Fairfield County Narrowbanding Updates

[kc8mln]

Does anyone have any updates on the narrowbanding for the Fairfield County area for the public safety frequencies?

...I know that all VHF & UHF public safety/service has to be narrowbanded, so any updates to the narrowbanding for the Fairfield County area would be appreciated in this thread.

 

[W8RMH]

I see they have applied to narrow band their existing frequencies for law enforcement, fire, and ems. Still looks to be conventional.
I thought they may use this opportunity to move up to a trunked systems but it doesn't look like it.

ULS License - Public Safety Pool, Conventional License - WPGI309 - Fairfield County

ULS License - Public Safety Pool, Conventional License - WPBW789 - Fairfield County - Frequencies Summary

 

[wa8pyr]

I thought they may use this opportunity to move up to a trunked systems but it doesn't look like it.

They talked about it, but there was no money for that switch. Many of the radios in the county, as well as quite a bit of the infrastructure, is already narrowband compliant, and it just didn't make fiscal sense to abandon equipment less than 10 years old to switch to a system which would not only cost more for the equipment, but would also likely require monthly per-radio fees.

 

[ladderco]

Fairfield County status

Bids just came back last month for the replacement of all the radios that are not narrowband capable. Once they are inservice then the narrowbanding project will be under way.

 

[kc8mln]

My main questions about the switch from wide to narrow within the county are:

1.) When will the reprogramming of all the readios begin (what date)
2.) When reprogramming does begin, will a WD radio be able to still communicate with a NB radio? (ie, when the county repeaters get reprogrammed with the NB, and the agencies start reprogramming also, there will be some lag time until all radios within the county are reprogrammed, so in this instance lets say the county repeater is reprogrammed for NB but a county user still had a WD radio that is waiting to be reprogrammed, will the WB radio still be able to keyup and hit the repeater and still be able to communicate and talk thru the repeater with other users or will that user that had a WB radio be unable to communicate until the radio is reprogrammed for NB)

 

[radioman2001]

I don't know how this department intends to narrow band their equipment, but if the radios are relatively new you can reprogram the channel to just narrow band and they will work with the following capabilities. Narrow to wide, low volume, wide to narrow, no problems except depending on how good the filtering in the RX radio is when the wide radio talks too loud, possibly some clipping. We ran into some problems, but it depended on when the radio was built. Latter model HT-1250 with certain Tanapa numbers would clip on loud wide band transmissions. A fix we came up with was to use the 20kz RX setting in the problem radio and turn down the deviation.
Overall, the best option is to lower the deviation on a wide model radio, it may be some time before anyone is licensed on the splinters. Then once all the equipment is done, bases repeaters etc, you can go back and set the radio in true narrow TX/RX.

 

[medic611]

My main questions about the switch from wide to narrow within the county are:

1.) When will the reprogramming of all the readios begin (what date)
2.) When reprogramming does begin, will a WD radio be able to still communicate with a NB radio? (ie, when the county repeaters get reprogrammed with the NB, and the agencies start reprogramming also, there will be some lag time until all radios within the county are reprogrammed, so in this instance lets say the county repeater is reprogrammed for NB but a county user still had a WD radio that is waiting to be reprogrammed, will the WB radio still be able to keyup and hit the repeater and still be able to communicate and talk thru the repeater with other users or will that user that had a WB radio be unable to communicate until the radio is reprogrammed for NB)

The Date as of yet hasn't been set in stone. My understanding is when this happens it maybe similar to when the county went from 1 frequency pair, just different pl's to using different frequencies per tower sites. That was a massive reprogram that was accomplished in a single day with multiple people programming radios at set locations. Majority of the departments have radios that can be reprogrammed with ease. Those with the old GP300 radios etc will find them to be bricks after the switch. There are several departments with HT1250 radios that can simply be programmed with a new bank in them for new and eventually have the old set up removed with a few mouse clicks. I believe some of the radios that will replace the old ones could be XTS portables, that in the future could be flashed for P25 use. Then again time will tell..

 

[W8RMH]

I see some new narrowband frequencies were licensed to Fairfield County.

WQOP367 (FAIRFIELD, COUNTY OF) FCC Callsign Details