DPS Ghosting

[Ensnared]

A radio technician who installs two-way radios told me Texas DPS installs CBs in their units. After looking at the new DPS ghost-letter edition, I was wondering what type of antenna is on the left rear.

 

[kb5slf208]

I used to have one on my unit. It's used for the MDT's in the car (in-car computer). It could also be a GPS unit antenna. Not sure about Children's Band radios being in the Units.

 

[Ensnared]

I used to have one on my unit. It's used for the MDT's in the car (in-car computer). It could also be a GPS unit antenna. Not sure about Children's Band radios being in the Units.

"Children's Band", oh that is a very good one! I am cranky in the morning. It takes a lot to make me laugh until high-octane 8:00 Coffee hits the gray matter.

Are you talking about the one that looks like an antenna for Sirus?

I thought MDT's antennas were round, mounted on the trunk.

I am sure there are plenty of variations. The center load on the antenna looks like my Larsen tri-band NMO antenna.

Thank you for your response.

 

[Motoballa]

I worked with about 80 Troopers and none of them had CB's installed. I wouldn't think they would be officially installed by the radio shop or contracted upfitter. I could see a Trooper doing it themselves though, just throwing a mag mount antenna and plugging the radio in the cigarette lighter but that's the extent of it I would think.

The sharkfin (SiriusXM looking) antenna is made by panorama, it combines LTE/GPS/WIFI and typically LMR. On their older vehicles the APX7500 mobile would have VHF going to a 5/8 wave and the 7/800 going to the sharkfin LMR. I can't tell in that picture but I've seen now where the newer vehicles have APX8500 mobiles that go to a triband antenna and the sharkfin is now exclusively just LTE/GPS/WIFI, no LMR optioned with it.

I'm wondering if the antenna in question is for their dash camera system to offload video. The older vehicles have the WatchGuard system while the newer ones have the Motorola M500. Both can do wireless offloading over WIFI or LTE, but the WatchGuard system was not connected to cellular, it would connect to wifi when they get to the office. The video files on those were super small, 720p was the max resolution but DPS set theirs to 480p, you could have an hour long video be just a couple hundred megabytes, if that. Now the M500 cameras are 4K and have 2TB storage on-board, not saying the panorama antenna couldn't handle that but I don't know it's configuration, they have several options like 2x2 MIMO, etc. but if those coax ports are being used by the cellular modem for wifi then maybe they went the route of having a dedicated antenna for the M500. It seems unconventional because they could connect it via ethernet but without more information on how they have it setup there is no telling what it is.

I've also seen several configurations of their newer vehicles so they may be trying different things to see what works best, that's the first I've seen with that antenna on the left rear. Very interesting.

 

[BrokenCircuit]

DPS Dallas dumped Chaos Band in the late 1980's. My Day used to commute from Richardson to DT Dallas and there was a large CB group in those days. One of the Tollway Troopers Handle was "Double Bubble" there was another but don't remember his handle. They all used to meet at Cindy's at 75 & Royal for breakfast.

Its Possible that is for the Satellite Radio system DPS and other State Agencies have some access to. Check out MSAT for a good read, pretty insane stuff, I think Texas has access to like 10,000 talkgroups. iCOM is a big player in that as well.

 

[Ensnared]

I worked with about 80 Troopers and none of them had CB's installed. I wouldn't think they would be officially installed by the radio shop or contracted upfitter. I could see a Trooper doing it themselves though, just throwing a mag mount antenna and plugging the radio in the cigarette lighter but that's the extent of it I would think.

The sharkfin (SiriusXM looking) antenna is made by panorama, it combines LTE/GPS/WIFI and typically LMR. On their older vehicles the APX7500 mobile would have VHF going to a 5/8 wave and the 7/800 going to the sharkfin LMR. I can't tell in that picture but I've seen now where the newer vehicles have APX8500 mobiles that go to a triband antenna and the sharkfin is now exclusively just LTE/GPS/WIFI, no LMR optioned with it.

I'm wondering if the antenna in question is for their dash camera system to offload video. The older vehicles have the WatchGuard system while the newer ones have the Motorola M500. Both can do wireless offloading over WIFI or LTE, but the WatchGuard system was not connected to cellular, it would connect to wifi when they get to the office. The video files on those were super small, 720p was the max resolution but DPS set theirs to 480p, you could have an hour long video be just a couple hundred megabytes, if that. Now the M500 cameras are 4K and have 2TB storage on-board, not saying the panorama antenna couldn't handle that but I don't know it's configuration, they have several options like 2x2 MIMO, etc. but if those coax ports are being used by the cellular modem for wifi then maybe they went the route of having a dedicated antenna for the M500. It seems unconventional because they could connect it via ethernet but without more information on how they have it setup there is no telling what it is.

I've also seen several configurations of their newer vehicles so they may be trying different things to see what works best, that's the first I've seen with that antenna on the left rear. Very interesting.

There used to be a healthy CB community in Temple, Texas. Several of the folks were good friends with this fellow. Reportedly, he worked on the P25 system in Bell County.

I am going to read your comprehensive response later to better absorb the great information. You went into a lot of detail concerning antennas, particularly the shark fin. I have one of these on the back of the trusty old 2008 Colorado. I believe it is the Sirus antenna.

I distinctly recall seeing K40 antennas, way back. In fact, it was around the early nineties. Since there was a K40 on the back, I felt confident they were giving false information over the CB.

My confirmation conversation occurred near Junction, Texas. As usual, DPS was set up in their hidey hole out of sight. I owned a radar detector with "perfect windows." This was before Whistler was bought out. Now, they make inferior products in my opinion.

However, this little boy did not give excessive false alerting. The unit was going nuts. Come to think of it, he might have noticed my visor mounted radar detector; however, I doubt it since the encounter occurred at night.

I asked for a bear report & received an immediate response saying, "put the pedal to the metal." Since I heard his two-way radio in the CB in the background along with a positive hit on the radar detector, I felt confident he was a trooper. Also, when he was talking on radio, I heard both sides of the conversations.

In a very sarcastic tone, I told him he was full of fecal matter & began ragging him on his behavior. He flipped around on me & proceeded to emit intimidation tactics. In other words, he let me know he was near. I kept "my cool" & he rolled on. However, I continued to warn truckers of his presence. If he did pull me over, I was going to ask if he realized CB was omnidirectional & he could not prove it was me. Luckily, he didn't pull me over.

Thankfully, I never thought of using the following sarcastic remark. "Do you know why I stopped you?" "Yes, I would imagine you grew up in a verbally and/or physically abusive household, possible beaten by a male figure in the family background. To be in control of your environment, you became a law enforcement officer, am I getting close, bucko."

So, I am happy to hear from you on this matter.

Again, thank you for your great response.