MTA Police on State Of New York Metro-25 Trunking System

[4-crime]

I just saw that MTA Police Talkgroups were added to this system.

State of New York Metro-25 Trunking System, New York City, New York - Scanner Frequencies

Does anyone have any further info on this? Is there much activity? Is MTA Police now fully trunked?

I will program these talkgroups in few days on my days off and see what I hear.

 

[Richard]

From what I've heard so far:

604 Long Island areas
6024 & 6025 Manhattan area
6026 Long Island
6027 Bronx/Westchester (North)

I'm not sure whether this is system is in support of whatever other system they are using, or whether they will transition onto it. Of course, this system has a limited range and can only be used in and near the 5 Boros.

It remains to be seen how it will be used and whether it will be sufficient for them.

Rich

 

[radioman2001]

Going to be a long time before MTA PD is fully trunked, there is no coverage out of lower Westchester. A number of towers to expand the system have been denied in quite a few towns, so I don't see them going trunked anytime soon. That's at least in NY, but in Conn they have gone just about all trunked on CSP's system where they added towers to supplement the CSP system where they found it didn't work well for them.

 

[4-crime]

So I just programmed in the talkgroups for this system but I'm not hearing any activity. Is this system very active?

 

[riveter]

No it really isn't.

 

[Darkstar350]

No it really isn't.

I second that - and the coverage is a bit lackluster
Im not too far outside the city and im lucky if i get 3 bars on a good day with a very efficient 800mhz antenna
Maybe there will be more sites and whatnot eventually...

 

[4-crime]

I'm in New York City and haven't hear anything at all since monitoring from last night up to now.

 

[radioman2001]

I'm in New York City and haven't hear anything at all since monitoring from last night up to now.

On which system CSP, Metro-25 on Empire State bldg? MTA has a very low dispatch rate and a lot of call are dispatched by telephone. LIRR is usually the busiest on their VHF, and on Metro North a busy day might be 50 calls in an 8 hour shift on VHF. I monitor the CSP 800 system and hear maybe 10 calls a shift, and most of them are logging on and off. I can't pick up Empire which only covers NYC, Nassau and lower Westchester from my home so I don't what the call volume is on that one, plus Empire is mainly used only for SIRT.

 

[4-crime]

On which system CSP, Metro-25 on Empire State bldg? MTA has a very low dispatch rate and a lot of call are dispatched by telephone. LIRR is usually the busiest on their VHF, and on Metro North a busy day might be 50 calls in an 8 hour shift on VHF. I monitor the CSP 800 system and hear maybe 10 calls a shift, and most of them are logging on and off. I can't pick up Empire which only covers NYC, Nassau and lower Westchester from my home so I don't what the call volume is on that one, plus Empire is mainly used only for SIRT.

The Metro-25 system. On any of the talkgroups.

 

[comspec]

I am still hearing dispatches on the VHF frequency in Northern Westchester. They are not busy but not silent either. Some days they I hear more traffic from MTA than the State Troopers.

Still not much traffic. Certainly not enough to justify all those talk groups. Does each district really need its own talk group? I am assuming there is one dispatch frequency and all the other talk groups are car to car, but it still looks like someone went overboard on the talk groups.

 

[radioman2001]

Considering there are a finite number of talkgroups and ID's available on a Type II system, I would want the most I can get for future uses. I know MTAPD wants to break down their dispatch system to much smaller areas, hence the need for more talkgroups. That was a problem I was working on nearly 10 years ago with the VHF system, but without frequencies not really doable.

 

[GTR8000]

Considering there are a finite number of talkgroups and ID's available on a Type II system, I would want the most I can get for future uses.

The NYS "Metro" system was never Type II.

It started out life as EDACS "Metro-21", and in the summer of 2013 was converted to P25 "Metro-25".

 

[radioman2001]

The NYS "Metro" system was never Type II.

Well aware of that, been working on system since the mid 2000's I meant CSP

 

[GTR8000]

Well aware of that, been working on system since the mid 2000's I meant CSP

This is a thread about the Metro-25 system, posted in the New York forum. You are the only person in this thread to mention the Connecticut State Police system. Perhaps it would be best to stick to the topic at hand, rather than talking about a system that no one else has brought up. This is exactly how threads get derailed, by off-topic posts.

 

[Spec]

This is a thread about the Metro-25 system, posted in the New York forum. You are the only person in this thread to mention the Connecticut State Police system. Perhaps it would be best to stick to the topic at hand, rather than talking about a system that no one else has brought up. This is exactly how threads get derailed, by off-topic posts.

The MTA system is comprised of several systems vhf-hi, and several 800 systems and maybe 700 soon. So in essence the information and insight he provides on the total MTA use is more than relevant.

 

[Darkstar350]

I actually recall hearing a rumor that sooner or later the MTA will end up using this system more and state agencies wont be using it as much
Still it would be nice to see this system have a bit more coverage
But i do realize that a true single "state wide" system can be a bit of a pipe dream especially in terrain as complex as NY
Im about 30 mins east of manhattan but on days with good conditions Met25 comes in loud and clear though i suppose its hard to tell whether its the good conditions or there is just no activity a majority of the time

To extend coverage out to the island a bit more there is limited tower space however
The big sites are nassau medical center thats about in the middle of nassau, then theres the norcom towers in plainview and thats a bit north east and also the north shore towers in glen cove which is somewhat northern queens but will generally cover a good part of nassau
All those sites while they do provide decent coverage they are very congested but i know the MTA has their own towers at hubs such as valley stream, hicksville and the signal dept yard in mineola so i would imagine they could use the MTA locations if they wanted to extend coverage but at the end of the day Metro 25 is owned by the state not the MTA

Perhaps the MTA will just use kind of use metro25 for a bit temporary until their own digital trunk system is built out...

 

[comspec]

Considering there are a finite number of talkgroups and ID's available on a Type II system, I would want the most I can get for future uses. I know MTAPD wants to break down their dispatch system to much smaller areas, hence the need for more talkgroups. That was a problem I was working on nearly 10 years ago with the VHF system, but without frequencies not really doable.

Right now I can hear districts 5 (some units), 6 and 7 on the VHF. It really isn't all that busy. How many units even patrol district 7? They could probably combine all the districts (except Manhattan) into a single frequency and it still wouldn't be all that busy. It would also be more efficient with all the districts on the same frequency. The only reason they can't is because they don't have a single system that can cover all the districts.

Does it really make sense to split that into two frequencies just because they can? Just my opinion, but I don't see it as necessary. Anyway, the question is academic at this point. There is no single system that works in all the districts, hence the mix and match.

Now all that said, I would love to see them expand the Metro-25 system to cover the entire MTA patrol area multiple talk groups or not.

 

[Darkstar350]

Also heres a couple 800mhz freqs licensed to the MTA
ULS License - PubSafty/SpecEmer/PubSaftyNtlPlan,806-817/851-862MHz,Trunked License - WQCZ328 - Metropolitan Transportation Authority Police
ULS License - PubSafty/SpecEmer/PubSaftyNtlPlan,806-817/851-862MHz,Trunked License - WQCZ321 - Metropolitan Transportation Authority Police

Mostly upstate locations but they look to be part of some 800mhz trunk
Anyone know if this is part of Metro 25 perhaps?...

 

[Spec]

Right now I can hear districts 5 (some units), 6 and 7 on the VHF. It really isn't all that busy. How many units even patrol district 7? They could probably combine all the districts (except Manhattan) into a single frequency and it still wouldn't be all that busy.

There are many times the two regions have multiple incidents going in different districts. The Comm desk also has to keep all the boss's apprised almost on a real time basis. Many times units are told to stand by when in fact they may be trying to pass on information than could be just as or maybe more important than the units you are standing by for. Thus the reason there are so many 10-1 and 10-3's. Now radio buffs and techs both can come up some fantastic remedies however for YEARS the politics and money have overridden the good answers. There are North, East Regions, S.I., Man (GCT, Penn) and CT. Now I realize Ct is in the North and Man is North and East but combining comms into one freq. would be a bit tough given the varied day to day ops.

 

[radioman2001]

Let me give a little insight into how the overall system is supposed to go over the next 5-10 years. Eventually there will be an 700/800 system throughout the entire MTA operating area. Starting with equipment located at each train station, and then expanding out. MTA also wants to lease out their system and towers any agency/ business who wants to pay for it to cover the cost of the build out. (I have had numerous requests about it from agencies all over the Tri State area) That is what I believe is one of the problems with them getting permissions for their towers in some towns and villages other than the usual BS of NIMBY. It changes their status from a state agency to a business, and there is already a court precedent on this when NYSP and Westchester County wanted to rent out space on their tower in New Rochelle. I suspect the new site for Peekskill will be at a new tower at the train station since we have no tower there now.

NYSP was supposed to build out a statewide OpenSky system, but we all know how that went. NYSP was about to lose all their 800 allocations from not building out on time from the local co-ordinator and in a pre-emtive strike they gave them to MTA. Now MTA has lots more money from DHS than NYSP had to build a system. They recently spent nearly a million $ on mobile and portable radios(VHF/800). They intend to keep the VHF for direct contact with the Rail operations, and the 700/800 will be for PD operations, and yes unfortunatly will eventually be (E).

To jump start the system in CT, they worked a MOU with CSP to use their system while enhancing it with additional MTA sites. I suspect it's possible that might also happen on LI.

On the Long Island I suspect the build out would be the same, first in train stations and along the ROW. Nassau Med would be my first choice for a site covering the South shore, but isn't very good toward the North. LIRR had a large amount of equipment up there until the 90's.

You are right on target about the politics involved.

As far as District dispatching, they can get very busy at times and I have been told to wait before I could do maintence on a site because X was going on. Also MTA is now dispatching the FD/EMS Brigades located in each of the yards, and that results in more radio traffic. So i do see them splitting the desks up more.