Fulton County's TRS

[jackj]

Okay Tom, sorry if I've PO'd you. I'm just going by what people who know much more than me say about the two words. But we'll use multicast to refer to simultaneously broadcasted traffic on two or more different frequencies and the sites that do it.

 

[jimbolie1]

Control Channel Changed

Lucas County went dead today,i only program in CC in my 106,they are not using 855.46250 today they have switched to old ALT of 853.16250.This is very rare for this system to change,one can only believe it has something to do with Fulton county now onboard.Any one got any updated info?

 

[rdale]

Jim, are they on backup conventional? How long has it been dead?

 

[jimbolie1]

Jim, are they on backup conventional? How long has it been dead?

Turned the scanner on at 1:00 pm this afternoon and it was dead so i am really not sure of the time.Put in 853.16250 and i am getting 99% read from the Tower on the 106.I have never seen Lucas County change like that.MARCS certainly has before.

 

[FireDawgEMT22]

All i know is that it was a planned change and all chiefs and supervisors were emailed about it this morning, that the system would be down for a few minutes twice today while they changed control channels.

 

[jimbolie1]

All i know is that it was a planned change and all chiefs and supervisors were emailed about it this morning, that the system would be down for a few minutes twice today while they changed control channels.

Do you know if it will be permanent or not?

 

[FireDawgEMT22]

I do not know that. I didn't even notice it because i have all the alternates and cc's programmed in.

 

[jimbolie1]

I do not know that. I didn't even notice it because i have all the alternates and cc's programmed in.

i put the other three in for now,just to be safe...lol

 

[FireDawgEMT22]

I talked to someone involved with the system yesterday. As of right now all of Fulton Co. radio traffic is simulcast/multicast (whichever the term is) on the Lucas Co system also (you key up and talk on the 700Mhz Fulton Co, it will be rebroadcast on the 800MHz Lucas Co, automatically). They are planning on keeping this happening because Toledo has never used more than 12 out of their 16 voice channels at anyone time, though He said it is going to be up to the Sheriffs to decide if it will stay that way. What they are working on right now is , using his language, getting the scanning available for some lucas county traffic. They want to be able to scan certain TG's that are on the Lucas Co system in Fulton Co. From what I understand in order to do that, they would have to simulcast (or multicast) those talkgroups on the Fulton Co system in order to allow for them to scan if they are just a roaming TG.

 

[jackj]

It sounds like the Fulton Co. Fire Departments have started using the TRS for everything except paging. I am hearing in-route and on-scene traffic on the TRS only for the last few days. Sheriff and PD traffic is still on the old VHF system for the most part.

Has anyone heard if the other county departments will be changing over to the new system?

 

[FireDawgEMT22]

March 28th is the planned go live day. And as of right now, just public safety. The DPW's will stay on their VHF's

 

[jackj]

As of today, no change in usage. Law is still on VHF for the most part while Fire is 100% on the 700 system with the exception of paging.

 

[FireDawgEMT22]

As of Friday 4/13/12, the go live date is tomorrow 4/17/12.

 

[jackj]

Live since Monday with 100% of Law and Fire traffic. Sounds good here in Delta, but then it should. Very little encrypted traffic but the tests detected problems with a few of the Law radios receiving encrypted. I suspect it is/was a problem with key management since they worked fine in the clear.

 

[FireDawgEMT22]

All fire traffic dispatch disposition (on scene, en route, etc) is now on Fulton fire 2 tg. Fulton fire 1 is going to be dispatch information fort initial call. They are still working on the patch between vhf and the tg for that to work, but the county is live on the trs now.

 

[jackj]

Fire Tones

Fulton County has patched their VHF analog fire (TAC 1) to one of the Talk Groups on their 700 MHz TRS. I doubt that anyone could tell by listening exactly what the paging tones are! I guess the system just can't handle an unvarying tone which is strange, it should be able to. Maybe that fact is the major reason for gravel mouth.

 

[SCPD]

March 28th is the planned go live day. And as of right now, just public safety. The DPW's will stay on their VHF's

Rumor has it FD and PD will be donating their old analog radios to DPW since they won't have use for them.

 

[FireDawgEMT22]

Rumor has it FD and PD will be donating their old analog radios to DPW since they won't have use for them.

That is a possiblity, but no decision had been made. And yes they patched the VHF to Fulton Fire 1 TG for dispatching. They were going to use the standard system slert tones (warble and solid tone like TFD), but decided everyone already knows what their tones sound like and the TRS system sound close enough even with the distortion. Digital has always been an issue with tones designed for the old analog system. I do not know the details as to why, but have always heard it.

They also had planned on doing a patch on Fulton Fire 2 TG to the VHF. That way responding volunteers can hear the radio traffic on their pagers. Doing a full time patch on FF2 to VHF and a timed patch on FF1 to VHF only when tones are dropped.

The next step is to get all of the departments using the system correctly. Dispatch disposition only on FF2 and all scene operations on the individual dept TG. Archbold had a fire last night and did the entire scene on FF2, had there been another incident at the same time, no one would have been able to use the radio because Archbold had the main TG tied up with their scene traffic.

 

[rdale]

I never understood why counties would have incidents on individual talkgroups instead of a tac channel... That makes it pretty hard to add responders when they could just all be on "Fire Tac1" or "FIreground 3" like TFD does. Imagine what fun it would be if each Toledo station had their own fireground talkgroup

 

[FireDawgEMT22]

every radio in the county has the tg's on thier zone 1 on their radios. So it is not difficult at all four other responders to be on the same channel.