Erie County P25 System

Status
Not open for further replies.

Railbender

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Sep 10, 2008
Messages
347
Location
NW PA
When they were doing all the location testing I don't remember hearing MPD. MPS and FDs but not PD. They may just stay with what they have.
 

Railbender

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Sep 10, 2008
Messages
347
Location
NW PA
New UHF frequency filing for North East:

Those are PW - Public Safety Pool, Conventional, not trunked, and probably more Med frequencies. There have been several new licenses for them recently. Most are for "90.20 - DISPATCH MEDICAL EQUIPMENT AND PERSONNEL " or "90.20 - DISPATCH PUBLIC SAFETY EQUIPMENT & PERSONNEL " .
 

terryho

Member
Feed Provider
Joined
Jun 22, 2009
Messages
110
Location
Lake City, Pa
When they were doing all the location testing I don't remember hearing MPD. MPS and FDs but not PD. They may just stay with what they have.
Maybe they are on the new system so they can be be connected to other services. Will be interesting how they will let non encrypted talk to encrypted services, it may be encrypted on output.
 

terryho

Member
Feed Provider
Joined
Jun 22, 2009
Messages
110
Location
Lake City, Pa
Ok now for months they have been saying All Police except Millcreek would be encrypted. Today I received the following information!

Good Morning:

The Erie Times News made an error by stating Millcreek Township Police Department will not be part of the new radio system.

Millcreek Township Police Department will be transitioning over to the new radio system immediately following the Erie Police Department scheduled for the week of September 23.

All law enforcement communications will be encrypted, per the request of county law enforcement officials.

John R. Grappy
Director
County of Erie, PA
Department of Public Safety
 

scnrfrq

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Dec 26, 2002
Messages
968
Location
Erie, PA
We'll have to wait and see. They've been saying all along Millcreek will be in the clear. Like you said, that chart shows them in the clear too.
 

scnrfrq

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Dec 26, 2002
Messages
968
Location
Erie, PA
I have not received anything from John. Been waiting for my son to attend training but he says it is next Wednesday. If you can send me it I would appreciate it.
It will be nice to have the system all programmed in our radios and ready to go when they are up and running. I suspect they have some work to do as there seems to be a lot of areas with bad coverage they will have to address before the system is signed off. In listening to radio traffic on TGID 101 and 104 I noticed some loss of data at times, kinda funny I would sometimes hear complete transmissions and Dispatch would report breaking up and visa versa. I was looking at error rate on signal and most of time it was 0 but would go way up sometimes and lost audio. Maybe there is some sweet spot on P25 settings we have to set? Will have to see when they are more active.
I'm getting some loss of transmission with testing today on one of my 536's. Not sure what can be adjusted in settings to get a better signal. How does it sound to you today?
 

terryho

Member
Feed Provider
Joined
Jun 22, 2009
Messages
110
Location
Lake City, Pa
Not too bad today from what I have listened to, if it gets too bad we can adjust p25 threshold level, default is 8, can go up and down with that a little may or maynot help. I think with it being a digital system we are going to have some loss, it doesn't take much for a glitch. If we had their $5000 radios we'd be all set....
 

terryho

Member
Feed Provider
Joined
Jun 22, 2009
Messages
110
Location
Lake City, Pa
Grappy says Times News has it wrong! So why wasn't it corrected back When the article was first written? I see another recent article with same information about Millcreek having its own system. I wonder if Millcreek got new radios installed in their vehicles with encryption. Since that is the only way it would work to have 2 way encryption.
Another article in the Times, saying Millcreek maintains it's own dispatch center.
 

WB3DYE

Silent Key
Joined
Dec 30, 2015
Messages
190
Location
White Haven Pa
Ok now for months they have been saying All Police except Millcreek would be encrypted. Today I received the following information!

Good Morning:

The Erie Times News made an error by stating Millcreek Township Police Department will not be part of the new radio system.

Millcreek Township Police Department will be transitioning over to the new radio system immediately following the Erie Police Department scheduled for the week of September 23.

All law enforcement communications will be encrypted, per the request of county law enforcement officials.

John R. Grappy
Director
County of Erie, PA
Department of Public Safety

Here is an email from the Chief of Police:
Bob,

Thanks for the message. You are correct, sensitive police operations need encryption technology but Fire and Ambulance dispatch don’t. The fire and Ambulance Departments will not have encryption under our new system. The Police need to keep our communications from the law breakers. We continue to conduct search warrants and traffic stops only to find that the targets either have a scanner or an app on their smart phones. Officers lives are endangered when someone knows in advance that the police are arriving, how many are arriving, how far away their backup is, why we are there and if there is a warrant for them. Officers lives must be protected and encryption is one tool that helps.

Sincerely,

Daniel Spizarny
 

scnrfrq

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Dec 26, 2002
Messages
968
Location
Erie, PA
Here is an email from the Chief of Police:
Bob,

Thanks for the message. You are correct, sensitive police operations need encryption technology but Fire and Ambulance dispatch don’t. The fire and Ambulance Departments will not have encryption under our new system. The Police need to keep our communications from the law breakers. We continue to conduct search warrants and traffic stops only to find that the targets either have a scanner or an app on their smart phones. Officers lives are endangered when someone knows in advance that the police are arriving, how many are arriving, how far away their backup is, why we are there and if there is a warrant for them. Officers lives must be protected and encryption is one tool that helps.

Sincerely,

Daniel Spizarny

He appears to be the Erie Police Chief, not Millcreek's.
 

N3KGD

Member
Joined
Sep 30, 2007
Messages
305
Location
Erie, PA
I heard the dispatcher calling in a few cars on Millcreek PD yesterday to "go around back" (the garage behind the station) to have "Mobilcom" work on the vehicle. I also saw one of Millcreek's cruisers have the 1/4 UHF antenna on it. Perhaps the confusion or error in the articles is that Millcreek PD will maintain their own DISPATCH system; meaning the County will not be dispatching Millcreek PD.
 

scnrfrq

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Dec 26, 2002
Messages
968
Location
Erie, PA
I heard the dispatcher calling in a few cars on Millcreek PD yesterday to "go around back" (the garage behind the station) to have "Mobilcom" work on the vehicle. I also saw one of Millcreek's cruisers have the 1/4 UHF antenna on it. Perhaps the confusion or error in the articles is that Millcreek PD will maintain their own DISPATCH system; meaning the County will not be dispatching Millcreek PD.
John Groh was pretty adamant that he will not be closing Millcreek's dispatch center. I think they will be part of the system and have TG's, but the rest will stay the same.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top