Welcome to the Fort Worth area. As for DPS on the FWRRS, they are on the Johnson County simulcast site. It's really just a repeat of the Mineral Wells DPS traffic. There is also a TGID on the Parker County VHF TRS that is easier to listen to and carries the same traffic. These are so the local DPS units in those counties that might be having any issues hitting the VHF DPS frequencies can use them. One thing I've noticed is I don't seem to hear units on the site / TGID in Johnson County. I just hear the dispatch side of things. But to be fair, I haven't really listened to that TGID much in the last year or so. And I'm not constantly monitoring Parker County either but that DPS TGID on their system seems to be a lot more busy and I do often hear units as well.
At the end of last summer, the TWRD... Or was it TRWD... I can't remember right now, was still using the Azle PD old VHF frequencies. Azle abandoned those frequencies when they moved to the FWRRS. I had a great surveillance frequency for those game wardens that was a simplex frequency. I heard them all the time going back and forth between the courthouse and jail in Lake Worth as well as them doing surveillance on illegal hunters and other operations for a number of years. I believe that frequency was 153.845 but I would have to double check. The only bad thing is that I have not heard any traffic on that frequency in the last 3 years or so. I don't know if they just abandoned it or what but I always kept that one scanning because it was interesting to me to hear night time surveillances at 2:00 a.m. on people illegally hunting, fishing, and doing other things usually around Eagle Mountain Lake. Like I mentioned, it was a simplex use on the frequency so there was no repeater I ever heard used.
Every public safety user is far as law enforcement and fire, with the exception of the city of Hurst, is on the FWRRS in Tarrant County. There is one other FD, Rendon FD, that is still on a VHF frequency. I'm 90% sure Rendon is in Tarrant County but I would need to double check that again too and make sure they're not in Johnson County.
The VHF frequency you mentioned and the NTTA DPS traffic on the TRS you mentioned is all North Texas Toll Road Authority related. Other than traffic stops and wrecks and similar things, I never really hear the NTTA DPS guys doing any other stuff. I have found a few interesting TGIDs on that system in past years but they seem to either be patched in or maybe just not ever used except for very rarely. Sometimes you will hear some of the FWRRS interoperability TGIDs also on that system. You'll hear them on both systems at the same time. I think those get patched like that, at least in the past, so that some of the agencies, which used to include DPS, can all be heard and communicate with each other. I don't think that is really needed anymore at this point and whenever there is something interesting like a task force that is patrolling an area with the help of agencies like DPS, nowadays I just hear them using a few of the regular FWRRS Law Interop channels. I haven't heard them doing this since last year but periodically they will have a small task force with a few agencies helping in an area that might be having a lot of crime. They will sometimes have three or four of the interoperability channels they use kind of like one for dispatch, one for more tactical stuff, one for running license plates and DL checks, etc.
On the west side of Fort Worth, and possibly even all of Tarrant County, the DPS units seem to usually talk to Mineral Wells. They do talk to other areas but I hear them talking to Mineral Wells the most. I think 159.2125 and 159.210 are where I hear the majority of DPS traffic. But they still also use the 155.46 and other digital P25 frequencies for the area. And I do know that 155.46 is also used over in the Dallas side of the metroplex. But strangely, I don't hear them as often as I used to when they were analog. A buddy of mine that has his antenna up a lot higher is usually able to hear them with no trouble as well as other DPS stations I'm currently not hearing since they went digital. I'm in the process of putting up a 40-foot tower with a DPDProductions OmniX antenna so hopefully before too long I'll be able to hear those stations again.
I'm sure you already know this but FWPD, Arlington, and Grand Prairie PD are all encrypted now. Johnson County has encrypted all of their law enforcement traffic, with the exception of that DPS TGID, on their two sites. But thankfully the majority of the traffic is still in the clear. There are some other encrypted agencies or TGIDs but I'm glad we can still often hear most of the agencies. The FWRRS is growing and Ellis County recently got on it and before too long DPD will be on it as a different layer.
There's not a whole lot of users that are not trunked nowadays in the metroplex. Occasionally you can find some but as far as analog goes, the DPD channels for the most part are unencrypted analog for now and Dallas County SO is a mix of P25 digital and analog. Other counties that are both analog and digital, and I don't mean all of them use both, are Wise County, Palo pinto County, and Hill County. There is some encryption on some of those counties but they are still not TRS users just yet.
They do a roll call once a month on the Law IO Call TGID. There are some users on it that are not on the FWRRS at least yet. If you can catch one of those when they have it you can hear all of the agencies that have the capability to come over and use the interoperability channels. There's a good number of users and hopefully any future agencies will still be ones we can monitor.
I hope this helps a little. And if you move into the area, welcome to North Central Texas
Brian
COMMSCAN
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