Years ago I used to hear semi-regular traffic on CLERS frequencies (155.0700 on Blue Ridge & 154.7100 on Joaquin Ridge). Anyone know the status of the CLERS network? I can’t remember the last time I monitored anything on them. Living on the central coast for almost 14 years, I never heard a peep on 453.675 (Mt. Lowe) either. TIA
CLERS
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mmckenna
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Still exists, at least it's still in the state guides. Not sure how much it gets used. I've never heard much on them. The usage of it was fairly restrictive.
These sorts of wide area single channel systems are not as useful now that everyone has cell phones.
Many years ago they were talking about keeping the repeaters, but shutting down the microwave systems that connected them. Not sure whatever became of that.
These sorts of wide area single channel systems are not as useful now that everyone has cell phones.
Many years ago they were talking about keeping the repeaters, but shutting down the microwave systems that connected them. Not sure whatever became of that.
The microwave circuits were just a channel on the state MW backbone, so it's highly unlikely they would have taken that down, since MW is used for everything else.
As for CLERS, it's been a good 25 years since I've seen any effort on the part of any agencies I deal with to make sure it's functional.
That functionality seems to have been replaced with regional "hoot and holler" intercoms that are carried via a mix of microwave and telco.
mmckenna
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ZZ is correct, I generalized my response. What I heard many years ago was that they were thinking of shutting down the microwave -channel- and switch that supported this. Not the microwave system. Too much other stuff on that.
I also heard that they had plans to remove the "law enforcement" only part of it to make it more useful. Not sure any of that ever happened. I agree, not enough "marketing" to make it useful.
For local stuff around us, CLEMARS is often used for inter-dispatch center, along with ringdown lines between dispatch centers.
I also heard that they had plans to remove the "law enforcement" only part of it to make it more useful. Not sure any of that ever happened. I agree, not enough "marketing" to make it useful.
For local stuff around us, CLEMARS is often used for inter-dispatch center, along with ringdown lines between dispatch centers.
CLERS in the Sacramento area is still active. The Wolf Mountain CLERS is used as a law-enforcement PSAP intercom and Hot-Shot broadcast system.
I wish they WOULD remove the LE-only requirement for use.
We use VFIRE 21 for a fire PSAP intercom, and it is with the same agencies who also have CLERS Wolf. It would be nice to consolidate on one channel.
I wish they WOULD remove the LE-only requirement for use.
We use VFIRE 21 for a fire PSAP intercom, and it is with the same agencies who also have CLERS Wolf. It would be nice to consolidate on one channel.
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The channels were very active during the Camp Fire in Butte county.
The network is definitely in place, but as mmckenna stated, there isn't much "marketing", either by design or need. They can be brought up as individual repeaters (most often), or dial and link to other CLERS locations in the state via the microwave circuits (rare). It's one of those ace-up-the-sleeve resources for when The Big One hits (Rim Fire, quake, Camp Fire etc.), much like OES Fire Nets and CESRS. Some comm centers may know about the local resource and have permission to utilize it to fulfill a specific need, usually PSAP linking etc. I keep it in my normal scan up in the upper Sac Valley and it's silent.
The dispatch centers I deal with have slowly phased out their CLERS bases and narrow banding took care of the last of the ancient equipment. No one cares or seems to want to re-establish the system at their facilities. Kind of hard to justify its existence if there are less and less users for the service. There used to be a "phone book" of all the dispatch centers you could dial up. Doubt that has been updated and probably pretty useless by now. I agree it needs to be re-jiggered to a more appropriate application in these times.
scottyhetzel
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Here in Palm Springs I get the CW Morse code indentifer broadcasting the call sign.. my scanner picks it up. Like others have said I never hear traffic on it.
In many ways, the State of California telecom systems are dinosaurs that are too stupid to know that they're dead. CLERS infrastructure that still IDs when all the former user agencies are on hoot and holler intercoms and dedicated ringdowns is a good example.
Local agencies need a quick easy method of talking to the adjacent PSAP, but CLERS isn't it. And there's not much need for a center in S. Calif to call a PD in Siskiyou county, which CLERS could do, back in the day.
Yes technically they can be dinosaurs, and politically every agency has the pervasive thought that cell phones just work. And if cellphones don't work, the landline will. When 90% of your day job is spent in the office/cubicle/conference rooms, and another 9% in an air conditioned vehicle with bluetooth attachment to both your personal and your agency-provided cellphone, you tend to forget about LMR. It isn't on their mind, at all. When money needs to be spent to support LMR, when training/procedures/testing need to be scheduled to support LMR, they don't see a need for it, at that moment. It's the 1% moments where their cellphone becomes dumb and deaf (Camp fire, santa rosa fires, etc.) and they request a cache of sat phones from a warehouse in Sacramento to carry around, that hopefully someone continued paying the bill for all these years. It's a huge uphill political battle to find support for these strategic LMR systems the state has.
Why strategic? Because it's a quiet resource in a very solid and maintained radio vault and tower, backed up with generator and days of batteries, covering most of the state with at least mobile radio coverage, and can link back to the State Operations Center and the Warning Center. California is a very dynamic state when it comes to disasters. It's a state with large geographic holes that the private industry has no redundancy in (911 and massive phone and internet outages for the entire north coast if someone so much as sneezes at the fiber on the pole, and that same pole carries the fiber for every major carrier in the area, roadside on a blind curve in a foggy area. The same fiber burned up in the 2017 fires causing large outages for cell, 911, landline, hoot and hollers between sheriff substations, and internet on north coast for 4-5 days) It's another option. When in the heat of battle, options are real nice to have. If not for local use around an incident, it is another option for the EOC or OES chiefs to reach back to Sacramento and make resource requests etc. Those people may forget the resource even exists in that moment, but the smattering of radio geeks around the state who are called up to solve the problem know exactly what aces they have up their sleeves.
For us scanner listeners, it's simply an annoying CWID that interrupts us from hearing the dog catcher. You might catch a random test from a PSC tech or OES staff to help burn the dust on the heatsink and blow out the cobwebs.
ZZ, do you know if the 155.100 CLERS repeater is still at Govt Peak? Did it get narrowbanded? Maybe just turned off.
I'm afraid I don't have any current information on that. I'll ask around with my contacts at the state. If I was a betting man, I'd say it's gone.
The last time I laid hands on a CLERS radio it was an MSY, which is the 1968'ish Motrac era base station. I never saw any of those replaced with anything newer, the system had fallen into disuse by the 90s. I'll see what I can find out.
Thanks. That sounds about right about the state of disrepair. In the 90s and maybe into the 2000s I would hear it belch open squelch periodically for several minutes. Rarely heard actual voice but if I did, it was limited to BOLO type traffic. The open squelch noise got old so I locked it out more and more. I doubt back then it was digital but if I heard it today I might think so...haven't heard anything in a while.
I just realized I mis-typed I was referring to 155.910 at Govt Peak, not 155.100, sorry.
No matter. The license for that frequency on Govt. Peak canceled in 2015.
Not so fast. The license that is used for that site is WNDC546, which is still very much alive.
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