Mason County Fire vs Cencom Fire

[bhoglan]

Hey folks,
I think this is mostly a dummy check. Am I seeing right that both Cencom and Macecom are using the same VHF frequency, both without even any kind of squelch in place?

Mason County, Washington (WA) Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference

Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference for Mason County, Washington (WA)

www.radioreference.com

Kitsap County, Washington (WA) Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference

Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference for Kitsap County, Washington (WA)

www.radioreference.com

I'm looking at 154.370. I definitely hear both agencies on the same channel. They're definitely two different counties and two separate dispatch centers and systems. One uses a tone out with Locution-type automated voice announcement and the other uses a human tone out and announcement.

I think why I'm so confused is that they're neighboring counties so this makes no sense to me. I absolutely MUST be missing something here. Right?

 

[K1YNE]

Are they only using it for tone outs? There may be an agreement in place for sharing the channel. Whoever had the original license would've needed to sign a letter of concurrence for the second licensee to get the same frequency from the FCC so close geographically.
No CTCSS/CDCSS makes sense in the case that only pagers are listening. Minitor pagers do not do squelch decode; They only care about the paging tones, so no reason to run it. This would allow the two dispatch centers to listen and ensure the other is not using the channel before sending a page as well.
But, I dont know anything about it so Im only guessing.
The Mason County license lists it as a FB, so not a repeater, and with 250 pagers. But it also lists only a 14W ERP, so not a lot of power.
The license listed on the RR Kitsap page, KOL696, is canceled. Theres a few licenses for various Kitsap FDs and Kitsap 911 on this channel. So unsure what one they are operating under. All the ones I did find have significantly more power listed, so its possible that you're just able to hear Mason and it doesnt cause much interference to Kitsap.

 

[KA7JUR]

Cencom in Kitsap County uses 154.37 as a fire tone out channel with a computerized voice. TComm in Thurston County uses this same frequency for some of their fire tone outs. (Maybe TCERN tone out frequencies will change since the new 700 trunking system is online.)

There are many places in Mason County where the base transmitters from both Thurston and Kitsap counties can be heard. Of course, it sounds bad if they are both transmitting and the listener is not located where one of the transmitted signals is strong enough to completely capture the listener's receiver. Thankfully the pagers within each county are usually capturing strong signals from their own county's towers.

Many years ago, North Mason Fire would be alerted by Cencom on 154.37 when needed for a mutual aid response in Kitsap County. Mason County units could answer on that same channel, but that stopped when Cencom dedicated the frequency to tone outs only. Now fire units from Mason County can be heard on other Cencom channels when responding to calls in Kitsap County. It's very unlikely Mason County fire or dispatch agencies transmit on 154.37 anymore.