The new conventional channels for Cochrane were being fiddled around with today in terms of power, tuning, and direction. It should be pretty much complete now - I'm on rural fire tonight, and talked with Cochrane crews a couple of times where it sounded half-decent.
I don't know where the antennas are pointed right now, but originally, they were directed so that their signals were strongest towards Calgary, particularly the Foothills Hospital, and to Morley, to cover the areas Cochrane most often serves and/or transports to.
The EMS SOUTH channel is not operational yet, as I think I mentioned earlier - it is expected to be up in a week or two.
I am indeed in Bragg Creek. I have an MCS2000 UHF mobile with a base station power supply and a magmount UHF whip stuck to my deep-freezer lid for a ground plane. With this, I can not only hear all of the Cochrane channels and transmit on most of them, but also get CFD Voice Alerts and most of the Rockyview fire stations, including Chestermere.
By "Alpha 5 & 6" what do you mean - the trunk system (Calgary Digital Radio)? On my BCD396T scanner, I can get it reliably out to about the Redwood firehall - dropping off there because of going behind the hill on the Tsuu T'ina Nation and getting into the forested area of Bragg Creek. In Bragg Creek itself, the signal is very spotty, even on my handheld MTS2000 portable issued by the department - there is a stretch on Center Av near the bridge which is guaranteed good, and the hill at the transfer station (dump) is very good, but everywhere else in the hamlet is awful. At my house, I can find tiny pockets of signal that result in a 98-99% decode on Unitrunker on the Spy Hill tower (868.2125). Oddly enough, going into Kananaskis East, down the 66, Fish Creek (866.1375) just BOOMS in - must have a clear line of sight from the south end of the city.
The RCMP repeaters might be failing in power and amplification. A lot of people are reporting shortened range on many RCMP channels. It could be that they're failing, or, the RCMP could be turning the power down to conserve the equipment since it will have to last a few more years until AFRRCS comes online. That may be why they've added these extra repeaters covering the same area previously handled by one (Cochrane, formerly covering all of its area by 155.55/B2, now has 155.625/B10 for areas west into Morley, and 154.83/A15 for areas south into Bragg Creek).
I wouldn't consider Cochrane's new configuration done at this point. They're going to have to tweak the settings until things work properly for them, and it may take a few days (or weeks). This equipment is the same stuff that was running the MPT1327 trunk yesterday, just reflashed to do conventional operation. It will work, it'll just take time to make perfect.