Ispern

[Chicago2210]

I have a quick question what is ISPREN, and how come they still use it even though the ISP now use STARCOM 21? Finally with STARCOM21 now in operation how come, the ISP still have the low band frequences? Is this a backup system? Please let me know thank you.

 

[N9JIG]

ISPERN is the Illinois State Police Emergency Radio Network, it is used by all law enforcement agencies in the State of Illinois, not just the State Police.

There are base stations at the Cook and Lake County Sheriff's offices as well as Chicago PD and each of the ISP Posts.

The same frequency (155.475) is used by most midwestern states for Mutual Aid purposes under various names (ILEEN in IN, WISPERN in WI etc.).

While the State Police is in charge of ISPERN, it is a valuable tool for all police agencies.

 

[KB9LIQ]

If they still have the low band it could be because they don't trust Motorola and the star-com system.

 

[N9JIG]

The low band stuff is all gone as far as the State Police are concerned. They did however retain most of the High Band VHF (150 MHz.) channels and infrastructure so as not to place all their eggs in one basket. It isn't that they don't trust StarCom21, but more to good practices that require redundancies in case of a failure.

All in all StarCom21 has actually been a success as far as the State Police are concerned. While it certainly is not without it's issues it has delivered enhanced communications and features at a reasonable cost.

 

[gewecke]

ISP no longer has ANY low band equipment,either mobile or base as there's no need for it anymore,except for the state mobile command posts and IEMA units.Visit your nearest ISP post or talk to a trooper and they will probably give you their take on this.
But as you noted many people do not see starscam21 as a solution,myself included.
N9ZAS

 

[chgomonitor]

We are confusing low band (30-50 Mhz) with the VHF ISPERN - 155.475. ISPERN itself remains on 155.475. The Starcom ISPERN talkgroups are essentially patches into and out of ISPERN. Listen to 155.475 and you'll hear the "un-digitized" audio coming from state cars back through their patch.

It's the Illinois State Police Emergency Radio Network. It's a Network. It has several acceptable uses, though it's main function is to serve as a conduit for relaying certain types of emergency messages from mobile units, often local agencies - and the majority of these aren't on Starcomm.

State Police have retained their district VHF channels as the backup to Starcomm and for other uses. The other posters are correct, the old Illinois State Police lowband district channels are essentially long gone.

I heard a tollway wolfpack working on 154.650 just the other day.

 

[RADIOGUY2002]

d15

District 15 makes extensive usage of the vhf channels still, and you can periodically catch them running opts or general traffic chit as far as north / south coverage with the heavy construction issues.

 

[Squad10]

I remember when ISPERN was 154.680 and switched to 155.475. Had to ask my dad for more money for a new crystal.

 

[N9JIG]

I remember when ISPERN was 154.680 and switched to 155.475. Had to ask my dad for more money for a new crystal.

I was ecstatic when they made that switch (around 1979 IIRC)! My old Regency 8 channel VHF scanner got awful interference from a local FM station on 154.680 and I could hardly ever hear anything on it.

We still had some old Moto HT220 portables with the freq labels in them that showed "154.68 MC" on them years ago and I found the old channel elements for the old ISPERN channel in a parts bin a few years ago at work.

 

[gewecke]

Every now and then 154.680 and 155.460 have ISP traffic on them with a pl of 67.0
N9ZAS

 

[N9JIG]

154.680, 155.460 and others are still maintained and used by the ISP for various activities. 155.460 is the statewide ISP "HF4", installed in every car and ISP Post. It is used for Post to Post type activities within the ISP, for car to car, and as kind of an itinerant channel for the ISP. Occasionally aircraft or ground speed enforcement details are heard here as well.

154.680 and the other HF3 channels thruout the state (such as 154.695, 154.935, 155.520 etc.) are retained by the Posts from before they switched to StarCom21. They are not normally used for regular dispatch unless there is some issue with StarCom21, such as a site or the system being down, a specific unit's radio being down or someone working in an area with known coverage issues. Occasionally ISP Posts will multi-select HF-3 and a StarCom21 talkgroup so you will hear the dispatcher on both.

67.0 PL has been installed on most VHF base stations thruout the ISP on most VHF channels. Before StarCom21 most of these base stations transmitted in CSQ, so we can presume that this was done as part of the StarCom21 project, perhaps to trigger patches when enabled. AFAIK the mobiles have not been programmed to transmit this PL, at least I haven't seen it around here.

 

[Squad10]

I was ecstatic when they made that switch (around 1979 IIRC)! My old Regency 8 channel VHF scanner got awful interference from a local FM station on 154.680 and I could hardly ever hear anything on it.

We still had some old Moto HT220 portables with the freq labels in them that showed "154.68 MC" on them years ago and I found the old channel elements for the old ISPERN channel in a parts bin a few years ago at work.

It was more like 1969 to the best of my recollection. I remember I was not old enough to have a DL when the switch was made. In 1979, I already had my DL for 7 years.

 

[gewecke]

154.680, 155.460 and others are still maintained and used by the ISP for various activities. 155.460 is the statewide ISP "HF4", installed in every car and ISP Post. It is used for Post to Post type activities within the ISP, for car to car, and as kind of an itinerant channel for the ISP. Occasionally aircraft or ground speed enforcement details are heard here as well.

154.680 and the other HF3 channels thruout the state (such as 154.695, 154.935, 155.520 etc.) are retained by the Posts from before they switched to StarCom21. They are not normally used for regular dispatch unless there is some issue with StarCom21, such as a site or the system being down, a specific unit's radio being down or someone working in an area with known coverage issues. Occasionally ISP Posts will multi-select HF-3 and a StarCom21 talkgroup so you will hear the dispatcher on both.

67.0 PL has been installed on most VHF base stations thruout the ISP on most VHF channels. Before StarCom21 most of these base stations transmitted in CSQ, so we can presume that this was done as part of the StarCom21 project, perhaps to trigger patches when enabled. AFAIK the mobiles have not been programmed to transmit this PL, at least I haven't seen it around here.

That's correct,the mobiles don't transmit the pl's just the posts. It's good that they retained the vhf hi channels because in time they'll realize the flaws the starscam21 system poses. It has many of the same weaknesses that a cell system does when its saturated beyond its capability. In time they'll find this out I hope. Motorola is going to either eat this beast they pawned off on the state of Ill. or soak the state dry trying to fix it when it fails!
N9ZAS

 

[KB9LIQ]

Spoke with a Macon county deputy yesterday and he hates the new star-com system. The coverage is not very good and like I notice you can't understand the transmissions sometimes. And Macon county has 3 towers. Said they dumped the old VHF system and went to the cities 800 system because they said it was costing too much to keep the system operating. Then they wanted something better because and system designed to work for the city of Decatur didn't work good in the county. Go figure that!! And now they are on star-com. The real sad part is the old VHF system is still in use so how did they save money on it in the first place

 

[N9JIG]

It was more like 1969 to the best of my recollection. I remember I was not old enough to have a DL when the switch was made. In 1979, I already had my DL for 7 years.

Well, I know for sure it was while I was in High School, as I was with a Cadet Program at the time of the switch, so it had to be between 1975 and 1979.

I found a doc from RR's own Ron W of MI that indicates that switch to 155.475 was late 1975, I guess this is as good a guess as any.

 

[ChargerSRT8]

I remember driving squad cars to have the change over performed at a temporary radio shop set up in an IDOT garage. They were the four channel GE radios with a red mic. and were the property of the state. This was in late 1976 or a little later.

 

[N9JIG]

The State of Illinois, thru a series of LEA and other grants, purchased thousands of 100 watt 4 channel VHF mobile radios from Motorola and GE for the ISPERN Program, such as the MastrPro, Micor and Motrac series. They were provided for free to police departments for installation in police cars. The rules were that ISPERN would be in the F1 position, and that the Priority Scan feature had to be hardwired in so that the radio always heard ISPERN.

The participating agencies were allowed to install other freqs into the other channels, and after IREACH (155.055) was established it was supposed to be put in F3. Many suburban agencies at the time were moving to new UHF-T band channels (470 MHz.) and used the VHF ISPERN radios with the old VHF dispatch channel or the local Public Works channels installed in the F2 slot for Car to Car and local option use.

Eventually the State released the radios to the ownership of the possessing agencies and they were allowed to enable the scan switch so that the scan could be disabled.

The ISPERN radios from Moto and GE were supplied with the distinctive red mics. A smaller but similar program for ambulances and the MERCI frequencies had similar radios equipped with yellow mics.

 

[KB9LIQ]

Way back when I did some work with the State police's IBI unit, or if my memory serves me right that is what they were called at that time. But all they had were the old GE billy club portables, most if not all the cars we worked out of didn't have mobile radios in them. A few had them hiden. But I don't remember but I'm sure they had ISPERN in them we just never used scan

 

[RadioMarkW]

It is very interesting that after all this time with the system the ISPERN patches STILL do not come across the STARCOM network very well, this is true even when they are transmitted from the home district's system.

I really don't understand why they are always so garbled. They are a constant source of complaint on this system (STARCOM).

Many districts are re-reading the information on Dispatch-1, this seams a terrible duplication of effort, tying up even more resources.

Oh, well, just more @^% from this beautiful radio system of Illinois here.

By the by, the coverage really SUCK's when you get off the Inter-state. When you get in the "back woods" so to speak, like and hilly forested area like route 29 the drop outs are many...............................

This is true on many of the state highways that are not part of the inter-state/intra-state transit systems.

Regards,

 

[gewecke]

Exactly! That's why starscam 21 days are numbered! I can't see Illinois feeding $$$ to moto for this miserable pile of towers for more than a year or two,with only mediocre performance.
N9ZAS