Camden County Project 25 TRS

[radioman2001]

An easy workaround for departments is to interface a conventional frequency or even a trunked radio to a supplied Phase II radio for a cross patch. Been done here with the counties trunked system because most departments in the beginning balked at being forced onto the system, and having to pay to get radios through the county. Some departments to this day have still refused and stayed on low band, or even as in our agency's case we just bought conventional portables and just use the UHF fire grounds for interops. We don't need the trunked system.

 

[W2GLD]

An easy workaround for departments is to interface a conventional frequency or even a trunked radio to a supplied Phase II radio for a cross patch. Been done here with the counties trunked system because most departments in the beginning balked at being forced onto the system, and having to pay to get radios through the county. Some departments to this day have still refused and stayed on low band, or even as in our agency's case we just bought conventional portables and just use the UHF fire grounds for interops. We don't need the trunked system.

No body ever really needed a trunked radio system; hell look at NYPD and LAPD; conventional all the way and the system works great, even with analog audio in NYPD/FDNY's case.

However, patching analog to digital doesn't always have the desired outcomes. Audio generally sounds terrible... Also, with VHF/UHF narrowbanding looming in the wind; it's about time agencies move forward 20 years with technology.

Trunk system security advantages far outweigh the general complaints and disadvantages. For one, in conventional systems, any Tom, Dick, and Harry can program a radio and cause havoc on the system; creating a major safety issue for personnel. (Sorry anyone named Tom, Dick, and Harry; you guys always get a bad rap.) Secondly, what about lost of stolen equipment; almost impossible to track who listening, who's jamming, etc. Unless they've been using MDC AND have locked the codeplug down to prevent modification of these settings that allow the radio to be stunned. In a TRS, radios are easily tracked, stunned, etc. and in the more modern systems, hacking is almost becoming impossible (at least at the moment). Couple that with GPS functions on portables and you can create a vast APL (Automatic Personnel Locator) services for your agency. Here in Michigan, cars on the state system are tracked from just about every PSAP (dispatch center). In addition, with system upgrades, field portables are also tracked; making man-down situation response even quicker.

That all said, I still love conventional; however, many agencies throughout the years, and may I say, NONE more than Camden County, have been resistant to change. The county could have easily taken their existing VHF or UHF infrastructure and created a large conventional system; however, agencies like Gloucester Township, Winslow, Voorhees, Cherry Hill, etc. would have all had to WANT to be on a common channel, AND support a centralized dispatch center; unfortunately they didn't until the budget crisis of the past few years fell upon them...

Now introduce a multitude of Homeland Security money that has been granted; and thus a countywide inter-operability system is born and everyone wants that Homeland Security grant money; so magically the politics subside and everyone now wants a centralized system. Funny how grant money makes people sing to the tune of the federal government; take the seatbelt laws for example; limit your highway speeds to 55 MPH under law and we'll give you highway money to fix your roads...

Anyway, the long and the short of this is; even-though agencies are moving to trunked radio systems, proper development and implementation is critical; as is training. It's okay to use the trunked systems for day-to-day patrols, response, and OUTSIDE scene operations; however, for firegrounds, tactical operations, and LARGE scene operations, these communications should be conducted on conventional (ANALOG) channels; with the command personnel having access to the TRS in order to remain in contact with the county dispatch center; otherwise that falls on the shoulders of a "Fieldcomm" unit assigned to said incident.

In Camden County, the TRS will be used for daily operations and conventional tactical channels are being setup for firegrounds and assorted tactical operations; however, hopefully the training takes place so that when fire personnel arrive in the scene of a job; personnel automatically move operations to a conventional tactical channel and the OIC remains with two radios, one monitoring the TRS for incoming units and the other on the conventional fireground channel.

Patching, will and can be used until the system is fully implemented; however, it should be terminated once all agencies are on the system and the new system should be fully adopted by the personnel because in the end, it is really to their benefit.

As to the issues in Philadelphia; keep in mind, the original manager of the system in Philadelphia created those problems themselves; against Motorola recommendations and thus the city has experienced MANY, in-fact TOO MANY outages. Moving forward, Motorola has once again been contracted for the new Project-25 x2-TDMA system and it will finally be implemented in it's original intended form, with true zone by zone performance, microwave linking, etc. On Burlington Counties system; hey, it's a UHF T-Band, blame the idiots at the FCC for that one... Mixing wideband television so close to public safety frequencies; forgoing the thoughts about propagation, etc. Just plain stupid. Burlington County actually has a decent system; granted WAY TOO MANY TALKGROUPS, it's generally a sound, reliable system (until they encounter band openings)...

 

[radioman2001]

Cross patching with decent audio can be done, it just can't be by hooking the speaker to the mic, we do it now with our IDAS system. I agree about the security part, but that can be defeated by a persistant hacker. Look how the password function of programming software or region codes have been defeated, all is needed is to rewrite the programming software to bypass affiliation. I suspect it may already been done, but has not been made public. I can even suggest how to do it in software, but that's not my call. Even the new APX radios were hacked to full blown options, before they were even officially released. Any good programmer can find a way around anything with a simple jump command or reprogramming of a button to not select affiliation.
Getting back to Camden with Narrow Banding looming, they just as easily could have gotten additional channels to augment their system, yes they would have to replace radios but they would have had to anyway. Unless someone is actually giving away radios and services, I tend to like to keep my own and have control over it, and I will not fully embrace digital until forced to.The has been too many problems with it in P.S.
Personally I believe any agency that wants to go digital has the ulterior motive to remove radio monitoring from the public, since it is so easy to do,and not because of some technology advancement. I also believe that if the agencies that are having problems with unauthorized access to trunked systems made listening easier for the public by an official feed, there wouldn't be a problem.

 

[aslc]

Even if CHFD had to buy it's own radios for the new county system, which it doesn't, it would be much cheaper than switching to the twp's trunked system since they'd have to hire a dispatching staff. That would cost hundreds of thousands of $ per year. CH Police dispatch couldn't handle fire & EMS without hiring additional dispatchers as well. Can't see any financial or operational advantage to doing their own.

 

[policefreak]

Any testing of the system yet? Been conventionally sweeping through these freqs on my psr-800 and haven't heard anything.

 

[fireradio44]

No testing yet. The system is still being assembled. Testing should be near the end of the summer.

 

[policefreak]

So it sounds like I am hearing control channel action on 774.19375 which should be the western part of the county. Getting it in the eastern half of the county, though.

 

[fireradio44]

So far, 3 towers are up and running in simulcast trunking mode. Lindenwold, Blackwood and Runnemede are transmitting. East and West mean nothing. All the towers are transmitting the same thing at the same time.

 

[AngerManagement]

Any updates on the new system? Are they still on track for going into service in December maybe earlier. I can't get a straight answer from anyone. Neither work or my fire department have an actual date as to when the system is going to go online. Is there a reason why this project is hush, hush?

 

[elias1988]

ULS Application - PubSafty/SpecEmer/PubSaftyNtlPlan,806-817/851-862MHz,Trunked - 0005383052 - CAMDEN, COUNTY OF

ULS Application - PubSafty/SpecEmer/PubSaftyNtlPlan,806-817/851-862MHz,Trunked - 0005383207 - CAMDEN, COUNTY OF

ULS Application - PubSafty/SpecEmer/PubSaftyNtlPlan,806-817/851-862MHz,Trunked - 0005383209 - CAMDEN, COUNTY OF

 

[Skypilot007]

A news article in this mornings paper...

911 system set for $15M approval | Courier-Post | courierpostonline.com

I found this quote from the article rather interesting...

"Military-grade encryption capability will prevent criminals from being alerted to police activity."

 

[pirate6]

Yes not surprised, more wasted money for something we don’t need. “This new system will provide true interoperability capabilities of police, fire and EMS communications within Camden County and our surrounding region,” said Freeholder Rodney Greco, liaison to the Camden County Department of Public Safety. That quote is interesting. Police will NEVER be on the same channel as fire, even on large scenes. What will happen the first time an EMS crew switches over to advise the incoming chief of conditions? They will be told to get off the channel. Things do not change in this County. Also what is the surrounding region? Gloucester County is still in the 400 and 500 band using repeaters, Burlington County is 500 trunked. Which systems can they “talk” to? Philly? State Police?

“Cherry Hill Fire Chief Robert Giorgio said the system will allow county officials flexibility at emergency scenes. “The new system, with more powerful, portable radios, will allow me greater flexibility and I’ll be able to assess situations quicker. That will allow more rapid communication to all responders arriving at the scene.” This statement is the best, more powerful radios? The fire grounds channels are going to be simplex digital channels in the 700 band using radios that are 3 watts max according to the Motorola spec sheet(http://www.motorola.com/web/Busines...Documents/StaticFiles/APX_6000_Spec_Sheet.pdf) right now the VHF radios are 5 watts max. My opinion still is Camden County should have just placed 700 band repeaters with simplex non digital tactical channels.

Another interesting read is this paper put out by FEMA with the IAFF. Great chapter on P25 when using a SCBA, and using nonsupported simplex communications on the fire ground.
http://www.usfa.fema.gov/downloads/...Communications_Guide_for_the_Fire_Service.pdf

I think it’s time to get off my soap box and let you guys tear this post apart. (By the way, that’s a joke)
p.s. quotes provided by Courier-Post | South Jersey local news, video, photos, entertainment, community information, and classifieds | courierpostonline.com

 

[fireradio44]

Yes not surprised, more wasted money for something we don’t need. “This new system will provide true interoperability capabilities of police, fire and EMS communications within Camden County and our surrounding region,” said Freeholder Rodney Greco, liaison to the Camden County Department of Public Safety. That quote is interesting. Police will NEVER be on the same channel as fire, even on large scenes. What will happen the first time an EMS crew switches over to advise the incoming chief of conditions? They will be told to get off the channel. Things do not change in this County. Also what is the surrounding region? Gloucester County is still in the 400 and 500 band using repeaters, Burlington County is 500 trunked. Which systems can they “talk” to? Philly? State Police?

“Cherry Hill Fire Chief Robert Giorgio said the system will allow county officials flexibility at emergency scenes. “The new system, with more powerful, portable radios, will allow me greater flexibility and I’ll be able to assess situations quicker. That will allow more rapid communication to all responders arriving at the scene.” This statement is the best, more powerful radios? The fire grounds channels are going to be simplex digital channels in the 700 band using radios that are 3 watts max according to the Motorola spec sheet(http://www.motorola.com/web/Busines...Documents/StaticFiles/APX_6000_Spec_Sheet.pdf) right now the VHF radios are 5 watts max. My opinion still is Camden County should have just placed 700 band repeaters with simplex non digital tactical channels.

The only thing you got right in that whole post was the fact that Police will not be on the same channel as fire, atlthough they can be if needed when it goes live.... The rest - you have no idea what you're talking about.

 

[pirate6]

Well I respect your opinion on what you think is right. All I have to say is don't be surprised the system is considered a failure and tax rates have gone through the roof to fix it. Then we will see if I knew what I was talking about. Since I don't want this thread to turn negative against posters with opinions , I will stop giving my opinion and just sit back and watch.

 

[fireradio44]

Well I respect your opinion on what you think is right. All I have to say is don't be surprised the system is considered a failure and tax rates have gone through the roof to fix it. Then we will see if I knew what I was talking about. Since I don't want this thread to turn negative against posters with opinions , I will stop giving my opinion and just sit back and watch.

I dont want it to turn negative either, but some of the things you posted as opinions were actually erroneous facts that other posters may take as being correct. I'll respect your opinion as well, but I would like you to explain why you think the system will fail. We can go private message if you'd like...

 

[policefreak]

Any idea on when they will begin testing the system?

 

[policefreak]

The tower in my area is so strong its cutting out Burlington's T-band frequencies!

 

[Skypilot007]

The tower in my area is so strong its cutting out Burlington's T-band frequencies!

That site has a large foorprint. From what I can tell riding around south Jersey a lot is this systems has superior coverage as compared to the 800MHz state police system.

 

[elias1988]

I was able to grab some data from my location with Pro96Com:


FileVersion:7
-TowerInfo
#This section is here for information only. With the exception
#of the Call Sign(s), This data is not Read back into the program at all.
System ID : 3B4
System Name : Camden County
WACN : BEE00
Tower Number (Decimal): 101
Tower Number (Hex) : T0101
Tower Description : Simulcast
Control Capabilities : Data,Voice,Registration
Call Sign(s) :
Timestamp : Sat Oct 20 03:01:25 2012

-Tables
#Format: Table ID,Base Freq,Spacing,Input Offset,Assumed/Confirmed,BandWidth,Slots
00,851.00625,0.00625,-45.00000,"Confirmed",0.00625,1
01,762.00625,0.00625,30.00000,"Confirmed",0.00625,1
02,851.01250,0.01250,-45.00000,"Confirmed",0.01250,2
03,762.00625,0.01250,30.00000,"Confirmed",0.01250,2
04,935.01250,0.01250,-39.00000,"Confirmed",0.00625,1

-Frequencies
#Format: Channel,Usage,Frequency(/Slot),Input Channel,Input Frequency(/Slot),Input Explicit(1/0),Hit Count
"01-1418","a",770.86875,"01-1418",800.86875,0,0
"01-1618","a",772.11875,"01-1618",802.11875,0,0
"01-1834","a",773.46875,"01-1834",803.46875,0,0
"01-1950","c",774.19375,"01-1950",804.19375,0,0

 

[mding4gold]

I heard from a good source that there will be a lot of testing of the new system this week. I was able to pick up talk group 201 today. It was weak and not very clear. I hope it improves when they make the switch in mid March.