I know the 800mhz air to ground is supposed to be programmed as a simplex into all the bernco edacs radios. I know its already in the UNMPD cars, dont know about the portables... so I expect any air to ground traffic in bernalillo cty will use them.
Dont know if PHI has 800 mhz radios on board the birds, however.
They do have both VHF and UHF radios.
Valencia and Socorro, as a matter of policy, use car-to-car for air to ground, even after they were told to program the new VHF channel in. Occasionally, they'll use state fire, but since the damn SO units DONT have state fire in their mobiles (despite the fact that ALL public safety units are supposed to have ALL the mutual aid channels) its more likely that car-to-car is used.
My personal radio has the VHF channel, since we got a copy of that from BEMS, my department radio doesnt, and i dont expect the update
And, I was near an LZ in Sandoval the other day, they used car-to-car as well, but it was a SO unit handling the LZ.
I didnt hear about the part about using med 8 direct as a backup to the state air to ground channels, i should probably go find that memo again.