County SO changes to mix-mode digital

[blantonl]

I drove today from Amarillo to San Antonio and noticed that the following counties now use mixed P25 and Analog communications on their primary SO dispatch frequencies.

Runnels County SO
155.655 - dispatcher is analog, most units are P25

Menard County SO
155.565 - dispatcher is analog, most units are P25

Bandera County SO
155.610 - dispatcher is analog, some units are P25 encrypted. (per the database we've known this)

I've updated the database for Runnels and Menard Counties...

Keep an eye out for other rural counties in Texas to be making this transition. I suspect a single vendor is leading the charge on this conversion based on the configuration of analog dispatcher and digital mobiles.

As always, submit your change recommendations here:

Submit Data to RadioReference

Thanks,

 

[hiegtx]

That's also the pattern I've been seeing in the counties between Fort Worth and Abilene. For many of those that have converted (not all have), the dispatch has remained analog, possibly because they also page out and handle county fire through volunteer fire departments.

In a couple of cases, even though they are not licensed for digital mode transmissions, it is being used anyway. (All changes found have been submitted as I run across them.)

 

[blantonl]

That's also the pattern I've been seeing in the counties between Fort Worth and Abilene. For many of those that have converted (not all have), the dispatch has remained analog, possibly because they also page out and handle county fire through volunteer fire departments.

In a couple of cases, even though they are not licensed for digital mode transmissions, it is being used anyway. (All changes found have been submitted as I run across them.)

Good to hear some confirmation on this trend - probably due to the narrowbanding requirements and VFDs are last in line for technology upgrades.

I'm sure there are more out there that are following this trend, so if you happen to be passing through Central-North West Texas and Central-West Texas please help us identify these further.

Thanks hiegtx!