NJICS Union County
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Analogrules
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Yeah, I heard setting the clock is the norm after having it off too long.
slapshot0017
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Well it has been confirmed by both a captain in Elizabeth and a Sargent with the county that they have some new radios and since I haven't heard anything on the county edacs I believe the county moving. Elizabeth PD is still simulcasting the vhf, but its of the trunked system. FD was still conventional for the fire today so my assumption is they won't move over for a while.
All county agencies made a full switch over to the NJICS in July/August. The 800mhz EDACS is no longer being used for any unit primarily. The Union County Hotline is still being broadcast on the EDACS while the municipalities make the switch over to the 700mhz Hotline. Any important police info from the hotline is being relayed by county dispatch. Elizabeth PD is currently simulcasting to the 700mhz while they fine tune the system. The FD will start switching over after their mobile installs are completed.
slapshot0017
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Ahh now I feel stupid. I'm sorry I've been off in Connecticut at school for the past 3 months... Its unbelievable how much you miss...
Quick question does anyone know if there is a simulcast site going in in clark for anything? Cause I see a new tower being constructed but I can't tell if its a cell tower site or a radio site.
Quick question does anyone know if there is a simulcast site going in in clark for anything? Cause I see a new tower being constructed but I can't tell if its a cell tower site or a radio site.
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Elizabeth FD in building coverage
Anyone know how they expect in building coverage for EPD on 700 NJICS to be what it is now on the 500 repeater that is in Elizabeth with remote recievers ? Same for using 453.150?
I can't see low powered portables making it. I must be missing something?
If I am not mistaken the 700 is in Mountainside? That is a bit of a haul and to boot some terrain in play too.
Anyone know how they expect in building coverage for EPD on 700 NJICS to be what it is now on the 500 repeater that is in Elizabeth with remote recievers ? Same for using 453.150?
I can't see low powered portables making it. I must be missing something?
If I am not mistaken the 700 is in Mountainside? That is a bit of a haul and to boot some terrain in play too.
Analogrules
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I agree. I think Elizabeth (and any town) is ignorant for switching to digital especially for FD ops. Something tells me they will learn the hard way and perhaps switch back eventually like a few other towns throughout the state. I hear their police officers complaining their radios are breaking up on 700 all the time!!
APX8000
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r60 said:
The Union County 700 is actually a simulcast of 3 sites...Mountainside, ELIZABETH and Plainfield. The Elizabeth site is on the courthouse on Broad Street. They have no problems hitting the Elizabeth site from Elizabeth. The Mountainside site is on the top of the tower on the top of the Watchung Mountains...it's actually on the end of Prospect Ave off Summit Road. That site has some really nice elevation. I get it full quieting on portable in SE Morris County. I believe the Plainfield site is on Mulenburg Hospital. All three sites are transmitting on the same frequency at the same time (LSM) so the signal blankets the area. Additionally, if they have a problem hitting any of those, they roam over to the West Orange Simulcast with transmitters in Newark, the top of the Eagle Rock reservation in West Orange, etc. to name a few that are all slamming LSM.
EPD does not use the 500 repeater...EFD does. And for in building or fireground, they should be using analog simplex per NFPA standards.
453.150 is the Fire Mutual Aid repeater. I believe it comes off the same three sites simulcasted as the Union County 700 TRS.
APX8000
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The radios aren't "breaking up." Again, the problem is they have not made the full switch yet. Dispatch audio and the cars are still being converted from analog to digital TDMA. Thats why it sounds like crap on the 700 portables. Same to dispatch...the digital from the portables is being converted back to analog which the dispatcher is hearing. That's why you are hearing those complaints. They should have fully deployed the system instead of rolling it out this way. You have old timers that are used to that analog sound and the conversion between analog and TDMA is causing the majority of the problems. Have you ever listened to the system on a Motorola APX ? When its pure TDMA to TDMA it sounds fantastic.
What towns have switched back from the NJICS ?
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Analogrules
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I believe it was on another thread, but someone mentioned that recently a few Camden County towns have been reverting to their old frequencies at times (they are on their own 700 encrypted system as you probably know). Also a couple of towns in Monmouth and Ocean County have tried digital in the past and went back to analog due to limited range. The fact is that digital radios can indeed have a lot of problems inside certain buildings no matter how close the repeater is. FDNY learned this from attempting to switch to digital several years ago, and quickly went back to analog. You can search the past threads and find that information. No towns specifically left the NJICS system...yet! Also, I know for a fact that there are many occasions that Elizabeth officers have trouble hitting the 700 repeater. I often hear them cut off completely and dispatch tells them to call in by phone since they "aren't making it". I monitor Elizabeth very often and this is a common occurrence every single day. Elizabeth FD sounds loud and clear on 500, but I am sure they will also sound like crap as soon as they switch too.
slapshot0017
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I can see large cities like Elizabeth going to the NJICS system cause they have so much going on over there like Newark, but they should just leave the rest of the county alone... County Police fine too, but the local jurisdictions don't need it...
APX8000
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Well that would be completely against the purpose of the system which is included in its acronym...INTEROPERABILITY. What about when that local jurisdiction has a major incident requiring outside assets and they can't talk to each other?
I see it not only between agencies like Fire not being able to talk to Police (think about the evacuation order on 9/11), but with departments with the same purpose...like police not being able to talk to police at the same incident (think of the mall shooting in Bergen County). I'm not going to go into it and hijack the thread so I'll leave it at this...when I have to go a dispatcher to relay information to the guy standing at the other corner of a house on gun call, the the system is not working.
I see it not only between agencies like Fire not being able to talk to Police (think about the evacuation order on 9/11), but with departments with the same purpose...like police not being able to talk to police at the same incident (think of the mall shooting in Bergen County). I'm not going to go into it and hijack the thread so I'll leave it at this...when I have to go a dispatcher to relay information to the guy standing at the other corner of a house on gun call, the the system is not working.
Analogrules
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Well all towns in NJ already have Interop ability through SPEN, along with designated mutual aid frequencies for each county. There will also be several towns that will refuse to trade in their excellent working radio system for the poorer audio and limited range of digital 700. Therefore, since many towns will not be getting on board, NJICS may end up being a failure in the future. It will be interesting to see if cities like Newark FD and Elizabeth will stay with 700 for the long term future.
It is in the process of being done.
slapshot0017
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Inter-opperability is a load of crap... It was all a marketing ploy for Motorola to sell their fancy new radios. Like narrow banding its all a terrible marketing scheme... Not saying digital is a bad thing because of voice clarity, but the big problem is that the signal is either there or not so coverage is key.
I live in Clark. The only time I can ever see PD needing to talk to someone other than themselves is State PD for an accident on the parkway (and to this date they have never had problem talking to eachother via a phone call from our dispatcher) or if their is a major shooting at one of the "shopping malls" in the town which is as likely as another 9/11 incident, but for both of these incidents there are channels like VTAC and UTAC and even SPEN which were made for this exact reason... No need for a fancy trunk system...
FD has been fine using the channels they already have and I've never heard anyone complain that they can't get their comms out... Theres already conventional channels in place that work perfectly fine.
There is no difference between a trunk system and conventional system there's always multiple channels/talk groups. If you're on the same band it doesn't matter and if you're not thats what multi band radios are for...
I know that one of the big things techs want are to consolidate everything, but its pretty much like they are turning the two way radio system into a cell phone system...
I also want to make one really major statement about local trunk systems not statewide ones which are good for say a county resource or state resource. I feel that the everyone is trying to save every dime they can by being penny smart, but that usually ends with them being dollar foolish... With the implementation of these systems alot of scanner and radio companies will lose business from amateur radio operators, scanner enthusiasts and even public safety officials who like to have their own equipment like firemen, because they won't want to pay for extremely expensive equiptment that they can't even get programmed because it'll end up being bricked if they even try and use it.
I know I'm going of on a rant and I know some people are going to disagree with me and just say i'm a dumb kid, but this hobby is a passion of mine and I would hate to see it die out like most hobbies are now a days due to government paranoia and greed...
As much as people would love to believe that the ICS is the creation of some sort of "big-bad Moto" marketing, it's actually not.
The creation of the NJICS, as well as the other states' 700MHz systems are a part of the USDHS FirstNet initiative. The concept was developed following the lessons learned from the massive communications breakdown on 9/11, and communications failures on the battlefield in Afghanistan. The intent to have have a standard protocol (P25) trunked system across all 50 states, which can be interlinked at a moment's notice in the case of a national disaster. It's logical, practical, and makes perfect sense.
Now here's the simple reality. It's easy for people who are hobbyists and casual listeners to comment and form opinions on systems like the NJICS and the transition of various agencies or unification of agencies to such. But unless you belong to an agency that will be affected by this, or have actual experience dealing with things like interoperabilty and communications systems...
...you're really just pissing in the wind and making blind assumptions.
And we already have an ICS thread last I checked.
The creation of the NJICS, as well as the other states' 700MHz systems are a part of the USDHS FirstNet initiative. The concept was developed following the lessons learned from the massive communications breakdown on 9/11, and communications failures on the battlefield in Afghanistan. The intent to have have a standard protocol (P25) trunked system across all 50 states, which can be interlinked at a moment's notice in the case of a national disaster. It's logical, practical, and makes perfect sense.
Now here's the simple reality. It's easy for people who are hobbyists and casual listeners to comment and form opinions on systems like the NJICS and the transition of various agencies or unification of agencies to such. But unless you belong to an agency that will be affected by this, or have actual experience dealing with things like interoperabilty and communications systems...
...you're really just pissing in the wind and making blind assumptions.
And we already have an ICS thread last I checked.
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Analogrules
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I have to agree with KD2BRR. During my entire life with the radio hobby, never once did my local PD have to communicate with an agency other than State PD and surrounding towns (in which they already have their channels programmed in their radios). We already have UTAC and VTAC. I think this whole 700 Interop idea is just going to cause more confusion during a major disaster because every agency will have to first determine which frequency or tg they need to converge on. Will it be SPEN, Utac, Vtac, county mutual aid analog frequencies, state PD talkgroups, or the 700 system? There are already too many interop choices and 700 is just adding more confusion to the mix. That's the way I see it. Ironically, 9/11's communication problems occurred in nyc, yet they are still using the same frequencies without any talk of digital for the future. FDNY tried digital and realized it was worse because they couldn't hear each other inside buildings. So since I know digital comms have already proven to be a failure in major cities, I know in my heart that digital 700 is NOT the smart way to go. But, I am not putting anyone down for their opinions and respect you all. Now, let's get back on topic. 
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