Fairfield Fire & West Caldwell “790”

[Markscan]

Anyone else notice Fairfield Fire sounds worse than ever? I think they are renovating the police dispatch area, and recently changed their dispatch tones, and now I can hardly hear them. They always sounded very low, and some of their apparatus has a terrible whine when transmitting. I’m right next door and they sound like s**t.

West Caldwell Police dispatch also sounds terrible. I believe they were going to replace the copper tie lines to their receivers with fiber optic cable, but would that cause such a drastic change in the sound ? The cars sound a little better, but again dispatch sounds worse.

 

[markjrenna]

Both are weird. Fairfield Fire is always low here in Verona for me. West Caldwell was sounding really good when they had the protest in the park a couple weeks back but now the voice sounds like crap even with a strong signal. I notice Caldwell/West Caldwell/Essex Fells do use all the analog channels that are assigned to them. They are always on the so called Backup channels for Essex Fells.

 

[ansky]

I have always had this problem with Livingston. The audio is always very low as if the dispatcher and units are too far away from the mic.

 

[onsceno]

While I cannot account for WC, Fairfield is utilizing a manual encoder (Zetron 15B) through a CDM1250 until the permanent move is complete. Antenna "installs" are also less than favorable during the interim, as well...