ARMER Question

[fwfdengine2]

Hello,

There are towers all over the state of Minnesota for the ARMER System, know as sites. Correct?

I am located in Waseca County, in southern Minnesota. Because the ARMER System has towers all over the state... Would I be able to monitor other cities that are on the ARMER System in Minnesota? For example... Would I be able to hear Saint Paul or Minneapolis Fire from my house, in Waseca County?

I heard that someone in southwest Minnesota was going to talk to their dispatcher, and they accidentally ended up talking in Duluth.

Also, is it possible for a county to NOT participate in the ARMER System? Waseca County is narrow-banding. Could the county keep doing this? Or will they be made to use the system?

Thank you,
fwfdengine2

 

[JASII]

Since you live in Waseca County, you would not be able to routinely monitor Saint Paul or Minneapolis Fire. However, some traffic is carried on sites beyond the primary service area. For example, you might be in White Bear Lake monitoring the Ramsey County sub-system and be able to monitor some Minneapolis talkgroups. Sometimes when new sites are "burned in" they will carry traffic from other areas to test performance, but as far as being able to monitor any talkgroup on the system from anywhere in Minnesota, that isn't going to happen.

There are many towers around the state, but there is NOT solid coverage on ARMER across the entire state yet.

As far as someone in southwest Minnesota wanting talk to their dispatcher, but accidentally talking in Duluth, that is possible. Just like with conventional analog radios, it is possible to select the incorrect talkgroup on an ARMER radio.

It is possible for a county to NOT participate in the ARMER System. Waseca County could remain on their current system. They will not be made to use the system, but at some point it is likely that they will cut over. The real question is when they will switch over and that might not be known yet.

 

[ofd8001]

Another possibility is that one could occasionally (a rare one at that) hear something from either St. Paul or Minneapolis, if someone from these areas was to travel into the Waseca area with their radio. Then the "magic of the system" sets up a path back to their home system and you will hear that home system as long as the radio is in the Waseca area.

However, the best bet for anyone well outside of the Metro area, such as me in Louisville, to hear Minneapolis or St. Paul, is to use the Radio Reference Live Audio feeds.

 

[kb0nly]

Yep, if someone associates with the tower your listening to and they select a talkgroup in another part of the state then that talkgroup gets routed to that tower for that associated user.

When they started testing some stuff over here, hardly any live towers yet down in SW part of the state, but they were testing one over in Lyon county last week and they must have associated with a talkgroup for another county because the traffic didn't sound familiar. Then after a while it stopped and the sys tech talkgroup was active with them talking to someone across the system to somewhere in Minneapolis, testing the link perhaps i don't know.

 

[ThinBlueLine22]

Because Waseca County had very recently upgraded their communications system, they will not be going onto ARMER as a Full Participant (from what I have heard). They will have a gateway to the ARMER system to communicate for interop, but not for everyday use.

You would be able to scan the ARMER towers in your area for Troopers and Mn/DOT associating with those particular towers. It will be some time before the Troopers from 2200 switch over, the entire district will need to be on-air before they can switch. It sounds like some Mn/DOT will be switching as their areas go live.

 

[fwfdengine2]

Thank you all for answering!

fwfdengine2

 

[mmtstc]

once the janesville tower goes On Air, i have heard North EMS in Waseca will migrate to ARMER and 700 will dispatch them, not 8100... i would imagine a separate talkgroup from the Faribault TG... we will have to see what happens as the tower should be active early this summer...

North and Mn/DOT recently did all the bench testing needed to get motorolas new dual band radio approved for ARMER, so that might make interagency cooperation viable...
the radio is the APX 7000
http://www.motorola.com/Business/US...Safety/Digital+Portable+Radios/APX+7000_US-EN

Wasecas particiaption plan could potentially change in january as they will have a new sheriff by then and from what i know of him, he seems like a pretty proactive guy...

but waseca county has less than 30 deputies and waseca police department similar in numbers...

 

[fwfdengine2]

700 paging North seems like it would make sense. With that radio they could still communicate with fire dept and police/sheriff dept. Only problem I can see is that North might be getting paged a little after fire/rescue.

fwfdengine2

 

[mmtstc]

there is a slight delay in tones, but often times services that are mixed 800 and vhf will monitor both radios... So north will listen to their 800 TG and also to Waseca Co Fire and Waseca Co Law...

the primary advantage of 700 doing the dispatching is that they can take the medical 911 calls and run them through MPDS, or pre arrival instructions, which frees up the local lec dispatcher to take care of other tasks. With MPDS, you also can give CPR instructions, Baby delivery instructions among other things, and of most importance to EMS providers, you can get downgraded to a non-lights and siren response... Any time you can downgrade the response of your priority, it dramatically decreases the amount of primary and tertiary accidents...

 

[fwfdengine2]

This is a very good idea.

Our dispatchers have alot on their hands sometimes and this would really help.

fwfdengine2