Ellis County KS - Radio System info and question

[GamerMason]

Hi. First post ever being made by me on RR. So go easy on me.

I have come here to provide information and also ask for information possibly.

For those of you in Ellis county Kansas, know that a few times a year the state tower in Ellis county goes off the air. This could be done for several reasons. I have recently found (and confirmed) the system that is used for when the main tower goes off. This is commonly referred to on the radio locally as “Backup Radios”. You can find all the frequencies and some confirmed talkgroups here: Ellis County (Project 25) Trunking System, Ellis County, Kansas - Scanner Frequencies

Some talkgroups I have also seen (but unable to identify who utilizes them - and unable to upload due to limited time of “backup” <P25> system being used):
-3594
-124
-112
-134
-148 (I have suspicion this maybe County Ops 2 (Jail Private).

Next up, is the Motorola system that the county also owns. This system was moved to deprecated systems on the database. I never could get a trunking signal on my scanner. (Trust me I tried many different places <even though the Motorola shows same tower site as P25> but changing places never worked). Just curious if anyone knows the purpose of this system or if it is just simply a system that is outdated and no longer in use.

Ellis County Trunking System, Hays, Kansas

Ellis County Trunking System Profile

www.radioreference.com

The Motorola system (if it worked), uses the same frequencies as the active P25 backup system does.

Also just a side note, does anyone know what North Tower is? I don’t have much info, but this is referred to being used when units are not in a good location for normal radio use. They rarely use but I would like to still get informed on what it is. I have searched other forums here, but simply the frequencies that are said don’t work. Nothing has ever been entered in RR Database either with any guidance of finding the unknown tower. According to other posts this is a 800mhz frequency and if I read the other posts correctly this was a site on top of the LEC or Courthouse a long time ago. (Posts were made like 7-12 years ago). But I doubt it is up on top those buildings still. To my knowledge that is just analog for fire paging on the 100mhz frequency. Question here: Is ‘North Tower’ referred to the Zurrich (Rooks county) tower? This would make sense because it’s north of Hays KS. Due to location I can not get a hit on that tower and unknown ‘North Tower’ (as it’s referred to) is hardly ever used because most places are good enough for a law enforcements car radio reception to get out to dispatch at least.
I want to also say that North Tower is used on TAC5, so not sure why that would be a specifically used channel. Maybe someone way smarter than me can figure it out.
I have also heard (not saying it is true) but this is a maybe a mutual aid system too for when the county needs help. Not sure where I have seen that said though.

Happy to hear the feedback I get from this. And I’m glad I can share the information I found.

 

[dgruver911]

North tower was a conventional 800 channel on one of the 8TAC's and the Courthouse was on 8CALL. They were put in when they first went to 800 back in 1992 but I know a lot has changed since then. Would not be surprised if the North tower was still used to fill in coverage gaps along the Saline River valley in the northern part of the county. Paging was never done off the LEC or courthouse. 154.445 was on a tower just north of Hays where their 800 site is now. They used to share a business 800 system with MRS that was south of Hays, but built their own and moved it north when the state started switching over to trunking from conventional. Later it became a site on the state system.

 

[GamerMason]

North tower was a conventional 800 channel on one of the 8TAC's and the Courthouse was on 8CALL. They were put in when they first went to 800 back in 1992 but I know a lot has changed since then. Would not be surprised if the North tower was still used to fill in coverage gaps along the Saline River valley in the northern part of the county. Paging was never done off the LEC or courthouse. 154.445 was on a tower just north of Hays where their 800 site is now. They used to share a business 800 system with MRS that was south of Hays, but built their own and moved it north when the state started switching over to trunking from conventional. Later it became a site on the state system.

Thanks for getting back with me so fast! That answered my question and I was also able to be directed into the right database as well (never would have thought the National Database would be used like how it is). Thank for clarifying the details and providing some history as well. I was shocked to see that they used 800mhz early as 92.

 

[dgruver911]

Outside of the Kansas City metro, we were the 2nd county in the state to do 800 trunking (Sedgwick was the first). It was a pretty nice setup and was easy to scan even without a true trunking scanner, but in those early days the system went into failsoft a LOT and the 2 backup conventional repeaters with their very limited range were very inadequate. That's why I insisted on 5 backup 800 repeaters in Harvey County when we went 800, but honestly, we use them very very rarely. The systems today just don't go into failsoft. See site trunking from time to time, but we can manage that.

 

[GamerMason]

I can confirm they just used "North Tower" tonight. I had put the frequencies into my scanner, and during this time none of the 800 8Call/TAC frequencies activated with the PL tone programmed. I live on the north end of town in Hays. Might be due to reception issue however it says repeater on the nationwide frequency database, so unsure how far that goes out though.

 

[dgruver911]

From what I remember, and this has been 20+ years ago, the repeater is located on the Beach ranch up along the Saline River, and pretty much just covered that area along US183. A mobile or portable in Hays couldn't hear it or hit it, only Dispatch.