DC Feed Appliance Programming - Your Help Needed

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blantonl

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Folks,

We've completed the engineering on the DC Feed appliance and we're ready to deploy. HOWEVER, we still need to program the radios.

I'm looking for help and suggestions around how we should program our radios. Currently we are going to deploy (7) PSR-500's and (1) PSR-300 to the DC Metro area. They will cover:

Feed 1 - Washington DC Police
Feed 2 - Washington DC Fire/EMS
Feed 3 - Alexandria Police/Fire/EMS
Feed 4 - Montgomery County Police
Feed 5 - Montgomery County Fire
Feed 6 - Prince Georges County Police / Fire /EMS
Feed 7 - Arlington Police
Feed 8 - Capitol Police / US Park Police / Areawide Mutual Aid

So, here is where I need your help. What talkgroups/frequencies should be monitored for each of these feeds? I'm looking for local help here to understand how we should program these radios.

Keep in mind these feeds will focus on what someone would want to listen to on an online feed. And don't forget our feed providers broadcast content restrictions which outline what we DON'T broadcast. (And Capitol Police and US Park Police are the only exceptions to our TOS since they provide significant and extensive public safety operations to the general public)

Thanks for any help you can provide ,and I look forward to your feedback.

Warm regards,
 
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davemcclung

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Feed 3 - Alexandria Fire/EMS/Police

Lindsay,

I will respond with my thoughts on Feed 3. I lived in Alexandria for 10 years so I am pretty familiar with monitoring AFD and APD.

I have also reviewed the content restrictions and the only two talkgroups I am aware that you want to stay away from is AFD 2N Hosp and APD Hostage as well as APD Spec Ops.

The key Fire/EMS talkgroups that you want to cover are:

AFD 2A Disp
AFD 2B
AFD 2C
AFD 2D
AFD 2E EMS
AFD 2F SpEvt
AFD 2P Cmd

For Police talkgroups:

APD 1 Disp
APD 2 U-U
APD 3 U-U
APD 4 SpEvt
APD 5 U-U

That will give you a good variety.

I personally am only really interested in the Fire and EMS. I am looking forward to hearing Alexandria soon. I will be a frequent user of the feed.

Dave

Folks,

We've completed the engineering on the DC Feed appliance and we're ready to deploy. HOWEVER, we still need to program the radios.

I'm looking for help and suggestions around how we should program our radios. Currently we are going to deploy (7) PSR-500's and (1) PSR-300 to the DC Metro area. They will cover:

Feed 1 - Washington DC Police
Feed 2 - Washington DC Fire/EMS
Feed 3 - Alexandria Police/Fire/EMS
Feed 4 - Montgomery County Police
Feed 5 - Montgomery County Fire
Feed 6 - Prince Georges County Police / Fire /EMS
Feed 7 - Arlington Police
Feed 8 - Capitol Police / US Park Police / Areawide Mutual Aid

So, here is where I need your help. What talkgroups/frequencies should be monitored for each of these feeds? I'm looking for local help here to understand how we should program these radios.

Keep in mind these feeds will focus on what someone would want to listen to on an online feed. And don't forget our feed providers broadcast content restrictions which outline what we DON'T broadcast. (And Capitol Police and US Park Police are the only exceptions to our TOS since they provide significant and extensive public safety operations to the general public)

Thanks for any help you can provide ,and I look forward to your feedback.

Warm regards,
 

ResQguy

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Feed 2 DC Fire/EMS: should have virtually all the Fire/EMS talkgroups loaded EXCEPT 011 EMS1, 012 EMS2, 013 EMS3. If those EMS talkgroups are included you can forget hearing any fires. I would not include any of the EMA or spare TGs for the same reason.

Feed 6 PG County: Somebody has to make a tough decision here. You can't scan PGPD and PGFD in the same scanner and follow any specific incident well. They are much too busy. Also, are we talking about their current system or their new P25 system? Since a great deal of the police and half of the fire channels are TDMA, this needs to be addressed.
 
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ka8ypy

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Feed 2 DC Fire/EMS: should have virtually all the Fire/EMS talkgroups loaded EXCEPT 011 EMS1, 012 EMS2, 013 EMS3. If those EMS talkgroups are included you can forget hearing any fires. I would not include any of the EMA or spare TGs for the same reason.

Feed 6 PG County: Somebody has to make a tough decision here. You can't scan PGPD and PGFD in the same scanner and follow any specific incident well. They are much too busy. Also, are we talking about their current system or their new P25 system? Since a great deal of the police and half of the fire channels are TDMA, this needs to be addressed.

Feed 6 PG County:
Simulcast on the current UHF system for at least the next year should not be an issue, same for fire until they start their cutover to the new system in the 2nd quarter of 2010.

But the above comment is correct in the current set-up, both systems are much too busy to be able to follow any one incident. That may change when the new system is up 100%.
 

redburgundy

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Recommendation for Montgomery County PD is easy:
A1 Rockville Dispatch TGroup 14736
A2 Bethesda Dispatch TGroup 14832
A3 Silv Spr Dispatch TGroup 14928
A4 Wheaton Dispatch TGroup 15024
A5 Germantown Dispatch TGroup 15120
A6 Gaithersburg Dispatch TGroup 15216

Montgomery County FD is more complicated.

Typically any major incident will be assigned one group of four TGs (e.g., 7CDEF) but sometimes only the first of the four (7C) will actually be used. For example, a multiple alarm fire might have 7G used as fire attack, 7H used as water supply and 7I used as hazmat. 7J is set up to transmit across all three of 7GHI TGs. The 7K and 7L TGs are used for informal mobile-to-mobile communications.

I'd put in all these, although most of the "incident" TGs will seldom have any traffic.
7A Mont FD Dispatch Group 3344
7B Mont FD Operations Group 3376
7C Mont FD INC10 Group 3408
7D INC11 Group 3440
7E INC12 Group 3472
7F ANN10 Group 3504
7G Mont FD INC20 Group 3536
7H INC21 Group 3568
7I INC22 Group 3600
7J ANN20 Group 3632
71C Mont FD INC30 Group 3664
71D INC31 Group 3696
71E INC32 Group 3728
71F ANN30 Group 3760
71G Mont FD INC40 Group 3792
71H INC41 Group 3824
71I INC42 Group 3856
71J ANN40 Group 3888
7K FD Alt 1 Group 18096
7L FD Alt 2 Group 18128
71K FD Alt 3 Group 18160
71L FD Alt 4 Group 18192
 

blantonl

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I think we're going to change up the lineup and now go with the following:

1 PSR-500 Washington DC Police
2 PSR-500 Washington DC Fire / EMS
3 PSR-500 Alexandria Police/Fire/EMS
4 PSR-500 Montgomery County Police
5 PSR-500 Montgomery County Fire/EMS
6 PSR-500 Prince George’s County Police
7 PSR-500 Prince George’s County Fire/EMS
8 PSR-300 Capitol Police / US Park Police / Areawide Mutual Aid

I'm dropping Arlington since someone already has that covered nicely. This should be shipped out to the target location before Thursday!
 

ResQguy

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Plans for the feed # 6 should already be in the works. That will be mostly TDMAx2 very soon.
 

blantonl

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We can dynamically change these radios on demand. If we have to wait for the scanner manufacturers to adapt to the new standards, we can very easily re-allocate the radio(s) for such an event (s).

Our assumption is that PG will not be fully migrated till mid-2010, and that simulcast on the 490's will still occur. If that changes, we've got 2 radios to re-program and adjust to.
 
A

ACU1000

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We can dynamically change these radios on demand. If we have to wait for the scanner manufacturers to adapt to the new standards, we can very easily re-allocate the radio(s) for such an event (s).

Our assumption is that PG will not be fully migrated till mid-2010, and that simulcast on the 490's will still occur. If that changes, we've got 2 radios to re-program and adjust to.

Lindsay,

Do you have reason to believe that TDMAx2 will be monitorable soon on a Uniden or GRE? Loudoun County here in VA (near Fairfax) just went live with x2 this week and now we can't hear a darn thing unless an FDMA subscriber device affiliates on a TG. Do you have any leverage with these manufacturers ;-)
 
A

ACU1000

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I was going to suggest VA State Police, but if it's full never mind. :)

I'll host a VSP feed, if someone will show me how. I have the radio and the bandwidth, just need to know what computer and other hardware I need and how to do it. Or, if Lindsay will send me an appliance - what ever that is ;-)
 
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blantonl

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I have no idea if any if the scanners can be updated to support the new TDMA modulation - but I am hopeful that the manufacturers can address the issue in the future.

For now, it looks like we're just going to have to wait and see what happens.

Also remember that this version of Motorola's TDMA support is actually at this moment a proprietary implementation of the Phase II "standard" - which hasn't been officially ratified yet.
 

ka3jjz

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I'll host a VSP feed, if someone will show me how. I have the radio and the bandwidth, just need to know what computer and other hardware I need and how to do it. Or, if Lindsay will send me an appliance - what ever that is ;-)

Float your mouse over Wiki under the Scanner Master logo in the blue toolbar and click on Live Audio. Much of the details you need are there.

If there are details missing, please ask on the right forum. As we get more details, the wiki can then be improved. 73 Mike
 
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jackj

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Yes, scanners can be manufactured that would pickup TDMA signals. The problem would be if the 'channel' was encrypted or scrambled. The Feds take a dim view of anyone listening to an encrypted signal without the proper authorization. But, in general, if a modulation scheme can be received by the intended recipient then it can also be monitored by unintended recipients.
 
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