FMARS is still alive …

[Chris52]

I remember years ago when I was young man and received my first scanner for Christmas (Radio Shack Pro 50 handheld)) scanning was great and easy (everyone was on low-band (33-46 mhz)). FMRS was something everyone had in their scanners and on at the firehouse at all times. The station had it’s own tower to the rear. Man the counties we’d hear, especially during the summer months. I was a cadet at a station that ran a lot of mutual aid, members would hear “Anne Arundel to Prince George’s and Calvert County stand by to copy” and they would book to the gear racks.They would simulcast the dispatch over FMARS while dispatching it on their main channel. (man the memories). Years went by and the activity slowed down. I had asked a supervisor if they still kept FMARS up and monitored it. (They did in the past) and I was looked at like I had three heads and told me that they have phones to pick up to talk to other jurisdictions. (Whats the fun in that !)

So I’ve had to do some traveling for work here lately out to western Maryland and took that same Radio Shack Pro-50 wit me to do some basic plain jane scanning and I wasn’t in Washington County a hour and it came alive.

What I heard in a 8 hour day

Washington to Fredrick
Frederick to Carrolll
Frederick to Montgomery
Montgomery to Prince George’s
Baltimore Co to Baltimore City
Adams to Franklin.
Howard to Anne Arundel
Carroll to York

Man those stations had power behind them.

They used to do tests every so often on Sundays with all of the jurisdictions including the Coast Guard Baltimore and DNR. This would go on all day long, I’m gald it’s still in use and the old way of dispatching requests is still in use. So the next time you are up north unlock that old 154.280 and enjoy !

 

[hill]

Used to test everyday at 0815 on this frequency with all the counties, plus some Federal agencies.

Don't no if they still do and I am out of the area for work many days. Will have to try to listen when able.

 

[hill]

In the NIFOG guide the it is Vfire 21.

 

[atlong]

I remember growing up in the Baltimore metro area 154.2800 was always active across central MD, southern PA, suburban MD and QA County. Certain counties would run a daily morning test on 154.2650 and some would test on 154.2950. Lots of activity on there. EMRC giving hospital status updates, "EMRC to Baltimore County, Baltimore City, Anne Arundel, BWI, Howard Counties-St Agnes hospital (215) is on Red Alert." Then you'd here all the jurisdictions acknowledge. Baltimore City's Ok WQK938, Baltimore County's Ok KGC337, Anne Arundle's Ok KGD479, Howard's Ok KGG529, etc.

In Western MD, there's still to this day a ton of activity on 154.2800. Mainly Frederick<>Washington<>Adams<>Carroll and Jefferson County, WV. They called it the "Metro" channel. I also remember back in the 80's/90's AA Co, would be famous for accidentally dropping tones on FMARS-2 when they'd simulcast a dispatch that had other county's unit required on it. Other jurisdictions would complain.

Don't forget Baltimore area's PMARS 460.0500 and DC area's PMARS (formerly on 453.5500) 851.3625. Daily tests on those and every now and again, BOLO's and major crime alerts or even the occasional pursuit.

 

[maus92]

VFIRE21D is Zone 73 Channel 5 in Montgomery County's fleet map, and is noted as the "Maryland area Mutual Aid channel." Similarly, VFIRE 23D is noted as "NOVA Mutual Aid channel."

 

[hill]

I remember that Anne Arundel had a talkgroup that rebroadcast Fmars. Don't if still does, but you could here much more on talkgroup with their higher Fmars antenna.

 

[Chris52]

@hill @maus92 Anne Arundel did have a talkgroup called “Hotel” that they would use when running mutual aid. At one point this was the only way their units had anyway of communicating to the responding agency. Due to some still being on low band, in the progress of changing systems or didn’t have a their radio on board to communicate. I would often grab the one of the two portables that AA gave to use and listen to Hotel for hours. Due to this being a patch and Anne Arundle being centralized like they are they received it all.

Prior to this we had older portables that were given to us.

Ch.1 154.010 (This is what we always marked up on responding)
Ch.2 154.340 (Once the patch was set we were told to switch over. (Horrible)
Ch. 3. 154.280 - Never used by us

 

[maus92]

There is a talk group labeled "3N Mutual Aid" in the RRDB but I never see (or hear) any traffic on it. I'll look into it. TBH, there is little need for 154.280 to be patched into the TRS at this point.

 

[Dispatcher308]

DNR has a mutual aid base station (154.280) at one of our towers in Howard County and our Dispatchers use it quite often to communicate during fire/ems/rescue incidents with local jurisdictions. They have been know to communicate with Washington County, MD down to Southern MD and over to the Eastern Shore, the receive and transmit range is amazing from that site.

 

[atlong]

Yes, they did. It was a clever trick to just keep that TG alive in your scan list, even if you were in one of the surrounding counties. It was like having access to your own 100 foot+ antenna.

I remember that Anne Arundel had a talkgroup that rebroadcast Fmars. Don't if still does, but you could here much more on talkgroup with their higher Fmars antenna.

 

[riveter]

FMARS is still in active use for exactly the same purpose as originally; some jurisdictions will not answer on FMARS and the phone is used in that instance. It's a very useful resource.

 

[maus92]

The tg still exits, although it doesn't get much traffic - probably only patched when necessary. I checked the logs to see the last time a channel grant was recorded - it was June 8th. My logs go back to 2018 and since then, there have only been 122 times someone either joined the talk group or was given a channel grant. I was looking through the FCC data and AACo still has a license for 7 VHF frequencies on the five legacy towers from the original Smartnet system.

 

[atlong]

This is true. I don't believe I've ever heard Washington, DC on FMARS ever. I've never heard any of the counties in NOVA or the eastern panhandle of WV using it between each other, but they do use it for contact with counties out of state. This seems to count for Arlington, MWAA, Frederick County, VA and Clarke County, VA, Berkeley, Jefferson and Morgan, WV. In WV, counties in state use their county 911 talkgroup on the SIRN system or telephone for mutual aid calls.

FMARS is still in active use for exactly the same purpose as originally; some jurisdictions will not answer on FMARS and the phone is used in that instance. It's a very useful resource.