DPS 800mhz

[texasemt13]

Well the GATRRS DPS talkgroups have been identified for awhile now, as have many on TxWARN.

 

[KF5CYE]

I recently found out that due to 9/11, all law enforcement agencies in the US must have interoperability. DHS has decided that all agencies will move to 700, 800, or 900 MHz. It is supposed to be in affect by 2012 but there are A LOT of agencies that have not done it yet. All the agencies have received federal grants to assist them in the system changeovers.

 

[niklas12345]

There is NO requirement by DHS, the FCC or anyone for agencies to move to 700,800,900mhz.

This is common urban legend pushed by various vendors to sell radios.

I can assure you it is not true.

The ONLY mandate in effect for any licensees is the narrowbanding mandate by the FCC for ALL (but a very few) users of part 90 freqs in the VHF and UHF bands.

Only about 60% of the effected agencies in Texas have done so and the deadline is 12 midnight, Dec 31st, 2012.

The wait for processing at the FCC for applications is about 90 days now and will only get worse.

Actually very few agencies have received grants. The only ones that have used them to buy new equipment and not for the narrowbanding.

Congress is trying to extend the deadline and get some grants to do the narrowbanding.

Agencies and users (this effects public safety and commercial both) have know since 1996 this was coming and have waited until now to panic react.

I am eyebrow deep in this stuff and deal with it ever day. It is going to be really interesting when on Jan 1st, 2013 a bunch of folks licenses are no longer valid.

 

[Russell]

It should also be noted that narrowbanding mandates apply to 150-512 MHz users. 800 MHz is considered efficient due to trunking. That being said, 800 MHz system users are typically moving to P25 (or other narrowband technology) when they "REband" as a result of the Nextel thing.

 

[motorola_otaku]

The Houston-area TxWARN talkgroups right now are being used as a supplement to the VHF system. For whatever reason they opted to multi-select with the VHF channels instead of doing full patches, so now you hear dispatch on 700 and a handful of VHF channels simultaneously but the mobiles will still only be heard on whatever VHF channel or 700 talkgroup they're on at that time.

Oh, and all of that grief you guys are having with Phase II flagging, software, and database dumps.. that's due to one radio tech talkgroup and one or two of the new DPS talkgroups on the Houston/Harris County simulcast which were only logged as Phase II once.

 

[Russell]

The Houston-area TxWARN talkgroups right now are being used as a supplement to the VHF system. For whatever reason they opted to multi-select with the VHF channels instead of doing full patches, so now you hear dispatch on 700 and a handful of VHF channels simultaneously but the mobiles will still only be heard on whatever VHF channel or 700 talkgroup they're on at that time.

They're sort of doing the same thing in Austin. The primary VHF channel is multi-selected with one GATRRS talk group. However, there are half a dozen other DPS Austin talkgroups in use on GATTRS. The cars have both radios.

Oh, and all of that grief you guys are having with Phase II flagging, software, and database dumps.. that's due to one radio tech talkgroup and one or two of the new DPS talkgroups on the Houston/Harris County simulcast which were only logged as Phase II once.

So, it's never been used since? Can we change it back to Phase I?

Thanks,
Russell

 

[ELS]

I recently found out that due to 9/11, all law enforcement agencies in the US must have interoperability. DHS has decided that all agencies will move to 700, 800, or 900 MHz. It is supposed to be in affect by 2012 but there are A LOT of agencies that have not done it yet. All the agencies have received federal grants to assist them in the system changeovers.

Unless things have changed since my involvement, the 900 mhz band has no allocation for "public safety". LCRA received waivers from the FCC to serve "public safety" on their license in the 900 mhz band.