Fulton County - New UHF system

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captclint

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Noticed that a new UHF system license was granted in Oct of last year: WQWP910 (FULTON, COUNTY OF)

I am not from the area, but thought others might like to know. If anyone monitors any activity, please either enter in the database, or let us know here.
 
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HM1529

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Yes, we definitely need updates here. It is a very rural area and there is an information void.

13 municipalities
0 local PD's
4? local volunteer fire/ems companies within the county
14,670? countywide population
911 dispatch provided by Cumberland County
 

Septa3371CSX1

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Could these possibly be used to replace the low band system currently in use?

Interesting to note all of the emission designations are analog narrowband.
 

kb3ouk

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Finally, I find a little bit of info on this new system that I keep reading about in our county newspaper. Yea, evidently it is supposed to replace the lowband system they have right now. Currently, dispatch is through Cumberland county, but as I understand it, that will be changing soon to Bedford county for dispatching. There was also something I heard about Bedford, Fulton, Blair, and Huntingdon counties going together on some things to do with 911 dispatching. I know that Huntingdon county is also in the process of upgrading their fire/EMS system. The emissions designations in the license for Fulton make thing sa little confusing to determine what they are going to do, since each frequncy is listed as 11K2F3E (12.5 analog voice) and 11K2F1E (12.5 digital vioce), which makes you wonder what they are doing if they go digital since P25's designation is 8K10F1E if I remember right.

Shelby
 

SCPD

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I'm assuming that they will copy exactly the same setup as Bedford County has. Analog dispatch channel and the ops channels will be P25. I'm pretty sure that Huntingdon will be the same. I have the channels in the scanner so I will post if I hear anything. But the commissioners just gave approval to get the radios so I'm sure they haven't got the equipment yet.
 

markandjere

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Finally a Fulton County representative on board! Keep us posted on ALL things in Fulton Co. . That page needs to be updated with any info that is willing to be provided.
 

kb3ouk

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There's just not that much here to add that isn't already listed, no local PD, and fire just uses two frequencies at the moment, 46.520 and 46.460. Years ago there used to be occasional EMS traffic on 463.100 but I haven't heard that in a long time. I imagine taht will all change once this new system gets on the air. One thing I haven't heard yet is if they will still use 46.520 for dispatch or if that will go away once the new system comes on.
 

SCPD

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From what I understand once the new system is up there will be 3 tower locations to cover the county. The lowband system is slowly failing so I'm sure they will stop using the 46.520, 46.460, 46.060 frequencies eventually once the new system is working. They just renewed the license for all the old frequencies back in February. I submitted updates for the county page on here. I imagine that they rarely use 463.100 or they are using another med channel. I have not heard any traffic on it either for a while. I know that McConnellsburg Volunteer Fire Company and Needmore Volunteer Fire Company have their own private frequencies that they can use. Hustontown Volunteer Fire Company just uses the regular frequencies. I know that the 911 center in Cumberland County uses the frequency 154.28000 for contacting other counties for mutual aid. I have heard them use this frequently for county to county. That could be added to the page also. One township and the Borough of McConnellsburg both have frequencies registered I put then in the update request also. I'm not finding any other township that uses radios to communicate. As I find out new information I will post on here.
 

SCPD

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Tonight company 57 was called for lines down. When they were on scene I heard them using 453.98750 for an ops channel. I know that this is a frequency that is licensed to company 55. So I'm guessing they were having problems with the Fulton fire 2 and 3? I rarely heard them using 2 or 3 anyway. I guess we will see what happens once they new system is up and running. So far no traffic on the new frequencies.
 

kb3ouk

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Last night was a pretty busy night. 57 started out at a tractor trailer rollover just west of the Sideling HIll Plaza (I could see it from my house). At the same time, 56 had lines down about halfway up the west side of Scrub Ridge on route 30, and I know they were using 46.460, which is ops 2. I could hear them pretty good from here. So that might be why 57 was using 453.9875, which is interesting because I can't seem to find a license for that frequency for anyone in the area. If it wasn't for the mountain being in the way I would've probably been able to hear 57 over here since they were only about 5 miles away. What I did hear that was interesting last night was while this was going in, there were a few times when the dispatcher would come on the air, that transmitter was way weaker than normal, to the point where 57's brush truck which was on the other side of a mountain from me was coming in stronger than the dispatch transmitter which I can see from my house. Then after a few transmissions it was back up to normal strength.
 

W3DMV

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Needmore has a license for 453.9875. WQUH884 licensed
for mobile repeater operation..
Either way, great catch and thanks for posting...
 

SCPD

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I have not heard anything on the new frequencies yet. I'm not sure what the holdup is but if I find out anything I will post here.
 

ATTACKFF

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Ok thanks. Do you know if they will use the same analog dispatch as bedford since bedford will be dispatching the 3 departments or will they have their own dispatch freq.
 

kb3ouk

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Most likely Fulton will have their own frequency and Bedford will just use it for dispatching Fulton only. Bedford's dispatch is very weak where I'm at in the northern part of Fulton county.
 

ATTACKFF

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Ok, I know Bedford system does seem to have weak signal strength. I was told Bedford system is designed to have low power output, I know where I live in cambria county I cannot receive them well, but can receive Butler and Allegheny counties UHF signals pretty well. Do you know if the dispatch channel will be analog and rhe ops digital just like bedford and blair?
 

kb3ouk

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License shows the emissions as 11K2F1E and 11K2F3E. I also know from reading what little has been mentioned about this system in the local newspaper is that the total cost of the equipment will be $3,004,953.93 from ComPros. My guess is the whole thing will be analog only.
 

SCPD

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I just wanted to see if anyone heard any updates on the switch over to the new radio system? I was just doing some digging on the Fcc's website and saw that they are to have the construction of the new system done by the end of the month (October). I will try and listen to see when they start testing the new frequencies so I can provide updates. Hopefully they are on schedule with everything.
 

ATTACKFF

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any updated on the new system, analog vs digital, any freq yet, any time table for system to be up and running?
 

SCPD

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I haven't heard any traffic on the new frequencies yet. After doing some digging on the fcc's website I saw that the fcc sent a letter to the county about the status of the switch to the new frequencies and according to that they were to be up and using the new ones by the end of october. So not sure what the holdup is but the old system is on its last legs and they need to switch.

The frequencies that they have at three different sites are:
453.3625
453.5000
453.5375
460.0875
460.4250
 
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