New Cass Fire-East Paging Addition

[realgeo]

Good afternoon, everyone!

Whilst driving home from Lincoln this past Saturday evening, I happened to catch the Cass County paging tests on the Cass Fire transmitters.

It was interesting to note that Murray was included, for the first time, during Saturday night's test sequence. I didn't get a chance to record it, but the tones sounded identical to those being used on the 39.9000 channel.

On another thread in this forum, a side discussion came up regarding the legality of operating the Cass Fire-East transmitter from the Queen Hill tower site, since it apparently hasn't been licensed for that location.

What blew my mind was the callsign I heard following the Murray paging test - "WZC542".

The only thing I can think of is that the guy reading the script said the same callsign that would have been said following the same test over 39.900

A quick look at the WZC542 license on the FCC's website does NOT indicate a license for 154.3850 at the Queen Hill tower!

One of these evenings, I'm going to try to record all of the paging tones on Cass Fire-E/W so that we can develop a tone-out list for Cass County.

73's to all, and keep COOL!

 

[wb0qqk]

Kind of off topic, but I was wondering if someone has enhanced 453.325 in Cass Cty?
I usually monitor for Douglas County traffic and noticed that the signal from Weeping
Water had greater quieting today than before.

 

[realgeo]

Kind of off topic, but I was wondering if someone has enhanced 453.325 in Cass Cty?
I usually monitor for Douglas County traffic and noticed that the signal from Weeping
Water had greater quieting today than before.

Hey, Frank!

That's a good question.

I, too, monitor that one in my car. Last weekend when I was in Fremont, I heard a page go out for Weeping Water and the signal sounded like it no farther away than 20 miles.

I would assume that plans are underway to move Weeping Water / Manley / Avoca off of 453.3250 and onto Cass Fire West, 154.3850.

Another off-topic question - what departments in DC use 435.3250 for paging?

73's

 

[jakegday]

when i lived in valley, back in april, 453.325 was pretty much the only thing i had to listen to, i remember hearing rescue calls for valley, waterloo, bennington, and irvington,

 

[NeFire242]

I think it would be funny if one department would use the same exact tones as another that way Cass would alert Douglas or vise versa. How they got a freq assigned to each other when they are so close is still beyond me.

 

[KF0SKV]

My pager would regularly pick up Cass Cty FD tones at about 1830ish nightly, not full quieting but once you got past 72nd and Sorensen Pkwy, it would boom in as if I was next to the tower. I live near 72nd and Military.

 

[KF0SKV]

My pager would regularly pick up Cass Cty FD tones at about 1830ish nightly, not full quieting but once you got past 72nd and Sorensen Pkwy, it would boom in as if I was listening to the DC East tower. I live near 72nd and Military.

 

[KF0SKV]

Sorry guys that was my original post, somehow I can't delete it

 

[obijohn]

I think it would be funny if one department would use the same exact tones as another that way Cass would alert Douglas or vise versa. How they got a freq assigned to each other when they are so close is still beyond me.

There are very few 453/458 MHZ. Local Gov't channel pairs. For 25 KHz. Channel spacing, that is approx. 20 channels Because part of that spectrum is used for other services. Just in Douglas county alone, all are used.

Metro Area Transit uses 3
Metro Community College campuses use 3
Omaha Public Works uses 3
Several other local gov't agencies use 5 or so
And Douglas County Uses the rest for Fireground channels and paging.

The Coordinators don't have much of a choice but to reuse a channel pair close to another co-channel user. Think how bad it was in BIG metro areas before Trunking.

As far as the paging tones being the same, the choice of tones in an area is usually done
by the salesman of the system.

Some unimaginative radio system sales people always used Motorola QCII tone group 100 for every system they sold. Repeats are inevitable sooner or later. It usually isn't much of a problem until a towns sirens get set off by another dep't page. Especially with a little "propagation" from another area.

 

[wb0qqk]

Hey, Frank!
That's a good question.
I, too, monitor that one in my car. Last weekend when I was in Fremont, I heard a page go out for Weeping Water and the signal sounded like it no farther away than 20 miles.
I would assume that plans are underway to move Weeping Water / Manley / Avoca off of 453.3250 and onto Cass Fire West, 154.3850.
Another off-topic question - what departments in DC use 435.3250 for paging?
73's

Hi George,
Looks like your question may have already been answered. 453.325 is one of the
frequencies I scan at work because my district borders Ralston and I like to know
if they're getting sent to the vicinity of 60th & Harrison Street on a PI or something.
I've responded to calls near there only to find out they were farther east and in my
district anyway. Ralston also has a dual-response agreement with LaVista, so I'm
on top of things going on there too.

Then of course there's the other fire departments in Douglas County that I still have
friends on. Even though I've been gone from up there since 1990, I still like to know
what's happening. Lots of new addresses being dispatched and when I look up the
locations on my Rand-McNally, I find streets where there used to be cornfields !!

Just curious, do you listen to the Sarpy pages on 453.900 ?
73,
Frank.