Fairfax Radio System Updates

[WesFFXFire]

The new Fairfax, Motorola Analog system is coming along. About 1200 school buses have been outfitted with new mobile 800mhz radios so they can be operational by the time school starts Sept 7. The system will begin by using 4 transmitter sites while the other 4 are still being constructed. The rest of the county will come on line as soon as thier radio's are installed, such as the trash trucks, building inspectors etc In addition the Fire & Police Dept's will get some channels to use as a backup to the Public Safety System in case it goes down.

Also the tower at Beacon Hill should be operational in the next week or so, eliminating the need to use Channel 4-mary, which is actually off the Alexandria system. With a tower at Beacon Hill and another in Hybla Valley, this area of the county should have great coverage.........

 

[R426onthescene]

eliminating the need to use Channel 4-mary

Is that why its call 4-lincon mary? or is that something totaly different.

 

[WesFFXFire]

When we run calls to the area south of FS11 in the we had so much radio problems we started using channel 4-M or 4-"Mary", which is actually a patch from Alexandria. In addition, we patch 4-L or 4-"Lincoln" to 4-M in case 4-M does'nt work 4-L is a channel off the Fairfax system. This has been a temporary fix until the new tower is operational. I'm sure the FF's at 11 as well as the dispatchers will be happy when we no longer have to use this set up.

 

[R426onthescene]

cool

 

[brownlab]

When the new Beacon Hill tower is operational, maybe I can discontinue running an RG 6 cable and antenna outside my window. I am anxious to find out.

BL

 

[Starion]

New radios in busses? I graduated in 1997. I wonder what the new radios look like. So the busses will operate on an analog TRS? :?: That's news to me. Thanks for the info WesFFXFire!

 

[fireradio]

My mom (who drives school busses for Fairfax County) emailed me today and said her bus now has a new Motorola radio installed in it -- which she is very excited about. The old EF Johnson LTR system was crap, apparently.

She didn't mention what model radio it is.

 

[Starion]

I still wonder what the call letters mean. I still remember hearing ranger 5xx and baker 5xx via the bus radio when I was on the bus to Falls Church High School and Glasgow Intermediate School.

I hope the Motorola radios are working nicely for your mom. Take care.

I haven't monitored the bus frequencies in a long time. I hope they are still using the old analog frequencies. I took a look at RadioReference's page for the new motorla system. It looks like the system mixes analog and APCO-25 Common Air Interface together. I'm looking at the system with the ID of A336.


I still hear the fire and EMS dispatchers assigning 4 Ida, Lincon and Mary for some incidents.

 

[WesFFXFire]

Starion,

You hear Fairfax using 4-I or 4-"Ida" for all Interstate calls....get it ?? I-Interstate ??? Becuase they felt with all of the confusion at the mixing bowl each call should have a seperate channel so units can talk without beig interupted....so we use 4-I for just about anything on the interstate.

As far as 4-M & L. We havn't used that in months as far as I know. At least we should'nt be. I think the night of the Helo crash they may have used them, for what reason I do not know. 4-m is an Alexandria channel on the Masonic Temple in Alexandria. 4-L is a off the Fairfax system and makes no difference weather we use 4B or 4L, it;s coming off all 11 of the Fairfax towers. Unfortunatly I doubt most of our dispatchers or Fire Capt's have that much knowledge about the differenct radio systems......