Chester County Dumping VHF Paging?

[Jl942264]

There's been some grumblings in the rumor mill that CHESCO may be dumping the vhf paging system... anyone know if this is true, or what will replace it? Not sure why they'd do that unless they're going ALPHA or over the P25 system...

 

[doc62]

I know when our Minitor V's break they are replacing them with Minitor VI's.

 

[One13Truck]

That would be disappointing if they did. I love listening to that analog dispatch channel.

 

[HM1529]

There's been some grumblings in the rumor mill that CHESCO may be dumping the vhf paging system... anyone know if this is true, or what will replace it? Not sure why they'd do that unless they're going ALPHA or over the P25 system...

Last I knew, they had been working on a project to move to automated voice dispatch (i.e. Locution). They had been running tests periodically on the DES talkgroup. The pandemic seemed to greatly delay the project. I didn't think that project involved eliminating VHF, though. They had actually gotten licensing set up on a third VHF frequency so that East/Central/West fire would all have their own rebroadcast.

I can't say I have been paying attention, but I don't recall hearing any Locution dispatches for some time.

 

[doc62]

From what I understand, the automated voice dispatch was supposed to replace the current dispatcher recorded dispatch. Once that was in place, supposedly our pagers would be alerted as fast as we currently get alerted by Pulsepoint.

 

[BigLebowski]

You mean I won't get the "Doo Doop, Boo Boop" anymore? Blasphemy!

 

[HM1529]

You mean I won't get the "Doo Doop, Boo Boop" anymore? Blasphemy!

I can honestly say that I have never come across another dispatch system quite like Chesco.

 

[Whiskey3JMC]

I can honestly say that I have never come across another dispatch system quite like Chesco.

Same. Always wondered what those additional tones did

 

[One13Truck]

Same. Always wondered what those additional tones did

Sound awesome.
Do they need to do any more? 😂 I really would miss hearing that if they went away though. Unique but in a good way.

 

[n3obl]

Probably an on air audible alert. Kind of like console tones.

 

[doc62]

So at our monthly meeting tonight, I heard the Minitor VI was just a stop gap until they can implement a P25 paging system. Apparently there will be all new station tones as well as possibly getting Unication pagers. Doesn’t sound like the county is close to a final implementation yet though.

 

[One13Truck]

I guess that makes sense to create new tones if it’s switching to P25 paging. It’ll be sad to see the VHF go.

 

[Jl942264]

So at our monthly meeting tonight, I heard the Minitor VI was just a stop gap until they can implement a P25 paging system. Apparently there will be all new station tones as well as possibly getting Unication pagers. Doesn’t sound like the county is close to a final implementation yet though.

I actually heard the samething today, and heard a few test tones on the P25 DES TECHS TG today.... coming down the pike probably..

 

[maus92]

So at our monthly meeting tonight, I heard the Minitor VI was just a stop gap until they can implement a P25 paging system. Apparently there will be all new station tones as well as possibly getting Unication pagers. Doesn’t sound like the county is close to a final implementation yet though.

If they go with a P25 channel for FTO, they will need new tones as the IMBE / AMBE vocoders require a different tone set.

 

[GTR8000]

If they go with a P25 channel for FTO, they will need new tones as the IMBE / AMBE vocoders require a different tone set.

That's not necessarily true. The vocoders "normalize" the tones into wider ranges/groups than they would be over analog, and so all of the tones have to be evaluated to ensure that there are no conflicts once they're digitized. This is especially true if they'll be used over FDMA, as the IMBE vocoder is inferior to the AMBE+2 vocoder used with TDMA, and so there are less tone groups with FDMA and more chances for conflicts.

However to say that they would unilaterally "need new tones" is probably not the case.

 

[maus92]

Maybe not a 100% changeout of tones will be required, but I'd gamble at least a few of the tone sets will need to be changed. There's a chart floating around that gives an indication about which current tone sets will likely be affected. The point is that it's not a simple changeover.

 

[GTR8000]

Maybe not a 100% changeout of tones will be required, but I'd gamble at least a few of the tone sets will need to be changed. There's a chart floating around that gives an indication about which current tone sets will likely be affected. The point is that it's not a simple changeover.

I posted those charts, and I've also had experience with two counties enabling P25 paging, and only a handful needed to be tweaked. In fact, it was a relatively simple changeover.

 

[portroyalbirdy]

I have family/friends in the county, that also run Fire/EMS, and I'll see what I can find out! As the others have said, if it is true, I too, will miss the "uniqueness" of the current VHF paging as well! I know some members are already running Unication G5 currently, so they can get VHF paging along with P25 TG's.

 

[Whiskey3JMC]

Last I knew, they had been working on a project to move to automated voice dispatch (i.e. Locution). They had been running tests periodically on the DES talkgroup.

Catching that now. Sample here

 

[One13Truck]

I’m in the minority that actually likes automated dispatching. But I’ll miss the random beeps.