At the time of the problem, I was listening to western district (tg 1680). It sounded like an open mike, with an intermittent beep in the background.The beep was different than the 10-3 tone. The units could transmit, but the dispatcher couldn't respond. I guess that's why they went to portables.
Also, my Pro97 couldn't pick up a control channel during this time.However, I was able to manually scan through the frequencies to pick up the different channels.
Police dispatchers also reported their "screens" were down,making it difficult to keep track of what units were on what call...