Some nuggets for what they may be worth...
I do not monitor FPS, nor attempt to, so I am not overly familiar with their system. However there is an FPS office in my building, and I have a lot of interaction with them.
What happens in my area may not be going on everywhere, keep that in mind. I do not know how FPS operates as far as communications goes.
Within the past year, we had an emergency at my building, which is what I am told led to FPS and some other tenant agencies' supervisors getting UHF HTs as surplus from other agencies. I am sorry but I need to keep it vague for obvious reasons. These HTs were older and they began being used by FPS guys for informal chit-chat. The frequencies being used were simplex and not within the range of typical federal LMR allocations.
Then the old HTs were gone one day, with newer ones replacing them, and the same strange simplex freqs programmed, and being used for informal things once more. I do not know what repeater channels are in those.
About a month ago, a brand-spankin'-new FPS vehicle was assigned to the area. For the first time ever in my long involvement with FPS, and life as a radio geek, I noticed that it only had a UHF mobile radio. No VHF mobile, no charger port with a VHF HT sitting in it waiting to be used "just in case", just no VHF at all. I asked the gentleman who is assigned the vehicle if he knows why that is, and he said he doesn't know, that's just the way the car was outfitted.
Again, this may be totally irrelevant, but its is what I have seen/heard.
