AFRRCS - Alberta First Responders' Radio Communication System - INFO HERE

[SCPD]

One of the reasons Edmonton EDACS coverage goes so well outside of the city is the four simulcast towers bordering the city. When the multi vehicle crash south on QE II happened they were out of range. They took their D-Ops (Disaster Ops) truck with a mobile repeater to the Leduc weigh scales which was in range. Portables then communicated on the mobile repeater while the D-Ops truck forwarded it back to Edmonton EDACS using just the LID of the truck for all units on the mobile repeater.

AFRRCS appears to be using the same four sites as Edmonton EDACS if you go by the microwave licenses.

Fully aware of the four Edmonton simulcast sites to enhance the coverage of this system no matter how you look at it the range is great. When I use to make my daily trip west of Keephills I would monitor the Edacs system all the way, 60 Kilo hop from Lewis Farm site tower

Oh ya the multi vehicle crash on QE II which I was caught on my way to the EIA. That crash was just south of a hill in a low spot and most activity was in the ditch

 

[kayn1n32008]

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Looks like the Drayton Valley AFRRCS is built, TMI Colo, there is not a satellite back up here. Antennas at the top, above the top of TH tower, looks like there is a preamp on this site.

edit: the power meter has not been installed yet.

 

[kayn1n32008]

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Wabamun site: building and cable tray in, spool of hard line and antennas in compound. No power to shack yet

 

[kayn1n32008]

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Winfield site: shelter on site no genset, antennas, or cable tray yet.

 

[harryshute]

Lamont site showing as 005Ah-0404 with CC on 772.3312

 

[harryshute]

Actually Lamont Site 19 on CC 774.6437 now. Not sure which is site 04.

 

[kayn1n32008]

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Winfield site: shelter on site no genset, antennas, or cable tray yet.

Forgot to add: TMI. Colo

 

[Jay911]

Lamont site showing as 005Ah-0404 with CC on 772.3312

Actually Lamont Site 19 on CC 774.6437 now. Not sure which is site 04.

Site 4 is Ponoka 1. Both it and Lamont share 772.33125 in their frequency list.

Are both sites using NAC 30B?

 

[Jay911]

3 new sites hit the North license today.

Demmitt
774.36875 (yes, only one frequency)
55.46333333,-119.8797222
looks to be colo'd on TELUS AB0747 per the license
(First one in Integration Area 19, furthest west of the entire system)

Fox Creek
770.84375
771.58125
772.75625
774.56875
54.3775,-116.8675
Evidently a non-published (i.e. "protected" Spectrum Direct license) site (closest published site is 230m away to SE)

Little Smoky
771.69375
772.55625
773.84375
774.68125
54.67722222,-117.0933333
looks to be colo'd on a TELUS site without an AB____ number (VEN792)

These three have been added to the map. Lamont has been submitted to the RRDB.

 

[Jay911]

Confirmed 772.29375 as Trochu tonight.

Viking 1 (which is on the 36 halfway between Viking and Killam, of course) and Mariana Lake showed up in the licenses this morning. They'll be in the map by the time you read this.

 

[harryshute]

Confirmed 772.7937 as Kingman today site 17-17 being used as CC.

 

[Jay911]

Hi folks. I would imagine you're aware why I've been away/busy for the past few days.

A couple of new sites came up in Athabasca and Warburg in the licenses today, and SOW2 was active in Calgary tonight with some radios on TG 13 undergoing some kind of testing.

Interesting non-AFRRCS license in the 700 band ... CBSA at Fort McMurray Airport has been granted a mobile license for 775.0125 for 6 handheld radios. 11K0F3EJN is the emission.

 

[harryshute]

Confirm CC 772.0437 Camrose site 16-16 on the air now.

 

[harryshute]

Must be the propagation as Tomahawk 4242 is up on CC 772.2937. Does that happen on 700 MHz?

 

[Jay911]

Pretty much, though not to as grand an extent as on VHF.

Can I presume all the ones you're seeing are on sys 05A?

 

[kayn1n32008]

Over the last couple of days I have seen very enhanced propagation, notably on UHF.

 

[Jay911]

Hi folks, here's some updated files for the HP1, Uniden XT, and GRE PSR-500/600 scanners.

Sorry to those with the PSR-800.... it's too tedious to enter data into "E-Z Scan Digital", ironically enough. I just can't bring myself to type in frequency after frequency by hand. It was enough of a wrestle to figure out a way to make a useful XT file (had to bulk load about 80 new sites since I last updated the file... eventually found I could kludge together a spreadsheet-to-ARCXT fix, to import the data quickly).

The HomePatrol file is for Sentinel; the XT/T file is for FreeSCAN; and the GRE file is for Win500. Unzip and open/import as per the usual way.

These are up to date including data up to 2013-06-30, not including any updates that Industry Canada might push a couple hours from now (Spectrum Direct/TAFL seems to update at about 0300 Mountain every day).

Oh - there are some sites in some of the files which will be locked out. I just forgot to unlock them from my own monitoring.. you'll have to clear the lockouts yourself, sorry - I'm too tired to go back in and edit them right now.

 

[harryshute]

Yes all the sites I have confirmed are on 05A.

 

[harryshute]

To confirm the six 05A sites around Edmonton that are active today with CC's.. Camrose-16, Kingman-17, Lamont-19, Ponoka 1-004, Legal-53 and Tomahawk-42.

 

[harryshute]

A bit of a surprise here. Lavoy CC 771.1437 comes back as System 05B and site 73-73.