Charlottesville/Albemarle paging

[gcgrotz]

It appears that they have put in a new fire/rescue paging encoder. The tones are now being heard on AFRCOM talkgroup on the trunk system as well as the UHF frequencies. It also appears that both 460.250 and 460.475 are sending the same tones and dispatch traffic, including the mobiles, simultaneously. Not sure why they have 2 channels unless they are thinking of the future when fire and rescue need separate dispatch channels.

 

[Bote]

Maybe one transmitter covers one part of the county and the other covers the opposite part of the county?

Is there a ridge dividing the county? Or maybe the city would split their dispatch off from the county in the future?

Just some possibilities.

 

[BlueMoon2]

Charlottesville/Albemarle Paging System

gcgrotz, you would be correct. Charlottesville/Albemarle officially switched over to the new paging system July 18, 2011 at 1100 hours. All Fire/EMS tone paging is now being done over 460.250 and 460.475 Mhz respectively. The frequencies 46.460 and 155.835 are no longer being used. Fire and EMS dispatching has been consolidated into one dispatch channel. 460.250 and FRDISP (800 System) is primarily used to DISPATCH fire AND EMS and 460.475 and FRRESP (800 system) is now used for all RESPONSES for the incidents dispatched on the the Dispatch channel. All dispatch and response base and field unit traffic can be heard on both the 460.250 and 460.475 frequencies as well as the 800 Mhz system.

The only time you will NOT be able to hear any radio traffic is when radio traffic is taken to any tac channel (i.e. ATAC3-12 or BTAC3-12). As for duplication of paging on 460.250 and 460.475, I'm pretty sure that ECC did it for a backup system. I have also noticed that the tones are now shorter. I will confirm that with them.

In addition, all of the Motorola pagers that albemarle county and the city of Charlottesville fire/rescue career and volunteers have been using for years, have been collected and will (if they have not been already) be sent back to Motorola. They did not work with our new paging system is my understanding. So instead of Motorola pagers, all fire/rescue volunteers have been issued Apollo Voice Pagers with playback capability on them. If you have any questions, feel free to PM me and I'll answer them as best I can.

 

[Bote]

PL tones

Please confirm that the PL tones listed in the RadRef database are still being used:

460.250, 151.4Hz

460.475, 127.3Hz

I know that most times when they set up an old conventional frequency to repeat trunked system communications they will transmit without PL tone. Since I'm not familiar with their system I'm thinking this listing has not yet been updated to reflect the information that you just posted.

I'll be passing through there shortly and it would be nice to have things programmed correctly.

Thanks.

 

[gcgrotz]

Thanks Andrew, that's pretty much what I figured. I'm also guessing that the paging is simulcast from at least 2, and probably all 3 of the main repeater sites. A previous career in paging (12 years) is triggered by the tell-tale simulcast phasing in the audio. I'm also assuming it is still narrowband. (It also seems the local railroads have gone narrowband too).

Old old pagers used actual reeds vibrating at the audio frequency, later circuits were somewhat faster but I'm sure now with modern decoders the circuit responds pretty quick.

Hey Bote, I'll see if I can figure out the PL thing on my PRO 97. I have never bothered with it living in this area because there isn't that much traffic. I used it on the ham repeater on 146.76 because of cable leakage around town but that's pretty much it.

Edit: Well, that wasn't so hard. It appears that they are still using those tones as you listed. Not sure why or why they are different.

 

[BlueMoon2]

Charlottesville/Albemarle Paging System

Hi gcgrotz and others,

The PL tone for 460.250 is 151.4 and the PL tone for 460.475 is 127.3.

All volunteers (myself included) have been issued Apollo Pro 200 Voice Pagers that have playback capability, meaning that when a properly encoded message is received and the pager goes off, we can hit a button on the side and it will play back the message. More information can be found here. http://www.gapollo.com/index.php?pa...509a6f75849b&cid_l1=38&cid_l2=0&cid_l3=0&id=2

 

[gcgrotz]

I saw one of them in action at the gym recently. The guy was playing back what had come in since he got there. One question: does it store only those pages it is encoded for (station 5 for instance) or will it store them all. The latter seems like it would eat memory but hey, with the price of memory these days who knows, right?

 

[W3PWN]

Speaking of pagers and Albemarle, has anyone ever figured out a working regular pager for our area? I have been unsuccessful finding one that works within the NGIC site.

Thanks,

W3PWN

 

[gcgrotz]

Since you probably have lead lined walls there, good luck! Most commercial paging transmitters are on Carter's Mtn, which is not too close. I know the county system is on Carter's for sure, and probably at their other sites - Buck's Elbow (which does not get into that area very well once you pass Airport Rd) and Peter's Mtn (to your northeast, probably the best shot from NGIC)

Have you tried a scanner, if you are allowed to, to see what can be heard? Possibly the 900 MHz USA Mobility system might have a better chance. If there's enough demand, they might put one up there. There is also somebody's big paging signal 0n 152.15.

 

[W3PWN]

I'll try USA Mobility. SkyTel did not work here, but I'm willing to try another company. Yes, demand would be huge here, so I'm not sure why service has not been put in. There are multiple buildings here with thousands of people.

 

[gcgrotz]

Perhaps DOD has a paging contract already and if so the account manager could possibly help out with an on site transmitter.

I think I may have met you at Barracks Road a while back when you noticed my ham call plates and you had just moved here. I seem to remember a 3-land call sign...

In any case, good to have you on RR.

 

[tglendye]

I ...One question: does it store only those pages it is encoded for (station 5 for instance) or will it store them all. The latter seems like it would eat memory but hey, with the price of memory these days who knows, right?

A little late with an answer, but it stores only the pages the pager is encoded for. Not sure how long the playback will store, but it's at least a couple of minutes. The playback begins with the most recent activation. I've been told it eats up battery life but I have not noticed much difference- but I guess I don't play a lot back, either.

 

[N4VKF]

What is the reception range on those channels? Will I be able to hear them in Spotsylvania?

 

[BushDoctor]

K Fowler

I am up 720 feet at I 66 and I 81 I can hear louisa on high band both fire and police and staunton on 460.400 but even when i was hearing the weather from Charlottesville on high band before DC started using that channel i was unable to hear the UHF channels from albemarle county which i could hear when i was in the area of albemarle county. If u are in the locust grove area I am sure u will have a good chance hearing them especially with an outdoor antenna or maybe a mobile gain antenna I am using an old motorola 5db gain mobile antenna on my car.