Highway Patrol faces wait for radios

[GlacierClipper]

Highway Patrol faces wait for radios

By Dick Cook Staff Writer

Dispatchers at the Tennessee Highway Patrol’s Chattanooga district office communicate with troopers using a radio system installed in the Carter administration, officials said.
The THP is installing a new, 800 MHz system across the state, but officials say they don’t know when it will get here or how much it will cost.
"Once we get to the eastern part of the state, all bets are off," said Lt. Joel Moore, who works in the agency’s research planning and development office in Nashville So far, the THP has spent about $1.2 million in federal grants to build or adapt 21 radio sites across West and Middle Tennessee, Lt. Moore said.
He said early estimates of about 25 radio towers to cover the hilly eastern part of the state were too low. "No way can I see us covering East Tennessee with only 25 sites," he said.
THP officials said it could take three years or longer to get the system up and running statewide.
The radio system would make it easier for troopers to communicate with local agencies, something emergency responders call "interoperability."
The system also would allow troopers to ship data from in-car laptops to a central computer.
Lt. Danny Hall with the Chattanooga District office said troopers can communicate with local agencies if they need to. Dispatchers can telephone sheriff’s departments anywhere in the district, he said.
Upgrading Tennessee Highway Patrol radios has been top priority for several years, officials said, but the urgency increased after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
The state Department of Safety has received about $2 million for communications from the state Homeland Security department since 2003, said Rick Shipkowski, deputy director of Homeland Security.
Lt. Moore said it costs about $58,000 to equip each radio antenna site with the new technology. He said the actual radios and other hardware have yet to be purchased.
E-mail Dick Cook at dcook@timesfreepress.com

This story was published Thursday, August 05, 2004

 

[INDY72]

2 Million,.. jeez man itll cost more like 30 to 50 million to get the whole state running 800, and thats being nice. I just hope they are running Motorola when they do switch.... and yessssssssss my vision of a DPS 800 MHz multi state system is getting closer.... SC, NC, AL, GA, TN, LA, and if MS will get on the ball,.. maybe by 2010 if you run a PRO-96/2096, BC296D/796D,.. for most of Southeast USA youll be able to monitor easily.

 

[GlacierClipper]

Very costly especially building the towers in the mountains of East/Middle Tennessee around Palmer, Sherwood and Sewanee. In some of those areas cell phone coverage is a problem....towers in the wrong places for proper coverage. Alot of dead spots which effects the current THP radio system.

 

[ButchGone]

I would guess, that since the dollar values quoted for THP's 800 system seems to be low, that maybe they plan on a non-trunked conventional repeater system. Purely a guess, but makes since the cost isn't that high. The state of Kentucky has a statewide system that uses conventional linked UHF repeaters that operate in digital mode and P-25 compliant. Putting a conventional repeater up is a LOT cheaper than a trunked system. If this turns out to be the case, Troopers could easily communicate with other agencies via the five I-Tac 800mhz mutual aid frequencies. Also, THP is licensed for a conventional repeater on Aetna Mountian (FCC data webpage) which is near the Chattanooga district. We'll see what happens. But like the newpaper article stated, 800mhz in east Tennessee is several years out.

 

[ButchGone]

I would guess, that since the dollar values quoted for THP's 800 system seems to be low, that maybe they plan on a non-trunked conventional repeater system. Purely a guess, but makes since the cost isn't that high. The state of Kentucky has a statewide system that uses conventional linked UHF repeaters that operate in digital mode and P-25 compliant. Putting a conventional repeater up is a LOT cheaper than a trunked system. If this turns out to be the case, Troopers could easily communicate with other agencies via the five I-Tac 800mhz mutual aid frequencies. Also, THP is licensed for a conventional repeater on Aetna Mountian (FCC data webpage) which is near the Chattanooga district. We'll see what happens. But like the newpaper article stated, 800mhz in east Tennessee is several years out.

 

[K5MAR]

Dispatchers at the Tennessee Highway Patrol’s Chattanooga district office communicate with troopers using a radio system installed in the Carter administration, officials said.

I got a laugh out of this statement, since most of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol uses a radio system installed during the Eisenhower administration! But things are looking up.

Mark S.

 

[GlacierClipper]

Tennessee Radio

The backbone of the Tennessee Highway Patrol radio system is in 42-43 Mhz range, some in the 45-46 Mhz range and that has been in place since the early 1950's. The upgrades during the Carter years, came when some repeaters were added to the system they are in the 154-156 Mhz range. In the early 1980's a few 450-460 Mhz frequencies were added to system.

I look for the Nashville District or Knoxville District to go 800 trunked before the rest of the THP Districts.

Interesting watching the events concerning the move to 800 in Tennessee.


Oklahoma has been trying to get a statewide trunked systems since the mid 1990's. DPS and the Turnpike Authority wanted trunked. Funding for those has been long over due. Hopefully DPS can get the funds for the move to 800!

 

[emcom]

Dispatchers at the Tennessee Highway Patrol’s Chattanooga district office communicate with troopers using a radio system installed in the Carter administration, officials said.

I got a laugh out of this statement, since most of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol uses a radio system installed during the Eisenhower administration! But things are looking up.

Mark S.

I bet they were referring to the Motorola Centracom console system at the THP post. I once visited Lawrenceburg THP and they were using the old 1970's Centracom consoles with big boom mics. Of course, that was in the mid 90's. I don't know about today.

 

[INDY72]

TN, like MS is mainly still on the very ANCIENT VHF Lo Band stuff. Both states are slowly comming into the "modern" radio age lol,.. TN is ahead of MS in desinging, researching, and beginning of implementation of the Hi Band, UHF, and 800 MHz systems,...

 

[emcom]

TN, like MS is mainly still on the very ANCIENT VHF Lo Band stuff. Both states are slowly comming into the "modern" radio age lol,.. TN is ahead of MS in desinging, researching, and beginning of implementation of the Hi Band, UHF, and 800 MHz systems,...

Seems like low band has worked well for them so far. I guess skip and electrical noise interference do create some problems.

Alabama has been on VHF high for many, many years and it has worked okay. However, they just don't have enough sites to cover the whole state. Some troopers monitor their local Sheriff's freqs. since most AL counties are on VHF too.

Scott

 

[INDY72]

Actually AL has been trying to go trunked for the longest time and as is posted in many places in the AL forums,.. they are not happy with the ancient system they have. The problems with upgrading in most cases has been funding and political infighting,... In AL many systems are literaly falling apart due to lack of upkeep, and the sheer age of the MS sytem is showing now,... it has had magor problems this year with failures. One cant expect a 40 to 50 yo, or older radio network to function forever,.. not to mention lack of interoperability when everyone else has upgraded... Keep running the old stuff long eneough not only will you see it failing more and more,.. but your risking the lives of agencies using it as well as the public that those agencies on those systems protect.

 

[emcom]

I work for a local EMA and not too long ago, we put a late 1970's VHF micor repeater station back on the air that our PD abandoned after they migrated to 800 back in 1995. We also have had a VHF simplex frequency since the 1960's.

I've been communicating with our state office about getting our old statewide EMA UHF repeater net up and working again. It was abandoned when Southern Linc became the thing in the mid 90's. Looks like we will be seeing work on our UHF system this fall.

We have a DPS EDACS site here. That was supposed to be the new statewide system in the late 1980's/early 1990's. A few larger cities got state EDACS systems, and that is as far as it went. It was never built out. Maybe the new system will actually come to fruition. Who knows for sure?

 

[wwhitby]

We have a DPS EDACS site here. That was supposed to be the new statewide system in the late 1980's/early 1990's. A few larger cities got state EDACS systems, and that is as far as it went. It was never built out. Maybe the new system will actually come to fruition. Who knows for sure?

The DPS major that was pushing for the EDACS system retired in the late '90s, and after that, implementation stopped and never restarted! The Montgomery site was shut down and the frequencies folded into the Montgomery City/County system.

Alabama is looking at a trunked, digital VHF system that may work out fine.

Warren

 

[icom1020]

Uh, the low band isn't "ancient" Users will scramble for those previous spectrums. If it needs fine tuning, why not upgrade all the districts to repeaters on low band. CHP couldn't migrate out of their 42 mhz because of costs, so they just added a lot of former 39mhz as inputs. I understand why the switch for one reason--they do have a problem with 1989 GE's that are no longer being supported by parts but vendors like Kenwood and others still make low band. What happens when someone(Moneyrola) decides that 800 is ancient, then what? The powers that be should of figured out that hills and 800 dont mix and for every increase in freq,doubling tripleling or quadrupling of previous towers is necessary.

 

[GlacierClipper]

Excellent Post icom1020!

 

[RadioJonD]

There's mention of this in THP's Communications Section on line page -

http://tennessee.gov/safety/thp/support.pdf

 

[kf4lhp]

Not THAT obsolete...

THP has been working on a project to replace much of the older equipment as well as updating the dispatch centers. The low band stations are being replaced with new equipment from Daniels, and the high band stations are being replaced with Motorola Quantar stations (this seems to be a statewide trend, TDOT used Quantars for all of their repeaters when they rebuilt their system a few years back, as did TEMA, and likely TWRA).

The dispatch centers now have Motorola Centracom Gold Elite consoles.

More information is available at http://www.ka4bni.com/THP_Dispatch_index.htm .

 

[Gatorman]

That is great info.....good page and very informative. Can you advise if the VHF site in Memphis is operating? I was told at one point it had been down for several years and there was no plan to get it on the air again. Does the VHF system see that much use?

Also, last I heard TBI had no repeaters in West TN. Supposedly, they were using UHF channels assigned to various sheriff's departments.

 

[kf4lhp]

That is great info.....good page and very informative. Can you advise if the VHF site in Memphis is operating? I was told at one point it had been down for several years and there was no plan to get it on the air again. Does the VHF system see that much use?

My experience has been that the VHF-HI stuff sees very little use; seems like whenever there is a VIP in town and they are working a special detail is about the only time it gets used. No idea on the status of a Memphis site; I'm in Chattanooga.

Also, last I heard TBI had no repeaters in West TN. Supposedly, they were using UHF channels assigned to various sheriff's departments.

I've occasionally heard TBI units on the 460.550 frequency they have licensed all around here in East Tennessee.

 

[wireless1978]

Well, a nice big fat 800 mhz system would be nice, but ya know.. theres nothing like lowband to be there when those high tech 800mhz systems foul up.

Low band is old i agree, but man its dependable for long distance comms.

and unless you can completely saturate the state with tower sites for the 800 system, you'd be shooting yourself in the foot..

trust me, theres nothing like keying up to request back up and all you get from your radio is BONK instead of chirp.