Jasper Police now P25?

[marksroberson]

Earlier this week Jasper PD (155.55 MHz) was using their conventional repeater with the 110.9 output PL tone and now as of this morning, the PD units are using P25:064 and dispatch is using encrypted P25:064. I can tell it is Jasper because the units are still using their unit numbers (like J-10 or J-27) I guess they are just getting closer to moving over to the Alabama first responder network, but the conventional 110.9 repeater is still operational, it is keyed up every now and then, I guess it will eventually be shut off.

 

[Avery93]

Jasper PD had bought Motorola VHF P25 radios and infrastructure way back in 2010, and operated in P25 using full-time encryption for a few years. From what I've heard, they had an unresolved, severe problem with the Quantar repeater from day one that caused portable radios to be extremely unreliable, even when they were in physical line-of-sight to the tower. Other agencies in the county were also unable to monitor them.

Due to those issues, they took the Quantar offline and replaced it with an analog-only Kenwood repeater a couple years ago (that was the one with the end of transmission beep). I guess they finally acquired a new P25 repeater, and were able to use all of their P25 capable radios in digital mode again. I don't know how it's going, but Walker County SO was looking at buying dual-mode NEXEDGE/P25 Kenwood equipment, so that would also solve the interoperability issue with JPD and the SO at least.

Also, the new repeater should be mixed-mode, able to be keyed in analog or P25 mode at any time. So they should retain the ability to fall back to analog at any time. I haven't heard it keyed in analog yet to listen for changes from the old repeater to confirm this though.

 

[medic9351301]

i have heard some jasper units in the clear on this system. but its far and few my guess the radios must have lost the key

 

[Avery93]

i have heard some jasper units in the clear on this system. but its far and few my guess the radios must have lost the key

When JPD first went to P25 back in 2010, all traffic was encrypted. Every now and then you might hear a unit that accidentally switched to clear mode on their radio, but as you noted it was few and far between.

With their latest transition to P25, most of the units seem to be in the clear, while dispatch is always encrypted. However listening just now, I heard a fairly long conversation which was all encrypted. Units will probably enable encryption as they see fit.

 

[rbryant2]

I know this is an old thread, but as of this past Monday - November 26,2018 - I am again hearing Jasper using conventional FM, unencrypted

 

[medic9351301]

Where are you located.
How is the signal .

 

[rbryant2]

In and around Walker County. Still had the channel in the scan list of my analog mobile radio - surprised me to hear them again. Strong clear signal & audio. Can hear them fairly well mobile into the northern part of the B’ham metro area.

 

[medic9351301]

I am in Western Birmingham.
And it's appears to be the old jpd.
Did the get a new chief or something .

 

[rbryant2]

Well that didn't last long. Seems they are back on P25. Perhaps they had some technical issue that caused them to revert to a backup system briefly.

 

[medic9351301]

Yup .
It lasted about a week.
BTW what about walker co so ?
Still on southern stink ( southern Linc )

 

[rbryant2]

Sorry for the tardy reply, as I understand, WCSO is in the process of transitioning to AT&T's FirstNet LTE phone service with some variant of a PTT app on the devices (possibly AT&T's enhanced Push to Talk app). They are apparently having some growing pains with the system, I'm hearing a lot more frequent traffic on the VHF repeater with a lot of mention of "no service where I'm at on the other...". Also Regional Paramedic Service (RPS) has ditched the S-tink for the FirstNet system company wide.