Amtrak Police

[trentbob]

So to clarify, the regional rail division of SEPTA which is the old Pennsylvania Railroad and Reading Railroad combined use their own VHF railroad frequencies. The buses and CCT use the smartnet system. SEPTA police, the Broad Street Subway and the Market Street Subway still use the same frequencies they always have and are listed here.

The one police frequency, repeats Philadelphia's J Band from the phase l digital system. For those who don't know the J band is the Citywide emergency frequency where all Flash alerts and serious incidents are broadcast. All top ranking officers listen to it along with specialty units and the media. The designation J band is from the old old days. It's not really a band it is a talk group.

It's repeated on the SEPTA police frequency because SEPTA police are all over the city. It's important to note that SEPTA police dispatch will override J band transmissions. Comes in great where I am in Lower Bucks County.

 

[BigLebowski]

The one police frequency

I am told that SEPTA Police have 4 channels. I am not sure if they are two repeaters and talkaround for each, 4 repeaters, or 1 repeater and 3 directs. Could be multiple sites with different input tones to cover various areas.

 

[trentbob]

Yep they might have something out there that they don't use yet, I know that there was talk about them moving over to another system. It's not in RR as this one output frequency that's listed in RR that I posted is what they use. I'm listening to it right now and it is all of SEPTA police dispatch. If there are three other input frequencies I could understand that but there is one output frequency.

Having APX 8000s makes great sense because theoretically they could communicate with anybody else in the city including Railroad, City Police, buses, trolleys and CCT and whatever new system that may be planned.

To be honest with you this T band repeater that they have as long as I can remember, works great.

 

[BigLebowski]

I spent a couple more days in Lancaster.. I heard some distant analog traffic on APD B and G. I put the XTL in monitor mode and there was no NXDN noise to be heard at all. I don't see any new frequencies licensed either. Traffic used to be pretty heavy in this area.

So... all the APD guys either exited the area since September or they have moved to another system. Starnet?

 

[Whiskey3JMC]

Yep they might have something out there that they don't use yet, I know that there was talk about them moving over to another system.

I'm assuming that would be the proposed system discussed on this thread. But then there's also WQBI660 which has been online for quite some time. Never heard a peep on these frequencies, but they do broadcast data bursts showing NAC 293. Several of those frequencies were former PPD

 

[trentbob]

Oh yes I remember that thread in 2017 and that's where I got the idea about a new system, I don't know the status. Strange seeing a post from Troymail, he is missed.

I can confirm that SEPTA police have their one output frequency on the T band for dispatch that rebroadcasts J Band. Same with the Broad Street Line and the Market Street line. SEPTA buses and CCT are on the 500 megahertz type II smartnet system. I don't know what the status is on that 700 megahertz system is, I wonder if anyone else knows.