Listening to MBTA

[Railfan570]

Hello Everyone,
I started to check out all mbta freqs.
Mbta police freq channel 1 is stall in use and have not changed over to pro- voice trunk channels like others in the mbta.

As of 3.19.2019
470.6625 is active
160.920 is active

More to come !

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[garys]

The Transit Police won't be moving to the Pro Voice system. I'm not sure that they ever planned to considering interop and compatibility issues. The Pro Voice system was planned back in the 1990s and a lot has changed since then.

You will find them on their UHF channels and both the analog and P25 MSP trunk system.

 

[EricCottrell]

Hello,

I think a move by the Transit Police to the Provoice system was planned. When the system went live, Channel 1 was patched in like all the other UHF channels. It seemed like there was a mixture of units on the system and on the UHF channel. A couple of years later I noticed only the BAPERN patches were still active.

Commuter rail will remain on the VHF railroad frequencies as they need to coordinate with other railroads. 160.920 is used by AMTRAK for their Northeast Corridor and commuter rail on the line uses the same frequency.

73 Eric

 

[garys]

I think that might have been the plan, but it wasn't particularly realistic. I remember reading in the paper when the T awarded the contract to whoever owned EDACS at the time that the system was chosen because it would be interoperable with other agencies in the area. Since everyone at that time was on Motorola Type II or even Type I trunking, that was patently ridiculous.

Interop, as primitive as it was at the time would have required them to do what Cambridge did and still does. Maintain analog UHF simulcast capability.

The 700Mhz P25 "overlay" system has good penetration of the T tunnels and of course the Tranisit Police Channel 1 has good coverage as well.

 

[EricCottrell]

Hello,

I heard comments that the MBTA wanted anybody other than Motorola since Motorola had a "lock" on local trunked radio systems.

73 Eric

 

[Railfan570]

I believe MBTA police would stay on 470.6625 freq it may have link to boston bp if help is needed

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[garys]

They will stay on it unless the FCC actually auctions off all of the UHF-T channels as they are supposed to be doing. In which case they'll migrate to the MSP system permanently is my guess.

A lot of agencies are buying multi band radios now that they are available. Federal grant money for radios stipulates that, even if the radios are only programmed for one band.