Iowa Statewide Interoperability Communication System (ISICS)

[radioboy75]

Two things.

1. Heard 277 call Storm Lake State on Matlock LEA this morning with no response. Worked fine on base (DPS). Sioux County could hear him fine on LEA, as could I. Storm Lake State said they tried to call 277 on LEA too and 277 said he heard nothing. Wonder if that has to do with the switchover to ISICS...

2. I'm in Rock Rapids, where our tower is still not active. But was able to monitor Sanborn fairly well today (although I still don't have a Phase II scanner). I am running my Home Patrol on Analyze mode and picked up two new frequencies that it says are being used by the Sanborn site. Interesting because they don't appear to be used elsewhere in the state, while the control channel (770.40625, LCN 5440) is used in several other places. They were 762.23125 (LCN 4132) and 762.26875 (LCN 4138). Also strange, as other frequencies in the state are all above 768 MHz...

I offer this as information for all and as a request for possible explanation if anyone has any ideas.

 

[WB0VHB]

Activity is very sporadic in SE Iowa. A "make your own case" bad driving broadcast will come out of no where then nothing for the rest of the day or days.

 

[radioboy75]

So now the "discovery mode" has been running all day and it's showing a frequency that really can't be on the Sanborn tower. 859.75625. (LCN 1400) How can that be? I thought this was a 700 MHz system . . . Does anyone know how the discovery mode works on HomePatrol scanners? Does it get the information about the frequencies in use from listening to the control channel? This is very strange to me. Any insight would be appreciated.

 

[mws72]

Activity is very sporadic in SE Iowa. A "make your own case" bad driving broadcast will come out of no where then nothing for the rest of the day or days.

Same here in the Quad-Cities. Get a lot of "make your own case" calls from I-35

 

[mws72]

So now the "discovery mode" has been running all day and it's showing a frequency that really can't be on the Sanborn tower. 859.75625. (LCN 1400) How can that be? I thought this was a 700 MHz system . . . Does anyone know how the discovery mode works on HomePatrol scanners? Does it get the information about the frequencies in use from listening to the control channel? This is very strange to me. Any insight would be appreciated.

While I don't one. I presume it does a control channel only and gets the site frequencies from the data stream.

 

[radioboy75]

That was my thought too. Interesting frequencies though. Wonder if the data stream wasn't strong enough so it had errors? And since the scanner can't "ask" for it to be sent again, maybe this is the result? I guess I'm doubting those frequencies. Especially the 800 MHz one . . .

 

[mws72]

A while back I found this file I updated it with sites I know about. I have found two of the sites for the Muscatine/Scott Co. simulcast site #14. according to this file it had unknown sites at Lowden and place on the site for Scott Co. closer to the I-80 bridge on the Mississippi river. It's actually at the eastbound rest area at mp 299 on I-80. A friend saw a new tower on US 30 about a mile east of the US 30 & IA 38 in Cedar County. Part of ISICS? In the file my additions have a yellow label

 

[radioboy75]

Also, I'm hearing Storm Lake cars over Matlock today. I realize they're the same frequency, but my radio is toned to only receive Matlock. Plus, it's full-scale and wouldn't normally be. I'm also hearing the "squak sound" BEFORE *every* transmission instead of AFTER only the trooper side. My guess is they're patching the two systems together. The thought also crosses my mind just now that perhaps it's Matlock area troopers but they're just trying to get used to calling "Storm Lake" since that's what it will be soon. The remote towers will be no more . . .

 

[mws72]

Also, I'm hearing Storm Lake cars over Matlock today. I realize they're the same frequency, but my radio is toned to only receive Matlock. Plus, it's full-scale and wouldn't normally be. I'm also hearing the "squak sound" BEFORE *every* transmission instead of AFTER only the trooper side. My guess is they're patching the two systems together. The thought also crosses my mind just now that perhaps it's Matlock area troopers but they're just trying to get used to calling "Storm Lake" since that's what it will be soon. The remote towers will be no more . . .

from what I have been hearing they are calling the actual comm. center instead of the legacy one i.e. Cedar Rapids instead of Maquoketa. I wonder if within 5-10 years we will only have two comm. centers Des Moines & Cedar Rapids.

 

[MidwestRadioListener]

There was lots of traffic on the Westcom simulcast yesterday. They had a big accident on I35 around West Des Moines and chase I think on I80 near the east mix. They announced several times they were exercises or something. Several agencies sounded like they were involved and several patches announced on the system. It was interesting to hear that much activity and most of it sounded good except some patches.

 

[tfhphoto]

@radioboy75 It could be a patch. I just heard a call to "Matlock base" on DPS Law 5B. Don't have the radio hooked up to the computer to check if it's an actual patch.... Or the officer could have just called it that out of habit....

 

[radioboy75]

Probably need to get a Phase II scanner up and running. I can't pick it up well enough here yet, but I could install it at my work in Sheldon and listen to it remotely.

 

[radioboy75]

from what I have been hearing they are calling the actual comm. center instead of the legacy one i.e. Cedar Rapids instead of Maquoketa. I wonder if within 5-10 years we will only have two comm. centers Des Moines & Cedar Rapids.

Nothing west of I-35? That seems to leave the western third to half of the state all controlled by Des Moines? I mean, I guess it could happen technology-wise . . . I tend to think there's some value in the dispatchers actually living in the area they dispatch for, but . . .

 

[tfhphoto]

Well, AFAIK all of South Dakota is dispatched out of Pierre and the entire Troop B in Nebraska is dispatched out of Omaha.

I was surprised when the Atlantic comm center (since moved to Council Bluffs) was shut down and DPS dispatch moved to Storm Lake.

 

[radioboy75]

Well, AFAIK all of South Dakota is dispatched out of Pierre and the entire Troop B in Nebraska is dispatched out of Omaha.

I was surprised when the Atlantic comm center (since moved to Council Bluffs) was shut down and DPS dispatch moved to Storm Lake.

True, but except for Sioux Falls and Rapid City, South Dakota is much more sparsely populated than Iowa. Same with Nebraska except for Omaha/Lincoln. We have several cities.. Sioux City, Council Bluffs, Ft. Dodge, Des Moines, Mason City, Waterloo, Cedar Rapids, Iowa City, the Quad Cities, Burlington, Dubuque . . . plus most of our rural land is farmland, unlike SD and NE, where a lot of it is open prairie or rock land.

But yeah, it could be done. Put me on the side of "I hope not."

 

[dreg]

A while back I found this file I updated it with sites I know about. I have found two of the sites for the Muscatine/Scott Co. simulcast site #14. according to this file it had unknown sites at Lowden and place on the site for Scott Co. closer to the I-80 bridge on the Mississippi river. It's actually at the eastbound rest area at mp 299 on I-80. A friend saw a new tower on US 30 about a mile east of the US 30 & IA 38 in Cedar County. Part of ISICS? In the file my additions have a yellow label

Mike that tower West of Clarence has been up for quite awhile no antennas yet

 

[mws72]

Any signs around it that it might be part of ISICS. If you look at the ISICS tower site map. Cedar County has no sites. That site would be the middle of a large area between sites in the area.

 

[dreg]

Any signs around it that it might be part of ISICS. If you look at the ISICS tower site map. Cedar County has no sites. That site would be the middle of a large area between sites in the area.

Mike, no signs around not unless it's for a future project for ISCIS or Cedar County like I say it's been their awhile ??

Sent from my SM-G930R4 using Tapatalk

 

[WQIR683]

So now the "discovery mode" has been running all day and it's showing a frequency that really can't be on the Sanborn tower. 859.75625. (LCN 1400) How can that be? I thought this was a 700 MHz system . . .

The sites the state put up are 700 MHz, but there are two pre-existing/local-owned 800 MHz sites that were added into the system - Westcom Simulcast & Woodbury Co / Dakota Co NE Simulcast. 859.7625 is listed as the control channel for the Woodbury/Dakota site in the DB.

 

[radioboy75]

The sites the state put up are 700 MHz, but there are two pre-existing/local-owned 800 MHz sites that were added into the system - Westcom Simulcast & Woodbury Co / Dakota Co NE Simulcast. 859.7625 is listed as the control channel for the Woodbury/Dakota site in the DB.

Interesting, to say the least. I maybe don't know how this works then. I was under the impression that the screen I was looking at was giving me the frequencies in use on that particular tower, not neighbor sites. Even then, there's another site between Sanborn and Sioux City -- Le Mars. Not really sure now what I was looking at.