WCCCA Rebanding

[ltulrich]

They are rebanding WCCCA now, 6/22/10 3A PST.

 

[DickH]

They are rebanding WCCCA now, 6/22/10 3A PST.

Can you be more specific. I understand the rebanding was completed at least one month ago.

 

[joescanner]

WCCCA completed retuning and rebanding of the Washington County Simulcast system, the West Washington County Simulcast simulcast and the Clackamas County Simulcast system several months ago. The techs are now working on completing the East Clackamas County simulcast system, and may be working on Newberg some more.

 

[ORE007]

They rebanded the towers of the Clackamas County System early this morning, radios have been done a little while ago.

 

[DickH]

They rebanded the towers of the Clackamas County System early this morning, radios have been done a little while ago.

What freqs. did they change? add?

 

[ORE007]

I don't think they changed any frequencies, but did something else to the towers that had to do something with the re-banding.

 

[ltulrich]

Sorry for the non-specific post and for the delay in response. At exactly 3A I heard City Net announce that they were going to be rebanding the system for the next few hours and to keep non-critical communications off the air. Then on the radio tech channels I heard a couple guys discussing where to plug stuff in, mostly. I've been pretty much unaware of the status on the rebranding, I knew it had started but I don't know if it's 100% incremental or if they ever have to bring it down.

Also I'm sure this has been asked and I've read some posts on it but I still don't really understand: How will the rebranding effect me? I use a BCT8, CC only, PL1.

Is it that certain TGIDs will never come up on my scanner? Is it that a random number of transmissions on all TGIDs will be missed by my scanner? Can I update my firmware to be compatible with the rebranding? Does it matter whether I use CC only? What about EOT and Sbit?

I am using ID Tracker to label TGIDs and I get plenty of traffic on the usual suspects but it's been on search mode for days and days and I haven't had hits on most of the oddball channels. I realize that many of them are rarely used but it seems to me that I should be hitting on more Fire Ops, more PD Tac channels, and more public utility channels. This suggests to me that my scanner is not recieving all transmissions. However, if this is the case then what are the odds that I would be able to hit on and log all the dispatch channels for all the departments?

Any advice is appreciated.

 

[ORE007]

You will need to update your firmware and program the band plan on your BCT8.

 

[ltulrich]

I updated my firmware; is there a table of the proper changes? What's the program for changing the tables called again? Will ARC do it?

 

[DickH]

...Any advice is appreciated.

The word is re B A N D ing. Band, as in a band of frequencies.
Rebanding only affects frequencies, not Talk Groups, etc. As Joe said, the rebanding was completed some time ago, so I don't know what the techs could be talking about.
The firmware in older scanners does not recognize some rebanded freqs., like 851.0250 and any freqs in the 851-853 range with a zero in that 4th decimal place. That's why you need to put Custom Band Plans into your scanner.

 

[AlanTilles]

Talk Groups

Generally, Dick is correct. Rebanding doesn't have to involve a change in talk groups. However, since every radio has to be "touched", some municipalities are taking the opportunity to re-write and/or consolidate talk groups, where they've grown to astronomical proportions. I can't speak to this particular licensee.

In addition, rebanding of a Motorola system can involve a whole host of stages. Generally, radios are touched a first time to put in new programming software, then infrastructure is touched to change frequencies on the system. Sometimes, there is another touch to radios after that, to remove old mutual aid channels, where "double programming" was used to ensure continued interoperability with other municipalities. That 2nd touch is performed when the mutual aid repeaters in the region have all been reprogrammed (which could involve numerous licensees throughout a region or state). We have some EDACS systems with three touches to radios.

Alan S. Tilles, Esquire
Shulman Rogers Gandal Pordy & Ecker, P.A.
Law Firm, Attorneys - Maryland, Washington, DC, Virginia - Shulman Rogers
800MHz Rebanding Resource

 

[joescanner]

WCCCA completed rebanding of the Washington County Simulcast, West Simulcast and Clackamas County Simulcast sites some time ago. The East Simulcast site did not get rebanded at this time for reasons unknown to me. All of the work that has been performed over the last three or four days is related to the East Simulcast site.

The announcement on City Net is just a precaution - they do this work overnight to impact the system as little as possible - and to let folks know that if they have trouble getting through that it is a known issue.

Rebanding, with the proper firmware installed, and the appropriate frequencies updated, should not impact you at all. There were no significant talkgroup changes on any of the local systems (not to say that there weren't ANY changes -- there were) but none of the most commonly "wanted" talkgroups changed.

Make sure that you've got the firmware updated (BCT8FirmwareUpdate < UnidenMan4 < TWiki), set the bank to E2-CUS, then apply the following table:

Band Plan  	 Base Freq (Lower)  	 Base Freq (Upper)  	 Offset  	 Polarity  	 Spacing
1 	851.0250MHz 	854.0000MHz 	440 	+ 	25 kHz
2 	851.0125MHz 	868.9875MHz 	0 	+ 	25 kHz

(The BCT8 is not capable of accomodating the full rebanded band plan - but the above will work without issue).

Then, make sure that your frequencies are all between 851.0125 and 860.9875 MHz and you should be tracking everything.

 

[ltulrich]

Thank you all for the input. Dick, if I said rebranding, it's a typo. I did some reading and learning and I was able to update my scanner and set up the two band plan edits. I'm sure I will have more questions later. Like about the Newberg TGIDs. They were removed from the database but I still get em. Along with a few more that haven't been in the DB. I will list them soon.

 

[jeremym70]

I believe rebanding was delayed on the East Clackamas Simulcast because of the late spring snowfall which hit Goat Mt. Subscriber wise I believe there was renaming of some talkgroups and probably other minor changes. Don't think they are planning another special reprogram locally to remove the pre-rebanding frequencies. Most of the national and state NSPAC frequencies had back to back repeaters on the old and new frequencies so that they did not have to dupe the frequencies in the subscriber radios.

 

[ltulrich]

joescanner, is that the same bandplan table that would be used for BOEC?

Aside, I found this: Joint CAD Incident Tracking System . It's a joint WCCCA/CCOM incident tracking map. Useful in trying to nail down some of the odball HEARS channels.

Also I found the frequencies for AMR's conventional system. They aren't in the DB.

WNJB867
150.8050
155.1600
155.2200
155.2350
155.3400

WNDR292
155.2800

 

[DickH]

joescanner, is that the same bandplan table that would be used for BOEC?

The BOEC simulcast system does not need custom band plans.

 

[mikepdx]

Also I found the frequencies for AMR's conventional system.
They aren't in the DB.

WNJB867
150.8050
155.1600
155.2200
155.2350
155.3400

WNDR292
155.2800

155.34 is of course HEARS.

155.16 and 155.28 are from a couple of the old ambulance companies that AMR/Laidlaw ate.
(Buck and American, if I recall).
They're probably just holding onto the coordinations because they can.
Unused at this time to my knowledge.

150.805 is the input to a lone low power (10W) repeater on 155.235 at Timberline.
155.235 is AMR Clackamas County Dispatch and IS in the database under Clack Co.
shown as R Repeater - it is regularly used simplex tho.

155.235 is also in the Mult Co. database as EMS Dispatch which is WRONG.
155.220 is/was AMR Non-Emerg Transport Dispatch in Mult Co - < Needs verification if it still is.

 

[ltulrich]

Nice.

Coincidentally the reason I care about AMR in the first place is because my girlfriend is the.. wait for it.. non emergent transport dispatcher during graveyard! I will confirm exactly which frequency I hear her on.

Right now I'm setting up scanlists. Anyone have insight into some of the oddball Washington County law channels? What's an INET? SAR? WESTAC?

Imagine a list of all the Washington County law enforcement TGIDs that are not city PDs. It would include the Sheriff's Office and all the shared and interagency channels like Common Law, PS A-D, Service Net, etc.. How would you sort that list between SO and true interagency ones? Is.. INET the same as 'Interagency Narcotics (E-something) Team'? If so, why is it tagged 'WCSO - INET'?

Is this more or less correct?

County Sheriff's Office
WCSO Dispatch 1
WCSO Dispatch 2
WCSO Tac 1
WCSO Tac 2
WCSO SAR
WCSO TNT
WCSO Admin
WCSO Detectives
WCSO Records

Shared/Common/Interagency
Service Net
Common Law 1
Common Law 2
WCSO - INET
Westside Interagency Narcotics Team Tac 2
WESTAC
Washington County 'A'
Washington County 'B'
Washington County 'C'
Washington County 'D'

South Cities doesn't count, they're in another list.

 

[joescanner]

INET is the Interagency Narcotics Enforcement Team, which has more recently been referred to as "WIN" - Westside Interagency Narcotics Team (Westside Interagency Narcotics Team (WIN)).

SAR is "Search and Rescue"

WESTAC is just a TAC channel for west end agencies (Hillsboro, Forest Grove, Cornelius, Banks, North Plains, etc.) I believe it is in a common location on those agencies' radios. (There is also a corresponding SOUTH TAC)

As to why they are tagged as WCSO channels, WCSO is the sponsoring (or "lead") agency, and responsible for the management of the team.

 

[mikepdx]

Coincidentally the reason I care about AMR in the first place is because my girlfriend is the.. wait for it.. non emergent transport dispatcher during graveyard! I will confirm exactly which frequency I hear her on.

Let us know.