Article on Pittsburgh Fire alerting

[ffemt134]

Looks like the city finally got an alerting system for the fire departments that's IP based:

New alert system designed to save Pittsburgh firefighters time, stress

A new alert system installed across Pittsburgh’s firehouses will streamline responses and cut down on stress that wears on firefighters from listening to every call every moment they’re in the station, Public Safety officials said in introducing the system on Wednesday. Dispatches are only heard...

triblive.com

 

[Binger511]

Kind of unrelated, but I wonder how this whole "police bad" narrative with lowering funding will affect the cities plan to move to P25. I think it can go either way.

 

[ffemt134]

Kind of unrelated, but I wonder how this whole "police bad" narrative with lowering funding will affect the cities plan to move to P25. I think it can go either way.

This is the first I've heard of them wanting to go P25...any other info?

 

[Binger511]

A couple of years ago there was an article that mentioned the whole state moving to p25, however it doesn’t mention specifically Pittsburgh. Plus they have a few p25 tac channels and nowadays its hard to name a large metropolitan area that hasn’t “made the switch.” So I just assumed that it was a matter of time before they did.
Just my take.

 

[The_B_Chief]

This is the first I've heard of them wanting to go P25...any other info?

The public safety director had indicated that he would like to have more P25 channels. The county was in the process of switching out repeaters with mixed mode machines. Some of those mixed mode repeaters are in use currently by various city and county agencies.

 

[Binger511]

It would be really nice if they kept the p25 channels conventional from a monitoring standpoint. Even in the future I don't see a need to go trunked, their conventional system seems to work perfectly for them.

 

[ffemt134]

I'm surprised they didn't do more P25 stuff whenever they narrowbanded everything several years ago. From what I understood, *everything*, including all the repeaters, etc. were replaced with brand new ones, plus remember hearing they got all new Motorola APX radios with P25 enabled as an option right from the start.

 

[Medic10mda]

I heard They have 40+ consoles that would need to be upgraded. It is currently cost prohibitive right now since most dispatching through all the townships and municipalities go through Allergeny 911. There are some p25 that the county runs and the city uses. The fire dispatching update was signed almost 3 years ago and finally implemented this past quarter. Yes, city public safety has APX6000 radios.