Boston 700 overlay

[nikronzo]

What talkgroups are most active on that site?
specifically, is Boston fire patched from the UHF system into COMIRS? I live to far from the city to hear that site so I'm wondering how the system has expanded

 

[garys]

Yes, BFD cross patches Ch 1-4 plus has a bunch of encrypted Talk Groups on the 700 site.

 

[ecps92]

The over-lay has not expended much beyond the existing sites and the Boston and Non-MSP State TG's

What talkgroups are most active on that site?
specifically, is Boston fire patched from the UHF system into COMIRS? I live to far from the city to hear that site so I'm wondering how the system has expanded

 

[wscranston]

What talkgroups are most active on that site?
specifically, is Boston fire patched from the UHF system into COMIRS? I live to far from the city to hear that site so I'm wondering how the system has expanded

I mostly hear Logan Ops when I'm down there.

 

[nikronzo]

so I went into Boston today and brought my scanner and xts5000. was able to hear BFD fine on the UHF, all channels. I set up my xts for NAF scan of the 700 overlay with the BFD talkgroups, and got some interesting results. When say BFD CH1 came on the UHF, the talkgroup would show up on my XTS but no audio. All I can think was my NAF was misconfigured, despite having successfully programmed other COMIRS sites before, I listen to Worcester all the time. Perhaps it's because its the only 700 in the system

 

[KevinC]

so I went into Boston today and brought my scanner and xts5000. was able to hear BFD fine on the UHF, all channels. I set up my xts for NAF scan of the 700 overlay with the BFD talkgroups, and got some interesting results. When say BFD CH1 came on the UHF, the talkgroup would show up on my XTS but no audio. All I can think was my NAF was misconfigured, despite having successfully programmed other COMIRS sites before, I listen to Worcester all the time. Perhaps it's because its the only 700 in the system

I'd guess your 700 band plan elements are incorrect or missing completely.

 

[garys]

FWIW, the 700Mhz Overlay is pretty active. It has some Phase 2 TGs, most of which are encrypted.

In addition to City of Boston agencies, MassPort units often affiliate with that site. Since the Logan system is low power, when MassPort units go off property they affiliate with the 700 site. If you use DSDPlus, you can see that those TGs are cross patched when that happens.

Also, MA DCR units are on the 700 site, especially the DCR Rangers at the State House and marine units in Boston Harbor.

 

[nikronzo]

I'd guess your 700 band plan elements are incorrect or missing completely.

yea probably, never done 700 naf before. I put in 773.000 as my base freq. I'll have to mess around with it later

any word on BFD or any other city services moving to COMIRS fully in the future?

 

[garys]

Unlikely.

any word on BFD or any other city services moving to COMIRS fully in the future?

 

[BFD-S5]

yea probably, never done 700 naf before. I put in 773.000 as my base freq. I'll have to mess around with it later

any word on BFD or any other city services moving to COMIRS fully in the future?

Absolutely not!

 

[garys]

Absolutely not!

 

[AlexC]

In addition to City of Boston agencies, MassPort units often affiliate with that site. Since the Logan system is low power, when MassPort units go off property they affiliate with the 700 site. If you use DSDPlus, you can see that those TGs are cross patched when that happens.

Just to nitpick: There are no patches involved. Logan, Cambridge, Boston, and MSP are all one system today and there are no patches between the talkgrops on the system to make them talk between sites. There are just talkgroups. If a radio joins a site and the talkgroup selected on the radio is allowed on the site then the site will carry the voice traffic so the subscriber can hear it (and you can hear it on your scanner via that site). Patches are historically defined as a connection between groups that are not connected and require some sort of intervention by a dispatcher, technician, etc. E.g. EVENT-1 to SOPS-1 would be a patch. SOPS-1 on two different sites is the same talkgroup and is not a patch.

 

[garys]

I think it's Uniden that shows them as patches, but it might be DSDPlus. Either way, that's what shows up. When I get time, I'll see if I can get a screen shot from which ever one it is.

All of those sites are considered one system because they share the Astro 7.1 Core, well cores since there are two. The TGs are coordinated so that there are no conflicts, but Cambridge, MassPort, Worcester all maintain their own equipment. This is one of my pet peeves with how these systems are shown in the database. Some readers work on the assumption that they can hear units from western MA on the Boston site because it's all "one system" but that's not how it's configured at all.

Scan New England does a better job describing the system in the Wiki, but still it can be confusing. As you know, these are big and complex systems. CoMIRS is relatively small, but a system like GATRRS has systems all over the state that only share the Core.

I don't what term Motorola uses for it, but I think of them as "nodes" connected by using the same Core.

Just to nitpick: There are no patches involved. Logan, Cambridge, Boston, and MSP are all one system today and there are no patches between the talkgrops on the system to make them talk between sites. There are just talkgroups. If a radio joins a site and the talkgroup selected on the radio is allowed on the site then the site will carry the voice traffic so the subscriber can hear it (and you can hear it on your scanner via that site). Patches are historically defined as a connection between groups that are not connected and require some sort of intervention by a dispatcher, technician, etc. E.g. EVENT-1 to SOPS-1 would be a patch. SOPS-1 on two different sites is the same talkgroup and is not a patch.

 

[nikronzo]

Just to nitpick: There are no patches involved. Logan, Cambridge, Boston, and MSP are all one system today and there are no patches between the talkgrops on the system to make them talk between sites. There are just talkgroups. If a radio joins a site and the talkgroup selected on the radio is allowed on the site then the site will carry the voice traffic so the subscriber can hear it (and you can hear it on your scanner via that site). Patches are historically defined as a connection between groups that are not connected and require some sort of intervention by a dispatcher, technician, etc. E.g. EVENT-1 to SOPS-1 would be a patch. SOPS-1 on two different sites is the same talkgroup and is not a patch.

for my own edification, the BFD and EMS are considered patches from their respective conventional systems, correct? I do find it fascinating, researching and finding out info within these massive statewide systems. The overlay has always been a point of curiosity for me since its unique bandplan of 700 vs the rest of the state. Like @garys mentioned, SNE has more in-depth info that is helpful regarding the sites. And I was aware that Worcester maintains their own equipment, I wasn't sure about the other counties though.

 

[garys]

I'd call them patches, but I don't know what the exact technical term is. BFD transmits at least F1-4 across the UHF-T, 800 analog, and 700 P25 systems. To the best of my knowledge, while they have TGs assigned, BEMS does not do that. There are a few BPD channels on both systems, but they are just the UHF channels patched in.

MassPort also patches in BPD Area A on their system.

for my own edification, the BFD and EMS are considered patches from their respective conventional systems, correct? I do find it fascinating, researching and finding out info within these massive statewide systems. The overlay has always been a point of curiosity for me since its unique bandplan of 700 vs the rest of the state. Like @garys mentioned, SNE has more in-depth info that is helpful regarding the sites. And I was aware that Worcester maintains their own equipment, I wasn't sure about the other counties though.

 

[StoliRaz]

Absolutely not!

It's always been kind of weird to me that BFD has encrypted talkgroups on CoMIRs yet is all in the open on analog. Is the plan to keep the encrypted COMIRS channels only, assuming they'll eventually dump the analog versions of them?

Hopefully they'll get a south shore site up and running soon, I can't get the 700 overlay or Worcester sites as I'm 30+ miles from both

 

[nikronzo]

It's always been kind of weird to me that BFD has encrypted talkgroups on CoMIRs yet is all in the open on analog. Is the plan to keep the encrypted COMIRS channels only, assuming they'll eventually dump the analog versions of them?

Hopefully they'll get a south shore site up and running soon, I can't get the 700 overlay or Worcester sites as I'm 30+ miles from both

When they strike a box, fire alarm always announces the fireground CH2, 3, or whatever, and they assign an encrypted command channel CTAC1 or 2, which we can't get cause it's encrypted. I hope someone gets an openmhz system running for the overlay, that would be nice to listen too

 

[ecps92]

Boston 1-4/5 are CLR on both T-Band and CoMIRs [Patched]

the ENC TG's you are hearing are ENC on CoMIRs is CTAC1, CTAC2, Admin, Logisitics, Ops1 and Ops 2, as well as the District Station Alerting

http://bfdradio.net/BFD%20TGs.jpg

Don't assume that the Boston traffic is going to come across your South Shore site, I am sure [instinct] that they will be
restricting the Roaming capability of many TG's, as Boston also has a current "WIDE" channel [analog] for mutual aid outside of
Boston and Metro Fire, as needed [outside of the MBHSR Code Plug]

It's always been kind of weird to me that BFD has encrypted talkgroups on CoMIRs yet is all in the open on analog. Is the plan to keep the encrypted COMIRS channels only, assuming they'll eventually dump the analog versions of them?

Hopefully they'll get a south shore site up and running soon, I can't get the 700 overlay or Worcester sites as I'm 30+ miles from both

 

[garys]

My thought is that the UHF-T analog channels will be the primary channels used for day to day fire suppression activities. I don't think that you will see a move to either 800 analog or P25 for those channels. Nor, as ecps92 points out, will you see any of that on the upcoming CoMIRS P25 sites unless it's on the "Wide" TGs when someone is out that way and needs to affiliate with the BFD TGs.

It's always been kind of weird to me that BFD has encrypted talkgroups on CoMIRs yet is all in the open on analog. Is the plan to keep the encrypted COMIRS channels only, assuming they'll eventually dump the analog versions of them?

Hopefully they'll get a south shore site up and running soon, I can't get the 700 overlay or Worcester sites as I'm 30+ miles from both

 

[StoliRaz]

Boston 1-4/5 are CLR on both T-Band and CoMIRs [Patched]

the ENC TG's you are hearing are ENC on CoMIRs is CTAC1, CTAC2, Admin, Logisitics, Ops1 and Ops 2, as well as the District Station Alerting

http://bfdradio.net/BFD%20TGs.jpg

Don't assume that the Boston traffic is going to come across your South Shore site, I am sure [instinct] that they will be
restricting the Roaming capability of many TG's, as Boston also has a current "WIDE" channel [analog] for mutual aid outside of
Boston and Metro Fire, as needed [outside of the MBHSR Code Plug]

Yeah, I doubt we'd get anything from BFD or PD for that matter on our sites down here, but I guess that's what broadcastify is for. I found that out listening to other digital trunks, they can really localize sites down. Oh well