California statewide P25 system

[K6CDO]

In about 2004 there was a solid plan to develop a statewide trunked radio system using statewide VHF-Hi frequencies from each of the State VHF Agencies (DOJ, OES, DFG, CDF, DWR) and frequencies from the then-new 700 MHz spectrum. Every state agency was on board with it, except CHP - who (because of their size) killed the plan and went around the State Planning Committee to the Legislature for $500M for the "Three Year" CHPERS project. The reason CHP objected was "We have to cover everywhere in the state." Never mind that the other 5 agencies also have top cover "everywhere in the state" and were doing it just fine. As a result, we saw the CHP VHF-Lowband refresh (which still doesn't work everywhere).

The 6 sites in the San Joaquin Valley have started construction (last fiscal year's monies). You don't build a 153,000 square mile system in one phase. You work with those who have the coverage density you need in the urban areas, and then fill in with State infrastructure in the remainder. To that end, the State is actively communicating with the existing Regional system operators about networking (and bringing additional sites and channels to their parties).

As to CalFIRE "leaving VHF" - not for active firefighting, no (VHF will be the benchmark for Wildland firefighting for the foreseeable future) - but consider admin traffic, AVL and Travel usage.

 

[scannerboy02]

You work with those who have the coverage density you need in the urban areas, and then fill in with State infrastructure in the remainder. To that end, the State is actively communicating with the existing Regional system operators about networking (and bringing additional sites and channels to their parties).

This is how the Ohio statewide MARCS system (and others around the country) works. They call the system a 'system of systems' because they have networked local P25 systems into the state's master controller and built state owned sites to fill in areas that didn't have coverage. For the most part the system works very well. I'm glad to see California is taking this approach and with the availability of "all band" radios from just about every manufacture you really don't even need all the sites to be 700/800 MHz.

 

[KK6ZTE]

In about 2004 there was a solid plan to develop a statewide trunked radio system using statewide VHF-Hi frequencies from each of the State VHF Agencies (DOJ, OES, DFG, CDF, DWR) and frequencies from the then-new 700 MHz spectrum. Every state agency was on board with it, except CHP - who (because of their size) killed the plan and went around the State Planning Committee to the Legislature for $500M for the "Three Year" CHPERS project. The reason CHP objected was "We have to cover everywhere in the state." Never mind that the other 5 agencies also have top cover "everywhere in the state" and were doing it just fine. As a result, we saw the CHP VHF-Lowband refresh (which still doesn't work everywhere).

The 6 sites in the San Joaquin Valley have started construction (last fiscal year's monies). You don't build a 153,000 square mile system in one phase. You work with those who have the coverage density you need in the urban areas, and then fill in with State infrastructure in the remainder. To that end, the State is actively communicating with the existing Regional system operators about networking (and bringing additional sites and channels to their parties).

As to CalFIRE "leaving VHF" - not for active firefighting, no (VHF will be the benchmark for Wildland firefighting for the foreseeable future) - but consider admin traffic, AVL and Travel usage.

I can only speak for the areas I know, which are hard on any frequency band.

I would argue CHP's specifications for radio coverage far exceed any other state agency (except perhaps CAL FIRE) due to the remote areas in which lone CHP officers routinely operate. I'm talking counties with terrain, where 700 MHz will NEVER work. There's a darn good reason for low band and CHP's desire to stick with it. Those other agencies have other communications options and work in larger teams--radio isn't as important to them as it is to the CHP.

In areas with a ton of infrastructure in place or high density populations, sure, why not give 700 MHz a swing. Out here where three repeaters need to cover a county, that's not going to work. In fact, many high-band VHF systems (Santa Barbara County for instance) don't cut it. 700 doesn't stand a chance of working there (though Motorola has tried to make the case)

 

[PrivatelyJeff]

I can only speak for the areas I know, which are hard on any frequency band.

I would argue CHP's specifications for radio coverage far exceed any other state agency (except perhaps CAL FIRE) due to the remote areas in which lone CHP officers routinely operate. I'm talking counties with terrain, where 700 MHz will NEVER work. There's a darn good reason for low band and CHP's desire to stick with it. Those other agencies have other communications options and work in larger teams--radio isn't as important to them as it is to the CHP.

In areas with a ton of infrastructure in place or high density populations, sure, why not give 700 MHz a swing. Out here where three repeaters need to cover a county, that's not going to work. In fact, many high-band VHF systems (Santa Barbara County for instance) don't cut it. 700 doesn't stand a chance of working there (though Motorola has tried to make the case)

Thats what I’ve thought too. Also, the state is so unique in so many ways that it’s hard for a one size fits all approach across the state.

 

[mkewman]

I'd expect to see 700 mhz in the more urban and flat areas, and VHF in other more rural and mountainous terrain. I think Alaska's statewide radio system model is going to close to the one you're going to see (assuming money doesn't dry up). Motorola and others make VHF/7/800 radios that would work just fine.

The FCC is encroaching on the VHF Lo-band spectrum as we speak, and Officers are trained to be able to go without radio coverage in some spots, as that happens in everyday life. VHF High band will work almost as good as VHF-Lo in most places in California and they know it. They'll probably have low-band as a backup in all their vehicles until the FCC kicks them off that spectrum. In CHP office areas that have little to no cell reception and bad radio coverage, I'm willing to bet we'll to see officers who patrol those areas get Sat phones/PTT over Satellite just like their State Parks Ranger and Fish and Game counterparts. Some OES folks have them in their vehicles as well.

I know a lot of people like to gripe about California being so slow in Sacramento to get Politicians to do things, but I'm actually really surprised how quickly this whole project has taken shape. Having seen how large trunked systems are rolled out in person as a Radio Technician, and following the political process for local systems, I'm impressed that they've gotten this together so far with all the stakeholders with individual needs.

We won't see a full roll-out of a statewide trunked system before 2025, But we'll start seeing that Interoperable "System of Systems" take shape pretty soon, I think.

 

[zz0468]

The FCC is encroaching on the VHF Lo-band spectrum as we speak...

I'm not really paying close attention right now, but I haven't heard anything interesting about low band come from the FCC in ages. What have you actually heard?

 

[engineercarl]

I'm not really paying close attention right now, but I haven't heard anything interesting about low band come from the FCC in ages. What have you actually heard?

Maybe he is talking about this:

https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/105260090923685/8%20meter%20PRM.pdf

 

[mcjones2013]

FYI, it seems CRIS may become a "systems-of-systems", as suggested by this Cal OES paper, meaning they can (will) link the regional P25 systems into the CRIS system so that users can roam "statewide".

 

[RESQ766]

Cal OES | Office of Emergency Management

Cal OES is responsible for overseeing and coordinating emergency preparedness, response, recovery and homeland security activities within the state of California.

www.caloes.ca.gov

 

[mcjones2013]

FYI, there are some unknown P25 sites popping up in the past month in the Sacramento area that a couple of us have been logging. No traffic on them. Nothing to confirm they're part of CRIS, yet. Thread here: New P25 System Near Sacramento - System 9D2

Also, some P25 conventional test repeaters that have been broadcasting, with one transitioning to the above referenced P25 system as a control channel: 770.91875 in El Dorado County

 

[Paysonscanner]

Doesn't seem "statewide" to me. The Central Valley coverage is easy to obtain as there are some great sites on each side of the valley that is a large area of very flat land. Joaquin Ridge comes to mind as one of those sites and Bullion another. Hubby and I worked Oso in the backcountry quite a bit also as well as some nooks and cranys on some roads as well. Stuff from Joaquin Ridge and Bullion boomed into where late Hubby and I lived in the western Sierra foothill region. CHP did a study a number of years back considering changing to 400 megs in San Diego Co. They concluded that moving from lowband was going to require 4 times as many sites for the same coverage and who knows how many new sites would be required at 700-800 megs. This is what Hubby told me about 5 years ago when he was robust and healthy still. San Diego Co. has topography that is gentle compared with the Sierra Nevada and coastal ranges in the NW part of the state. Just because the state might need a new site to gain coverage does not guarantee they can get permission to do so. There are a lot of issues with building new sites on both public and private lands in the state. I won't go on about those issues. Hubby and I spent nearly 40 years backpacking the Sierra and the north part of the state and ran a several rivers as well. State Parks gave up trying to switch from lowband to their 800 meg system on a wide area of the northern coast so they compromised and use VHF High up there. State Parks does not need widespread coverage of the state either, they just need to cover relatively small areas of the State Parks. Caltrans is supposedly on their 800 MHz system up there, but Hubby researched the licenses and they had something like 15 repeaters proposed to cover the highway along the Smith River. I know in the Sierra foothills Caltrans has areas with zero radio coverage, nearly 40 years after they started to switch from lowband to 800 megs.

I know Colorado, with the Rockies, went 800 trunked so I guess it is possible, but I have to say is going to be really tough in some places while thinking of the Klamath River west of Yreka. The U.S. Forest Service and Siskiyou County have some trouble covering it on VHF High. BTW, running the Klamath is a lot of fun when it has tons of of water!

 

[Paysonscanner]

I'd expect to see 700 mhz in the more urban and flat areas, and VHF in other more rural and mountainous terrain. I think Alaska's statewide radio system model is going to close to the one you're going to see (assuming money doesn't dry up). Motorola and others make VHF/7/800 radios that would work just fine.

The FCC is encroaching on the VHF Lo-band spectrum as we speak, and Officers are trained to be able to go without radio coverage in some spots, as that happens in everyday life. VHF High band will work almost as good as VHF-Lo in most places in California and they know it. They'll probably have low-band as a backup in all their vehicles until the FCC kicks them off that spectrum. In CHP office areas that have little to no cell reception and bad radio coverage, I'm willing to bet we'll to see officers who patrol those areas get Sat phones/PTT over Satellite just like their State Parks Ranger and Fish and Game counterparts. Some OES folks have them in their vehicles as well.

I know a lot of people like to gripe about California being so slow in Sacramento to get Politicians to do things, but I'm actually really surprised how quickly this whole project has taken shape. Having seen how large trunked systems are rolled out in person as a Radio Technician, and following the political process for local systems, I'm impressed that they've gotten this together so far with all the stakeholders with individual needs.

We won't see a full roll-out of a statewide trunked system before 2025, But we'll start seeing that Interoperable "System of Systems" take shape pretty soon, I think.

Late hubby and I started to carry a handheld GPS on Sierra backpacking trips I think in the late 80's or maybe the early 90's. We didn't do it much as the units were large in those days, but what can I say about civil engineers! They are always playing around with seemingly obscure equipment. Anyway we changed to some interesting handheld GPS units after it was made nearly fully public in 2000. We found places where only 1 satellite could be received at a time, with none until the next one came over. We found a few spots where we didn't receive any for 3 days. We did a lot of off trail hiking. In the Sierra foothills there were places with county, NPS and USFS coverage, that the CHP rarely went into. Yet they were able to reach out of holes and hit some sites 50-60 miles away, which VHF High systems couldn't accomplish. Hubby was a volunteer firefighter and was on a traffic accident in an out of the way place where there was no USFS or county coverage so when the CHP officer switched some channels on those neat little extender radios everyone laughed until the dispatch center replied. My Daddy, who was a civil engineer in the USFS in Arizona in the late 40's until 1987 used lowband radios when the FS was on them. He says the band is not appreciated for its ability to cover what other bands can't without a lot more repeater sites. He says "all you kids think that the higher the frequency the better, especially when you add all sorts of complicated computers to it and it doesn't mean it works better." Sorry he is sort of a curmudgeon, but at 92 you and I will be also! He is also a bit of a grouch on trendiness and thinks a lot of 700/800 meg trunked systems are trendy and not needed, it's just the result of pushy sales people.

 

[Paysonscanner]

I can only speak for the areas I know, which are hard on any frequency band.

I would argue CHP's specifications for radio coverage far exceed any other state agency (except perhaps CAL FIRE) due to the remote areas in which lone CHP officers routinely operate. I'm talking counties with terrain, where 700 MHz will NEVER work. There's a darn good reason for low band and CHP's desire to stick with it. Those other agencies have other communications options and work in larger teams--radio isn't as important to them as it is to the CHP.

In areas with a ton of infrastructure in place or high density populations, sure, why not give 700 MHz a swing. Out here where three repeaters need to cover a county, that's not going to work. In fact, many high-band VHF systems (Santa Barbara County for instance) don't cut it. 700 doesn't stand a chance of working there (though Motorola has tried to make the case)

My father is very much in agreement with you. He used lowband for the U.S. Forest Service in the late 40's until the mid or late 60's when the FS changed to high VHF. He said they used to call the dispatcher and other offices directly using lowband. Then they switched to VHF High without any repeaters. Remote base stations were installed if there weren't some already, but they had to relay a lot of traffic via lookouts. When fire season was over and lookouts were vacant they had a ton of blind spots and were radio incognito. It took them more than 10-15 years in Arizona to install user selectable repeaters once they left lowband, many of them at the lookouts they had used for relays.

 

[Paysonscanner]

In about 2004 there was a solid plan to develop a statewide trunked radio system using statewide VHF-Hi frequencies from each of the State VHF Agencies (DOJ, OES, DFG, CDF, DWR) and frequencies from the then-new 700 MHz spectrum. Every state agency was on board with it, except CHP - who (because of their size) killed the plan and went around the State Planning Committee to the Legislature for $500M for the "Three Year" CHPERS project. The reason CHP objected was "We have to cover everywhere in the state." Never mind that the other 5 agencies also have top cover "everywhere in the state" and were doing it just fine. As a result, we saw the CHP VHF-Lowband refresh (which still doesn't work everywhere).

The 6 sites in the San Joaquin Valley have started construction (last fiscal year's monies). You don't build a 153,000 square mile system in one phase. You work with those who have the coverage density you need in the urban areas, and then fill in with State infrastructure in the remainder. To that end, the State is actively communicating with the existing Regional system operators about networking (and bringing additional sites and channels to their parties).

As to CalFIRE "leaving VHF" - not for active firefighting, no (VHF will be the benchmark for Wildland firefighting for the foreseeable future) - but consider admin traffic, AVL and Travel usage.

I disagree that the other agencies were doing just fine. DFG (now DFW by the way) and Cal Fire were, and as of the fall of 2018 when I moved back to Arizona, are not fine. There are a ton of places both agencies don't have coverage in. Cal Fire doesn't cover the entire state, only those areas with area of SRA (State Responsibility Areas) and areas of NPS, USFS and BLM jurisdiction don't have Cal Fire coverage at all. But the CHP needs to cover those areas. When late Hubby and I lived 40 years of our lives in the Sierra foothills CHP provided helicopters for SAR's on national forest lands in some very remote, high elevation locations. Sometimes they had to communicate in these places while they were on the ground and shut down. They had a ton more success than anyone, even the USFS in a few places. I was an RN in a small county hospital and the CHP helicopters would land there. They had paramedics I had to interface with for patient care. Sometimes we had a chance to talk and I came up with some info my Hubby didn't have. See my other posts for more observations my Hubby, Father and I have had relative to this issue. I've also been a "YL" and "XYL" ham operator at the general class level since I was 18, so I'm not the blue eyed, blond woman that many people have all sorts of stereotypes for I won't repeat.

 

[6079smithw]

>>> Also, some P25 conventional test repeaters that have been broadcasting, with one transitioning to the above referenced P25 system as a control channel: 770.91875 in El Dorado County

Innnnteresting... Gotta wonder if that has anything to do with the huge reduction in traffic on CalTrans Ch. 19 (Kingvale 856.9875 146.2 PL) off Peavine Mt. NV... They normally go nonstop when the WX hits the fan around Donner.
May just have to fire up the Trooper and head to Truckee on Saturday with the 536, grab some coffee and a PowerBall ticket at Jack's Shell and do a little RF searchin'....

 

[zerg901]

LMR - so 2020s

FirstNet is where its at - even in East Death Valley Lower Junction

The trick will be to bring all wireless transmissions into 1 system with priority for the priority messages. There has to be some economy of scale here versus putting up a radio tower for every guard shack and outhouse.

 

[Paysonscanner]

LMR - so 2020s

FirstNet is where its at - even in East Death Valley Lower Junction

The trick will be to bring all wireless transmissions into 1 system with priority for the priority messages. There has to be some economy of scale here versus putting up a radio tower for every guard shack and outhouse.

Where is the "East Death Valley Lower Junction?"

 

[zerg901]

Where is the "East Death Valley Lower Junction?"

I just made that up for illustrative purposes. Apparently was not too illustrative. Sorry.

 

[Paysonscanner]

Where is the "East Death Valley Lower Junction?"

I just made that up for illustrative purposes. Apparently was not too illustrative. Sorry.

I had to ask as late hubby and I spent some time there nearly every winter. A great swimming pool and a campground within a short walk! I haven't been there is several years. We also explored east of the park all the way to the Spring Mtns. We've driven a number of dirt roads out of Shoshone and down to I-15 and then over toward Pahrump, NV. It's a fine place to take some time off from winter.

 

[ScannerDude244]

I'd expect to see 700 mhz in the more urban and flat areas, and VHF in other more rural and mountainous terrain. I think Alaska's statewide radio system model is going to close to the one you're going to see (assuming money doesn't dry up). Motorola and others make VHF/7/800 radios that would work just fine.

The FCC is encroaching on the VHF Lo-band spectrum as we speak, and Officers are trained to be able to go without radio coverage in some spots, as that happens in everyday life. VHF High band will work almost as good as VHF-Lo in most places in California and they know it. They'll probably have low-band as a backup in all their vehicles until the FCC kicks them off that spectrum. In CHP office areas that have little to no cell reception and bad radio coverage, I'm willing to bet we'll to see officers who patrol those areas get Sat phones/PTT over Satellite just like their State Parks Ranger and Fish and Game counterparts. Some OES folks have them in their vehicles as well.

I know a lot of people like to gripe about California being so slow in Sacramento to get Politicians to do things, but I'm actually really surprised how quickly this whole project has taken shape. Having seen how large trunked systems are rolled out in person as a Radio Technician, and following the political process for local systems, I'm impressed that they've gotten this together so far with all the stakeholders with individual needs.

We won't see a full roll-out of a statewide trunked system before 2025, But we'll start seeing that Interoperable "System of Systems" take shape pretty soon, I think.

That's what Monterey County did P25 VHF rural and 700mhz urban areas and analog overlay where the p25 doesn't cover.