Allegheny County New Trunking System?

[fire42man]

Curiosity led me to browse the FCC licenses for Allegheny County while wondering why the public safety system hasn't gone trunked yet, when I came across a few licenses listed under Public Safety Trunked on the Allegheny County name: WQBM377, WQBK847, and WQBK864. They were all approved between 7/31 and 8/16 of 2014. Further investigation found that each license showed sites in different parts of the county, and the sites seemed to line up with the ones for the current systems (At least for the northern region). The frequencies also did not match any trunked systems in the database, however I found one or two that matched ICORRS frequencies. The notes for the licenses also read "Applicant is a government entity. Radio system will be used countywide for emergency and public safety services." I want to say the county might be joining ICORRS, but I haven't found anything that sheds light on this unknown system, so I figured I'd ask.

 

[Voyager]

The county had trunking licenses from many years ago. When Armstrong went to ICORRS they seemed to acquire a license for many of the frequencies Allegheny County was licensed for - most likely by agreement.

Are you sure the licenses you saw were issues and not standard renewals? I know that was the case with the Armstrong frequencies involved. Allegheny county had that license for many years prior to 2014.

Allegheny county recently upgraded most of their systems to UHF analog (some were UHF before), so it is doubtful that they would switch to trunking (especially on another band) anytime soon. What will most likely happen is a switch to UHF P25 trunking somewhere down the road - tied into ICORRS being a high probability.

 

[hundeesport412]

The Port Authority Police have been testing on 453.7625 P25 .

 

[fire42man]

I don't know how to check if licenses were renewals, but I wouldn't be surprised if the county's not going trunked yet with as long as it took to go full UHF and they're still wideband to my knowledge.

 

[Voyager]

All the 450-470 is SNFM, as required. The 470-500 MHz segment is a mix, as the SNFM mandate was started there, then withdrawn, so NBFM is still legal there for Part 90 users.

 

[W3DMV]

The above listed licenses were renewals only. They were
actually applied for in February 2005... (old)