Columbia County Radio System Facts?

[Shane2016]

I was reading up on Columbia Co radio system and see it is analog? I am able to monitor their dispatch and talk groups (duplex frequencies) with a Baofeng UV-5R. I am curious as to what sort of system they use and how it works. Is there a term that explains this? I am only wondering in comparison to Dauphin County (my home county) which uses Motorola Astro P25 Phase I Digital UHF.

 

[captclint]

I was reading up on Columbia Co radio system and see it is analog? I am able to monitor their dispatch and talk groups (duplex frequencies) with a Baofeng UV-5R. I am curious as to what sort of system they use and how it works. Is there a term that explains this? I am only wondering in comparison to Dauphin County (my home county) which uses Motorola Astro P25 Phase I Digital UHF.

Analog is one of the oldest types of radio communication. It comes in three major flavors: Simplex(base and mobile on same freq), repeaters and Trunking. Duplex is not common, but PSP used to use. What you probably mean is input and output of a repeater on different freq's. There are no talk groups in Columbia. This term refers to a trunking system, which is not used. In Columbia All FD are simplex(BM under type), but PD uses a repeater( (RM under type)

Digital can also be simplex, but more often it is trunked, as in Dauphin. See:
Trunking Basics
Trunked Radio Systems -
APCO Project 25 Digitali