GATTRS in Travis, Bastrop, and Williamson Counties

[garys]

Now that we've relocated to Texas I had to reprogram my scanners for GATTRS and a couple of other system.

We've been here before, so I have a pretty good Austin/Travis County file program. I added the Williamson Campus, so can hear that as well.

We're temporarily in Round Rock, but will be moving to a different city once we close on our house next week.

Even without the Williamson LE agencies, there's a lot to listen to.

Also Austin PD isn't as far along in the encryption project as I thought so there's plenty of that to listen to.

Different than the multiple systems I listened to in MA, but that's all it is. Different.

 

[rattlerbb01]

Now that we've relocated to Texas I had to reprogram my scanners for GATTRS and a couple of other system.

We've been here before, so I have a pretty good Austin/Travis County file program. I added the Williamson Campus, so can hear that as well.

We're temporarily in Round Rock, but will be moving to a different city once we close on our house next week.

Even without the Williamson LE agencies, there's a lot to listen to.

Also Austin PD isn't as far along in the encryption project as I thought so there's plenty of that to listen to.

Different than the multiple systems I listened to in MA, but that's all it is. Different.

Yeah, two simulcast sites to choose from makes it easy. Lots of stuff to find up there still that’s not been properly discovered yet: school district DMR systems, Tesla, etc.

 

[garys]

I'm going to try to resurrect my SDR/DSD+ set up when we get settled into the new house. I have to get a new antenna and install it where it won't arouse the ire of the HOA.

I have the Austin, Pflugerville, Bastrop, and Williamson simulcast sites set up. Somehow when I was programming the Austin simulcast I reverted to the old Site 1 frequencies. As a result I couldn't figure out why I wasn't getting anything even though I was receiving something that looked like a control channel. Once I put the two correct frequencies in, all was well.

There's a good amount of overlap between the Austin and Pflugerville sites. Lots of TCSO traffic on both. Which makes sense since both are in Travis County. There's also a bit of AFD and ATCEMS traffic on both sites, although much less on Pflugerville.

I'm going to enjoy the APD traffic while it lasts.

 

[Wes]

Don't forget the LCRA P25 system too. Decent chance you'll catch some Hays County radio traffic, but I do think San Marcos PD is encrypted.

 

[garys]

Thanks.

 

[garys]

I'm discovering that a lot of my Travis County programming for my SDS scanners is out of date. I'm adding a lot of agencies that I never listened when I was only visiting. I'm on my second major reprogramming and will likely have another in a week or so.

 

[garys]

Rather than start yet another new thread, I'm going to ask this here.

I decided to add GATTRS Burnet County to my scanner. I don't get out there all that much, but if I'm in some parts of Williamson or even Travis I might be in range of the VHF sites. I noticed that there are six sites with different frequencies.

So, my question is this, is there a "main" site that Burnet uses or are they all used and it depends on which site a mobile/portable user has best signal from?

 

[rattlerbb01]

Rather than start yet another new thread, I'm going to ask this here.

I decided to add GATTRS Burnet County to my scanner. I don't get out there all that much, but if I'm in some parts of Williamson or even Travis I might be in range of the VHF sites. I noticed that there are six sites with different frequencies.

So, my question is this, is there a "main" site that Burnet uses or are they all used and it depends on which site a mobile/portable user has best signal from?

Without knowing the particulars of how their individual agency radios are programmed, I have heard them come across all of those sites during travel and skip. They are definitely allowed to roam because I also hear them on Stonewall, Blanco and Mason.

 

[KTR722]

If by "Burnet", you mean Burnet County (and not the City), then there is no one single site that provides radio traffic for all of Burnet County.

As you have noted, Burnet and the entire Western Region is not Simulcast, so if a subscriber unit is not affiliated with the tower in question for that particular talkgroup, you will not hear traffic on that tower. Probably the best way to understand how traffic is "routed" on GATRRS WR is to understand that there are effectively 5 PSAPs (Burnet County (BU County North), City of Marble Falls (BU County South), Blanco, Llano and Lampasas). The talkgroups are organized around each PSAP and as such, the radio traffic generally follows this setup.

Using the 5 PSAPs, the following towers are genreally associated with each PSAP:

Burnet North: 71-Burnet; 72-Bertram; 70-Watson; (serving Burnet city/county, Bertram, NE Burnet VFD, East Lake Buchanan VFD, Cassie VFD)
Burnet South: 74-Marble Falls; 69-Singleton Bend (serving Marble Falls, Granite Shoals, Spicewood, Cottonwood Shores, Horseshoe Bay)
Blanco: 77-Round Mountain; 78-Johnson City; 79-Blanco
Llano: 76-Llano South; 75-Llano North
Lampasas: 68-Lampasas

A few notes/observations:

Site 71 is probably the primary tower for the city of Burnet and North Burnet county, you will hear the most traffic on it. 72 (Bertram) gets ~90% of the traffic but you will sometimes not hear any of the west side VFDs on it (East Lake and Cassie in particular). 70 (Watson) is only providing gap coverage for far NE Burnet County and Lamapsas so very little radio traffic. I think that site only has 2 frequencies associated with it.

Site 74 is the primary tower for Marble Falls and gets probably 99% of all traffic for those commmunities. 69 (Singleton Bend) is providing gap coverage for far SE Burnet County and some of Blanco County so the radio traffic can be limited.

Site 73 (Kingsland), as i understand it, is technically a Llano county tower--but is located on a hill in Burnet county (Lookout Mountain). This tower provides lake coverage for east Llano county but also provides gap coverage for western Burnet County for both Burnet and Marble Falls units. Cassie and Hoover Valley VFD units almost always connect to this tower, hence why you probably never hear them in Bertram. You will almost never hear Burnet units on Site 74 or Marble Falls units on Site 71, but Site 73 you can generally hear a significant amount of the radio traffic for 3 of the WR PSAPs (BU, MF and LL).

Site 64 (Stonewall) is in Gillepsie County and provides some gap coverage for Blanco county and occasionallly for Llano units when they respond to ERock. Very little radio traffic just like Watson. Same goes with Site 54-Mason.

For Blanco and Llano, there is no one single site that I would call a primary, but you generally hear all the traffic for that county on any of those sites and the occasional bleedover from units from neighboring counties.

Hope that helps answer your question.

 

[Whospoonbill]

I'm going to try to resurrect my SDR/DSD+ set up when we get settled into the new house. I have to get a new antenna and install it where it won't arouse the ire of the HOA.

I have the Austin, Pflugerville, Bastrop, and Williamson simulcast sites set up. Somehow when I was programming the Austin simulcast I reverted to the old Site 1 frequencies. As a result I couldn't figure out why I wasn't getting anything even though I was receiving something that looked like a control channel. Once I put the two correct frequencies in, all was well.

There's a good amount of overlap between the Austin and Pflugerville sites. Lots of TCSO traffic on both. Which makes sense since both are in Travis County. There's also a bit of AFD and ATCEMS traffic on both sites, although much less on Pflugerville.

I'm going to enjoy the APD traffic while it lasts.

It ain’t going anywhere trust me

 

[garys]

If it is, they certainly aren't in any rush to get there.

It ain’t going anywhere trust me

 

[garys]

Bertram is the site I've been hearing the most. I'll have to add in the out of Burnet County sites and see what I hear.

Interesting scanning down here.

If by "Burnet", you mean Burnet County (and not the City), then there is no one single site that provides radio traffic for all of Burnet County.

As you have noted, Burnet and the entire Western Region is not Simulcast, so if a subscriber unit is not affiliated with the tower in question for that particular talkgroup, you will not hear traffic on that tower. Probably the best way to understand how traffic is "routed" on GATRRS WR is to understand that there are effectively 5 PSAPs (Burnet County (BU County North), City of Marble Falls (BU County South), Blanco, Llano and Lampasas). The talkgroups are organized around each PSAP and as such, the radio traffic generally follows this setup.

Using the 5 PSAPs, the following towers are genreally associated with each PSAP:

Burnet North: 71-Burnet; 72-Bertram; 70-Watson; (serving Burnet city/county, Bertram, NE Burnet VFD, East Lake Buchanan VFD, Cassie VFD)
Burnet South: 74-Marble Falls; 69-Singleton Bend (serving Marble Falls, Granite Shoals, Spicewood, Cottonwood Shores, Horseshoe Bay)
Blanco: 77-Round Mountain; 78-Johnson City; 79-Blanco
Llano: 76-Llano South; 75-Llano North
Lampasas: 68-Lampasas

A few notes/observations:

Site 71 is probably the primary tower for the city of Burnet and North Burnet county, you will hear the most traffic on it. 72 (Bertram) gets ~90% of the traffic but you will sometimes not hear any of the west side VFDs on it (East Lake and Cassie in particular). 70 (Watson) is only providing gap coverage for far NE Burnet County and Lamapsas so very little radio traffic. I think that site only has 2 frequencies associated with it.

Site 74 is the primary tower for Marble Falls and gets probably 99% of all traffic for those commmunities. 69 (Singleton Bend) is providing gap coverage for far SE Burnet County and some of Blanco County so the radio traffic can be limited.

Site 73 (Kingsland), as i understand it, is technically a Llano county tower--but is located on a hill in Burnet county (Lookout Mountain). This tower provides lake coverage for east Llano county but also provides gap coverage for western Burnet County for both Burnet and Marble Falls units. Cassie and Hoover Valley VFD units almost always connect to this tower, hence why you probably never hear them in Bertram. You will almost never hear Burnet units on Site 74 or Marble Falls units on Site 71, but Site 73 you can generally hear a significant amount of the radio traffic for 3 of the WR PSAPs (BU, MF and LL).

Site 64 (Stonewall) is in Gillepsie County and provides some gap coverage for Blanco county and occasionallly for Llano units when they respond to ERock. Very little radio traffic just like Watson. Same goes with Site 54-Mason.

For Blanco and Llano, there is no one single site that I would call a primary, but you generally hear all the traffic for that county on any of those sites and the occasional bleedover from units from neighboring counties.

Hope that helps answer your question.

 

[Whospoonbill]

If it is, they certainly aren't in any rush to get there.

That's good

 

[garys]

I set up my SDS 100 on a file cabinet at our new house in the Pflugerville/Hutto line. Good signal with just the Remtronix antenna. I can hear the Austin, Pflugerville and even Bastrop sites with no problem, and Williamson of course.

Still have to add LCRA to see how far I can pick that up. Travis County ESD 11 goes into Hays fairly often. In fact there seem to be a lot of fuzzy lines between departments. AFD has a station that's in Williamson. Other cities are in both counties, which seems confusing.

Then again, it's probably normal for Texas.

 

[Whospoonbill]

I set up my SDS 100 on a file cabinet at our new house in the Pflugerville/Hutto line. Good signal with just the Remtronix antenna. I can hear the Austin, Pflugerville and even Bastrop sites with no problem, and Williamson of course.

Still have to add LCRA to see how far I can pick that up. Travis County ESD 11 goes into Hays fairly often. In fact there seem to be a lot of fuzzy lines between departments. AFD has a station that's in Williamson. Other cities are in both counties, which seems confusing.

Then again, it's probably normal for Texas.

Glad your enjoying listening this is the stuff I will be fighting for people like you so Austin doesn’t go quiet nor does Travis county and if your saying there not in any hurry to encrypt it’s probably because I’ve been talking to sources Abbott, and so many other people including in Washington, D.C. the other thing that I’m curious and it lead my whatever the word I’m looking for here that APD and county folks are saying there’s a bill that has passed that encryption will half to be in effect by all agency’s in Texas beginning of September which is not true there’s a bill that supposed to block encryption so that leads me to believe the officers I haven’t heard this from fire or ems but the police wants to hide for some reason and is looking for anything to cling onto I already know why that is

 

[KevinC]

Glad your enjoying listening this is the stuff I will be fighting for people like you so Austin doesn’t go quiet nor does Travis county and if your saying there not in any hurry to encrypt it’s probably because I’ve been talking to sources Abbott, and so many other people including in Washington, D.C. the other thing that I’m curious and it lead my whatever the word I’m looking for here that APD and county folks are saying there’s a bill that has passed that encryption will half to be in effect by all agency’s in Texas beginning of September which is not true there’s a bill that supposed to block encryption so that leads me to believe the officers I haven’t heard this from fire or ems but the police wants to hide for some reason and is looking for anything to cling onto I already know why that is

You've been talking to Gov. Abbott? How cool!

Anyway, this thread has nothing to do with encryption.

 

[garys]

To be honest, I did touch upon it a bit in expressing my surprise that I thought that APD was further along in the process.

You've been talking to Gov. Abbott? How cool!

Anyway, this thread has nothing to do with encryption.

 

[garys]

Back to radio traffic. I noticed a lot of inter agency fire response. There was a fire somewhere in AFD's primary area this morning and I heard Cedar Park and Leander dispatched to assist. CP was assigned FTAC205 which is where AFD was operating. I never heard Leander on the channel.

A sort of related question for those who might know. At a few highway construction sites I noticed vehicles marked "POLICE," but with no agency identifiers. I also didn't notice that the tags had "EXEMPT" on them, which seemed odd. I couldn't tell if these were officers personal vehicles, but did notice that they had red and blue lights.

 

[KTR722]

Austin/Travis County has a signed Auto-Aid agreement in place with most Travis county fire agencies. Pflugerville and Manor are notable exceptions. Some Williamson County agencies are also now onboard with this agreement, notably Cedar Park and Leander as you heard. Round Rock was initially onboard but they left after a few months due to inequitable call distribution from the agreement.

The vehicles are you are seeing are most likely privately owned vehicles, owned by TCOLE certified law enforcement officers who are doing off duty employment for the construction companies.

 

[KTR722]

BTW, regarding Burnet radio traffic. I understand the City of Burnet has just signed an interlocal agreement with the City of Marble Falls to move their dispatch from Burnet County SO to Marble Falls PD/Comm. Supposed to go into effect in March 2024. City of Burnet PD/FD/EMS only moving per the newspaper article I saw.