I haven't listened in today, but yesterday, BCSO was also using the FM frequencies, as well as TxWARN and the Motorola Smartnet. I don't think they have all switched over yet.
Brazos Valley Activity Thread
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I haven't listened in today, but yesterday, BCSO was also using the FM frequencies, as well as TxWARN and the Motorola Smartnet. I don't think they have all switched over yet.
nosliwmj
Member
When I mean eligible to drive, im saying its not expired, suspended, revoked, ect. On the other hand, it can be denied renewal but still eligible until expiration. It's funny to hear somebodys license come back as suspended multiple times. You would think the first suspension would be enough...
Im thinking that the police discussion might be hijacking this thread so we may want to create a separate one for this type of stuff.
I haven't listened to anything other than CSPD and today while playing around with it, I noticed I can't pick up Washington, Burton, or Brenham sites. Are these sites offline? I live in CS, but I can still pick up Brenham PD on conventional.
Also, what is Millican picking up? I see it's active, but there is no traffic on it.
Also, what is Millican picking up? I see it's active, but there is no traffic on it.
mrosenba
Member
Are you hearing PD traffic on the old Brenham conventional freq. (the VHF ones) or is it just the repeated EMS dispatch information. I haven't seen any alerts that the radios are down.
I thought it was PD, but it may have been EMS. I'm not sure. I'm confused as to why I can pick the VHF up and not TxWarn.
The Millican tower carries Brazos County SO traffic in the southern half of the county. However, I've also heard plenty of Washington County-related stuff on there. I think Washington County SO and EMS are simulcasting on their old VHF frequencies. Both Bryan and College Station simulcast their traffic on all of the sites in Brazos County, so the Millican sites also carries that. The tower is pretty far south (maybe four or five miles north of the Grimes County line), so it's pretty weak once you get in to College Station. It's possible you're picking up the data channel but the P25 signals are so weak that the scanner can't decode them.
I'm hearing all of the CSPD traffic on Millican now. I guess they were just being quiet earlier when I posted this.
mrosenba
Member
Wasington County
There are some parts of Washington County where the radios get a stronger signal on the Millican tower than on the "usual" Washington County towers. When one radio is using that (Millican) tower and tuned to a Washington county frequency, I think the talk group is also broadcast on that tower as well. This would probably explain the Washington County stuff on there at times.
There are some parts of Washington County where the radios get a stronger signal on the Millican tower than on the "usual" Washington County towers. When one radio is using that (Millican) tower and tuned to a Washington county frequency, I think the talk group is also broadcast on that tower as well. This would probably explain the Washington County stuff on there at times.
Recently, I have noticed that some of the Brazos County volunteer firefighters (especially Pct. 1) have been using the TxWARN system. A week or so ago, they were working a call on TAC 2, and I've noticed that some of the units sound like they are being patched from the system to VHF. I noticed earlier this morning that one of the Precinct 4 units was also being patched, so I suspect there might be some sort of migration in the not-so-distant future. Also, the Brazos County Health Department has switched to TxWARN and their county system TG is no longer active.
Lots of changes down there, I see. I am hoping the powers that be in Grimes Co. and Navasota see the light that they are soon to be on a VHF island in a sea of 700 MHz P25. I would like to see the primary channels at least patched to the available TxWARN talkgroups to permit interoperability.
Finally, a Grimes County tidbit, re: Navasota Fire....
Navasota raising water rates, drought causing leaks - The Navasota Examiner: News
Cliff Notes version: Chief Katkoski, or Jason to those who know him, is applying for roughly $217,000 for a communications project. The end of the link provided specifically states it is to allow NFD to communicate with surrounding fire and law enforcement who are on 700 MHz. I guess it is coming after all. I would look for the other agencies to start looking to the near future as well soon.
Navasota raising water rates, drought causing leaks - The Navasota Examiner: News
Cliff Notes version: Chief Katkoski, or Jason to those who know him, is applying for roughly $217,000 for a communications project. The end of the link provided specifically states it is to allow NFD to communicate with surrounding fire and law enforcement who are on 700 MHz. I guess it is coming after all. I would look for the other agencies to start looking to the near future as well soon.
Finally. I suspected that those Grimes County channels on the system weren't there for no reason. Also, I recently checked the old College Station TRS for any traffic. It appears that the data channel has been taken down, so the system can probably be deleted from the DB.
College Station's old Motorola system has been removed from the visible database now. As for Grimes County.....I would bet the agencies there may buy a limited number of radios to keep interoperable, but I just don't see them giving up on VHF now.
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$217K will get you 31 Motorola APX radios at the going rate of ~$7,000 a pop. Navasota FD can't be that big, so that may well be enough to equip every truck and line firefighter.
I know this is a pretty old thread, but something interesting just happened this afternoon. A volunteer fire call toned out a few minutes ago, and it is standard procedure for the traffic to be simulcast on their VHF frequency, which I have a Motorola Spectra VHF set to monitor. I glanced over and noticed that the traffic was not coming over the VHF anymore. It appears that the County fire dispatch is now exclusively on TxWARN--at least for now? So if anyone is wondering why 155.940 is suddenly very quiet, that's why.
Odd. I thought they were maintaining a VHF dispatch for the pagers and volunteers' portables. As for the thread, it is the type of thread I love......all the activity in a given area in one thread. You only have to watch the thread for updates, so even if it falls back a page or two, it is easy to drag back up with updates. Of course when something major happens, it will probably get a new thread started, however this is a good timeline of Brazos Valley activity.
Nevermind about that volunteer stuff...they're still on VHF, it was just that the antenna on my Spectra came loose.
Doh! When we were driving out to Midland from Shreveport a few months ago, our supervisor kept griping about not being able to hear us more than a mile away. He checked his battery tie in, his speakers, went as far as removing the UHF mobile from its mount before realizing his antenna connection was totally off.
Apparently, that wasn't the only problem. I reconnected the antenna, but no RX. I guess I'll have to go on eBay and find a new one. I only paid $30 for it anyway.
Please delete.
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