Bucks County 155.550

[Rsull067]

Don't know when this happened but I just spent an hour checking my gear to figure out that it WAS NOT ON MY END.

For I guess 40 years, and even when fire/ems dispatch was at 46.100, Bucks did this:

[Clearing tone (Fire 1000 hz, EMS = 500 hz)]
[Dispatch spoken by dispatcher]
[Tone Drop]
[Dispatch repeated by dispatcher twice]
[Time announced}

NOW, This is what I hear:
[Tone Drop]
[Dispatch spoken twice]
[Time announced]

Am I hallucinating? If no, is this format to stay? When did this happen? Did Bucks finally decide to take a page out of LA County's playbook?

 

[Whiskey3JMC]

So in shorter terms they got rid of the pre-alert...

 

[Whiskey3JMC]

Did Bucks finally decide to take a page out of LA County's playbook?

Most surrounding counties don't pre-alert at all for anything. Montco only does so for vehicle rescues, structures, other major incidents I may be missing. At least Bucks still sends out human dispatches. Delco scrapped this in favor of automated dispatching for Fire & EMS AKA "Delco Debbie" when their new system came online late last year

 

[Rsull067]

So in shorter terms they got rid of the pre-alert...

Yes. No more clearing tone, and one less reading of the address.

 

[Whiskey3JMC]

Yes. No more clearing tone, and one less reading of the address.

RIght, it's called a pre-alert

 

[wa3ysu]

This is a trial requested by the paid chiefs' association. I forgot how long the trial is, but it started today. At the end of the trial, a decision will be made regarding whether the change will be permanent.

 

[Rsull067]

This is a trial requested by the paid chiefs' association. I forgot how long the trial is, but it started today. At the end of the trial, a decision will be made regarding whether the change will be permanent.

It will be interesting to see how it turns out. I know Bucks hadn't changed their dispatch format since at least 1984, because that's when I obtained my first Regency Z-30 scanner. Also, I just put up a website that catches tone drops and archives the dispatch audio. Fortunately I didn't include the pre-alert as part of the project, so I won't need to adjust anything. Since all dispatch stuff goes to MDT and handheld devices, I guess the audio isn't as critical as it once was (until Bucks' CAD gets hacked again )

Speaking of "Delco Debbie"... did they give the voice the obnoxious Delco accent too? Does she say things like "Houme" instead of home, and "Mondey, Tuesdey" etc. ? How about for a full box? Does she call it a Jawn?

 

[One13Truck]

Delco Debbie sounds like she’s triple fisting Wild Turkey and Camels 82 hours a day. My favorites are “Another…. medi….cal e……mergency” and the infamous location “Tacos McSick-O”.

Based on the archives the pre-alert dropped about 06:00 Monday morning. The keyboard complainers of which I can rightfully claim to be a card carrying and founding member at times seem to think of the pre-alert going away as the worst thing since unsliced bread.

I have relatives in the area but listen from another part of the state unless I’m visiting. We lost pre-alerting here in the 90’s when our local/regional centers were absorbed by the much worse then and even worse now County dispatch (card carrying!!). Our pre-alerts here since then were the police always being notified of fire & EMS calls minutes before we are and that’s now gone due to other P25 stuff….

I can see both sides. The stubbed toe at 14:15 on a Saturday or the cat in a tree Local box at 18:00 on a Wednesday? Waste of air time and dispatcher’s time to pre-alert. Bringing it back just for things like cardiac arrests and for Tactical and Rescue boxes similar to how Montco still uses them? The way to go. If I had the powers to change anything it wouldn’t be the pre-alerts. It would be the tone sets to be lower like Montcos. The existing are traditional but they’re as ear splitting to my ears as Lancaster and the old York’s. I’ve grown used to the automated dispatch and don’t mind it as much anymore. At least they’re not going full Aplha…. Hopefully.

 

[Rsull067]

Delco Debbie sounds like she’s triple fisting Wild Turkey and Camels 82 hours a day. My favorites are “Another…. medi….cal e……mergency” and the infamous location “Tacos McSick-O”.

Based on the archives the pre-alert dropped about 06:00 Monday morning. The keyboard complainers of which I can rightfully claim to be a card carrying and founding member at times seem to think of the pre-alert going away as the worst thing since unsliced bread.

I have relatives in the area but listen from another part of the state unless I’m visiting. We lost pre-alerting here in the 90’s when our local/regional centers were absorbed by the much worse then and even worse now County dispatch (card carrying!!). Our pre-alerts here since then were the police always being notified of fire & EMS calls minutes before we are and that’s now gone due to other P25 stuff….

I can see both sides. The stubbed toe at 14:15 on a Saturday or the cat in a tree Local box at 18:00 on a Wednesday? Waste of air time and dispatcher’s time to pre-alert. Bringing it back just for things like cardiac arrests and for Tactical and Rescue boxes similar to how Montco still uses them? The way to go. If I had the powers to change anything it wouldn’t be the pre-alerts. It would be the tone sets to be lower like Montcos. The existing are traditional but they’re as ear splitting to my ears as Lancaster and the old York’s. I’ve grown used to the automated dispatch and don’t mind it as much anymore. At least they’re not going full Aplha…. Hopefully.

I had that same problem with ear splitting tone drops. Since there are all sorts of radios on 24/7 in my home (I'm divorced, I can get away with that now) I had to run 155.550 through a kludged-DSP set-up to trap out the tones because they blared all over the house, way louder than the dispatcher's voice.

I actually don't care if the pre-alert stays gone forever. I agree with you though, use the clearing tones/pre-alert for higher priority calls, like dwelling with entrapment, or pediatric respiratory distress, etc. Since lots of Bucks depts send an Engine company on cardiac arrest medic calls, I'd leave it off of those. As long as Bucks VHF analog dispatch frequency stays active, the site I made, RadioP25.com , in the style and spirit of the defunct cbemsalerts.posthaven.com, will continue to work. The real enemy is the elephant in the room... encryption. Too many agencies coast to coast now encrypt EVERYTHING, because it really costs nothing besides killing a hobby.

 

[Rsull067]

Update, and this is too long/don't read. Unless you are bored. Since building tonetrix (A two-tone detection python program that RadioP25.com uses), I now understand why higher pitched tones were historically preferred. It turns out that in order to reliably use analog sine wave signalling tones between 300 and 500 hz, The detection circuitry in receiving devices must be much more discriminating and precise. Higher frequency signalling tones were able to make it to the end-zone more cleanly. Technology to use lower frequency signalling tones was likely not yet invented or was cost prohibitive when Motorola rolled out Quik-Call II in the late 60s. Lower tones on low-band VHF back then were not as reliable. blah blah blah, and then there's Goertzel:

1

2

is a start of how to identify one frequency vs another, and the tech we have today can deal with lower frequency tones more easily and for less money. I am facing similar issues now. For example, look at the low frequencies for the following departments. My receiving equipment has a noise floor that gets in the way of 300 to 400 hz...and human speech isn't much help in this range. Therefore, I had to spend extra time, and I still haven't worked out all the bugs when dealing with these:
[Station_17_QUAKERTOWN]
tone_a = 313
tone_b = 426.6

[Station_36_RICHLANDTOWN]
tone_a = 313
tone_b = 384.6

[Station_40_SPRINGTOWN]
tone_a = 313
tone_b = 1985

[Station_56_RICHLAND_TWP]
tone_a = 313
tone_b = 950

[Station_57_MILFORD_TWP]
tone_a = 313
tone_b = 473.2

[Station_58_TRUMBAUERSVILLE]
tone_a = 313
tone_b = 645.7

[Station_63_HAYCOCK]
tone_a = 313
tone_b = 1047.1


######## Tone A = 321.4 ########
[Station_23_DUBLIN]
tone_a = 321.4
tone_b = 707.3


######## Tone A = 346.7 ########
[Station_66_WARWICK]
tone_a = 346.7
tone_b = 524.8


######## Tone A = 366 ########
[Station_41_PT_PLEASANT]
tone_a = 366
tone_b = 410.8


######## Tone A = 384.6 ########
[Station_20_PLUMSTEADVILLE]
tone_a = 384.6
tone_b = 767.4

[Station_49_OTTSVILLE]
tone_a = 384.6
tone_b = 473.2

 

[Rsull067]

***UPDATE***... I noticed at 11:30 AM EDT today that the pre-alerts on 155.550 by Bucks County are back.
Apparently they have reverted to
[EMS (500hz) or FIRE (1000hz) Clearing Tone] --> Spoken EMS/FD Identifier, address --> [TONE DROP] --> Spoken EMS/FD Identifier, address, municipality, call type --> Spoken EMS/FD Identifier, address, municipality, call type, time of dispatch

I guess the experiment ended, and Bucks has gone back to the same dispatch format they've used for the past 40+ years. I guess it lasted around 14-15 days.