Good evening, everyone!
Been a long time since I posted, so I'd like to wish everyone a VERY Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
So, I thought I'd post on a topic that those of us in the Cass County area know very well.
As you all may know, Cass County has recently transitioned both the Plattsmouth PD and Cass County Sheriff radio systems into the 800MHz. band. Going along with this change, a push has been made to move most Fire/Rescue departments off of 39.9/39.98/39.82 systems and onto a new VHF repeater channel.
PPD uses a single 800Mhz. channel, and from what I've heard from several people who use it, it works pretty well.
CCSO uses THREE channels, including one on the same tower as PPD, one on a tower east of Murray, and one on the KPTM tower southwest of Gretna.
The various Fire/Rescue departments use a VHF repeater which has actual repeater units on the HW50/HW1 Manley tower and on the same "Murray" tower as the CCSO.
We've hashed this all before, but what I have never been able to figure out is why the designers of the Cass County 800MHz. system didn't implement a voting configuration for the CCSO part of the system, and for the "Cass Fire" VHF repeater system?
Currently, if a Deputy is sitting in front of the Murray VFD station (tuned to the Murray tower) and wants to talk with a Deputy sitting in Louisville (tuned to the West tower), they're out of luck because the repeaters don't allow that kind of interaction.
The Dispatchers, I believe, have the capability of talking over all of the CCSO channels, but the mobiles/portables are stuck with the channel they're on.
Plus, the deputies have to be cognizant of where they're located so that they can tune their radios to the proper Tower.
A voted receiver system makes sense, even today, since the microwave is already in-place. The issue, of course, is that coverage from a single transmit site is outside of the installed configuration.
Take this a step further and apply it to the "Cass Fire" 154.385 repeaters. If you voted this system the same way as the 800 MHz. system, coverage would improve and the departments wouldn't have to constantly figure out which tower (East or West) to be on.
The current work on the Cass County communications system has improved things. However, many recent major incidents, including 3 today and 1 Thursday evening, have maginifed the fact that despite the upgrade to 800MHz. and VHF, work on making it easy for agencies to talk to one another is still needed.
73's
Been a long time since I posted, so I'd like to wish everyone a VERY Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
So, I thought I'd post on a topic that those of us in the Cass County area know very well.
As you all may know, Cass County has recently transitioned both the Plattsmouth PD and Cass County Sheriff radio systems into the 800MHz. band. Going along with this change, a push has been made to move most Fire/Rescue departments off of 39.9/39.98/39.82 systems and onto a new VHF repeater channel.
PPD uses a single 800Mhz. channel, and from what I've heard from several people who use it, it works pretty well.
CCSO uses THREE channels, including one on the same tower as PPD, one on a tower east of Murray, and one on the KPTM tower southwest of Gretna.
The various Fire/Rescue departments use a VHF repeater which has actual repeater units on the HW50/HW1 Manley tower and on the same "Murray" tower as the CCSO.
We've hashed this all before, but what I have never been able to figure out is why the designers of the Cass County 800MHz. system didn't implement a voting configuration for the CCSO part of the system, and for the "Cass Fire" VHF repeater system?
Currently, if a Deputy is sitting in front of the Murray VFD station (tuned to the Murray tower) and wants to talk with a Deputy sitting in Louisville (tuned to the West tower), they're out of luck because the repeaters don't allow that kind of interaction.
The Dispatchers, I believe, have the capability of talking over all of the CCSO channels, but the mobiles/portables are stuck with the channel they're on.
Plus, the deputies have to be cognizant of where they're located so that they can tune their radios to the proper Tower.
A voted receiver system makes sense, even today, since the microwave is already in-place. The issue, of course, is that coverage from a single transmit site is outside of the installed configuration.
Take this a step further and apply it to the "Cass Fire" 154.385 repeaters. If you voted this system the same way as the 800 MHz. system, coverage would improve and the departments wouldn't have to constantly figure out which tower (East or West) to be on.
The current work on the Cass County communications system has improved things. However, many recent major incidents, including 3 today and 1 Thursday evening, have maginifed the fact that despite the upgrade to 800MHz. and VHF, work on making it easy for agencies to talk to one another is still needed.
73's
