Nothing has been heard on Polk County VHF fire and sheriff frequencies since last evening. Confirmed absence of traffic using two different scanners, both of which are receiving VHF traffic from adjacent counties with flying colors. First checked thoroughly for change of DCS codes. In a long shot, checked TACN, specifically Oswald Dome and North Bradley sites, for new talk groups. Nothing found. My theory is repeater failure, or possibly switch to an SMR. I'm pretty sure I would have heard talk of the latter.
Polk County Gone Silent
- Thread starter richard4537312
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Here's an update:
West Polk Fire and Rescue is dispatching and paging loudly and clearly, on it's familiar 154.385 MHz.
Polk County Sheriff is a different story. Transmissions on the usual 154.86 MHz have been few and sporadic for the past three days. Signal strength is low, and audio distortion makes the few transmissions almost unintelligible. It's totally silent tonight, and has presumably been put to rest, at least temporarily.
West Polk, Central One, dispatch can be heard tonight on 155.7375 MHz, DCS 664, with good old Casey Carver at the dispatcher's mic. West Polk Rural Metro EMS traffic has also been heard. I cannot yet confirm that Central Two, East Polk, is operating on this frequency.
West Polk Fire and Rescue is dispatching and paging loudly and clearly, on it's familiar 154.385 MHz.
Polk County Sheriff is a different story. Transmissions on the usual 154.86 MHz have been few and sporadic for the past three days. Signal strength is low, and audio distortion makes the few transmissions almost unintelligible. It's totally silent tonight, and has presumably been put to rest, at least temporarily.
West Polk, Central One, dispatch can be heard tonight on 155.7375 MHz, DCS 664, with good old Casey Carver at the dispatcher's mic. West Polk Rural Metro EMS traffic has also been heard. I cannot yet confirm that Central Two, East Polk, is operating on this frequency.
Now Confirmed: Central Two, East Polk, is also operating on 155.7375 MHz, DCS 664. Interestingly, the signal strength is exactly the same as the Central One communications. This is definitely a change for the better, and hopefully will continue. At least from here in West Polk County, monitoring East Polk on 154.86 MHz has been difficult for many months.
jfhtm350
Member
Up here if a repeater goes out or the frequency gets worked on they will switch over to fire or ems frequencies. This of course would do no good if they all went out. I also hear "give me a call" alot so they may use cellphones as well.
I just found out there is a new tower going up on Oswald Dome to help with comms in Polk County. Ground breaking was this week after securing proper paperwork from USFS Cherokee National Forest. This should help tremendously with coverage for Polk.County on their current system.
Wonder where the $$$ for that came from?
Don't know. I've got a person know that works in emergency services in Polk & Bradley counties who mentioned it on Facebook that it took about 2 1/2 years with all the planning, permit requests, etc. before it got started. They expect it to be done in 45-60 days
Oh yes, any time you involve Fed agencies, you have at minimum four to deal with.... USFS with that site, EPA as they find an way to get involved each and every time, FAA of course due to towers being rather tall, FCC always. And each and every one of them find ways to delay, make your life harder, and confuse you, as well as each other. Not to mention they will find an way for it to cost you more, especially if your funds come from say FEMA/USDHS? As MS found out the hard way when building out MSWIN.
Heard some testing yesterday on the previously silenced 154.86. Was clear that tech thought he had isolated an antenna problem.
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