Bernardsville MIA on county TRS?

[W2SJW]

Guys,

I just noticed something in the last few days listening to the Somerset County TRS with the bad weather & flooding going on - I cannot remember the last time I heard Bernardsville PD on their TGID.

Does anyone else here in the county have any idea what happened to them? Did they go back on low-band?

 

[kenisned]

Guys,

I just noticed something in the last few days listening to the Somerset County TRS with the bad weather & flooding going on - I cannot remember the last time I heard Bernardsville PD on their TGID.

Does anyone else here in the county have any idea what happened to them? Did they go back on low-band?

I'm fairly certain I still hear them on VHF.

 

[rr60]

Coverage

The County TRS site that covers B'ville is well to the south (Bedminster).

In fact the path is not line of site and many terrain obstructions exist.

For those that know what "Vollers" is,that is the location. While a nice site (tower '195 +/-)
on a hill at 400 MSL,the County has not been allowed to have the antenna to be higher than 75'. This
means unless you are out towards Southern Somerset or Eastern Hunterdon,
heading North towards Biville the site does not play because of terrain.

There is no back fill from any other sites, so the bottom line is that current low band
with UHF vehicle extenders work better.

So until the build out of a north site B,ville will use it as a backup and M/A
channel only.

The new north site will be some time away as the County's consultant business was sold
and they are working on another vendor

 

[mikea7531]

Bernardsville had a structure fire recently - i believe before thanksgiving. They had minimal contact with county as they were in one of the numerous dead zones in the borough. It seems like the decision for police to go back to low band was made around that time frame.

 

[radiomanNJ1]

Only in NJ would people go back to low band. What a place we live in.

 

[mikea7531]

Only in NJ would people go back to low band. What a place we live in.

Can't blame them though, if I was one of the brass up there and had a choice of the proven, reliable Lowband/UHF extenders and the County Trunk system that has poor coverage, I'd choose the lowband system. God forbid if one of the officers got into a situation that they needed to summon help but had 'Out of Range' displayed on their portable.

I'm sure once they get the new tower up, they'll switch back. That's going to be some years I would imagine.

 

[W2SJW]

22:18hrs - Just heard them back on the TRS running radio checks...