanoke (it's above ground) and could barely get in. Once he stepped outside there was no problem.

"vast improvement"

The county public safety committee meeting audio from Monday is online. The Sheriff said they've had a few little glitches, mainly due to the temporary nature of the installs. Overall he said it "has been a vast improvement over our old/current system." He also stated Motorola was getting info about possible installation of another tower or two to provide portable coverage without vehicular repeaters. Coverage on the Woodford-Marshall county line is also a concern.

They are impressed that they can have a car in Goodfield, Minonk, and Spring Bay and they can all hear and talk to each other which they can't on UHF. Sheriff Smith also said they were going to try to initiate a failure involving vehicle repeaters to see how SC21 would handle it.

Personal opinion to follow:

The Sheriff sounded very upbeat about how the system has performed so far. That impresses me since I know he was NOT a SC21 advocate when the idea of going to a new system came up a couple of years ago. He wanted an all agency type system like Peoria county.

This still does not answer the question of what happens to city PD's if county goes SC21. The county is not likely to maintain the UHF system if they aren't using it. F4 (155.145) would work fine in Eureka but the other towns that have PD's would not have coverage like they do now. I'm sure Motorola would love to get the towns on SC21 as well but I think recurring fees would be a sticking point. This process is just beginning with a lot to sort out.

The big advantage SC21 proponents will have is that the towns will not have to maintain the infrastructure and associated connectivity. The agency I retired from is switching to SC21 since the infrastructure is getting aged and the many phone lines needed to connect it all together is getting prohibitively expensive.

While the long-term cost of retaining existing channels may end up being somewhat lower going to SC21 usually does not involve a huge startup cost. It is easier to just write a check each month then to replace a repeater system.

Are Woodford Co ambulances still using IREACH 155.055 for response?

I know that Washburn Amb has there own freq. (154.235). They are paged out by both Woodford and Marshall Co on that freq. Some of the others are using IREACH. I cannot confirm which of the other agencies are using IREACH.

A lot of testing this afternoon. The Sheriff and I believe Ragan went out along the west and north sides of the county for over an hour testing both mobile and portable coverage in the hills and valleys. Portable coverage seemed good with few drops and mobile coverage was fine. The Sheriff started in dispatch so I'm sure he knew the dead spots to check out. The testing period should be wrapping up in the next week or so.

Yesterday, I talked to a friend of mine from El Paso. He said that the county is looking into implementing a CAD system as well. Can anyone here confirm that?

Has anyone heard any news if Peoria County is moving to SC21? I read a story last week about the dispatch consolidation and Tuttle mentioned something about improved coverage by using part of a state system or something to that effect.

Jason

Yes, Peoria county is converting to SC21 later this year. They have already signed the agreement with Motorola. Last I heard they were hoping to start testing and migrating smaller agencies in/about October.

kraziebill said:

Yes, Peoria county is converting to SC21 later this year. They have already signed the agreement with Motorola. Last I heard they were hoping to start testing and migrating smaller agencies in/about October.

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So is Peoria County junking the current Harris installation or merging the existing into SC21?

N9IIT said:

So is Peoria County junking the current Harris installation or merging the existing into SC21?

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Both. They are letting SC21 take over the Harris sites and equipment. Some will be converted to SC21, while other Harris sites will be shut down. For example, where both SC21 and the Harris system are on the same tower or too close.

Getting back on topic...as of a few days ago I still heard Woodford Co on SC21. Did they extend their test period? It has sounded pretty good although sometimes it sounds strange when they are on portable going through their existing analog radios getting converted to digital. Hopefully they could eventually get native portable radios if they move over.

Woodford Co is in a good location for coverage with Germantown Hills, Congerville, Peoria simulcast (and possibly Chillicothe assuming the Peoria Harris sites convert to SC21).

The test did last a bit longer than a month but I think it is over. I've heard nothing for a few days and some of the units that were on SC21 (K-9) are back on UHF. I know some city PD's are looking at costs to switch so it sounds like budget planning is underway for an eventual change.