Hostage Standoff

[wherron]

If anyone is monitoring the hostage standoff in NJ can you give me some help? I've been monitoring the traffic; however, they switched to a different frequency for ops (and its not the Command Post talk group). I overheard the Air state to another to go to 4042.0 and 7508.5. Those are the freqs, talkgroups, what? They won't go into my scanner (RS 2096). Any help on listening to the on-scene ops would be appreciated.

 

[fyrfyter10]

Those were lats and longs for the helicopters. command post and aviation were the 2 active tg's during this event. both on the troop B system.
andrew

 

[wherron]

Thanks for the info. Pretty embarrassing though that I didn't realize those were lat and long coordinates.

A question about monitoring police traffic – is it possible to listen to all car to car / tac frequencies? I have them all programmed, but almost all of the traffic I hear – on both the NJ State PD Trunked system and my local / regional PD here in Monroe County, PA – is car to dispatch / dispatch to car. I do hear some car to car traffic, but it seems to me there should be a lot more talk than what is occurring. Do the PDs drop down to some low band freq for local communications?

I’m not all that experienced with scanning so any advice / comments on what you should expect to hear would be appreciated.

 

[FuelForFire]

Thanks for the info. Pretty embarrassing though that I didn't realize those were lat and long coordinates.

A question about monitoring police traffic – is it possible to listen to all car to car / tac frequencies? I have them all programmed, but almost all of the traffic I hear – on both the NJ State PD Trunked system and my local / regional PD here in Monroe County, PA – is car to dispatch / dispatch to car. I do hear some car to car traffic, but it seems to me there should be a lot more talk than what is occurring. Do the PDs drop down to some low band freq for local communications?

I’m not all that experienced with scanning so any advice / comments on what you should expect to hear would be appreciated.

Every dept has its own way of doing things on the radio. Large police departments may have lots of frequencies or talkgroups and some smaller ones may have only one channel or share a channel with a neighboring town.

As far as SPNJ is concerned all of their car-to-dispatch traffic and sometimes car-to-car is on the talkgroups labelled 2-Comm, 3-Comm, etc for each of the 3 systems. These talkgroups have near constant communitcation. There are many other talkgroups and each has a specific purpose. I would spend some time mulling over the database.

Mike

 

[jmp883]

Wherron,

I monitored the event from the time they got on I-78 until the situation ended. When they switched from the 5-Comm talkgroup (which is the Somerville/Perryville station) they did indeed go to the command post talkgroup. After doing some checking I found each NJSP Troop has its own command post talkgroup. This occured in Troop B's jurisdiction, the command post talkgroup for Troop B is 35888.

Hopefully it will be a while before we have another incident like that, but if we do, at least you should be able to monitor it better.

Stay safe, keep listening!

 

[jmm346]

The Aviation talkgroup was also heard on the Central group. It seemed to be a direct simulcast of what was on North. Does this sound right? Does this occur for other talkgroups?

John

 

[FuelForFire]

The Aviation talkgroup was also heard on the Central group. It seemed to be a direct simulcast of what was on North. Does this sound right? Does this occur for other talkgroups?

John

Yep, you're right. Aviation, North Star, and South Star are all simulcasted across all 3 systems.

I am not sure if there are any others. Marine Police or Fire Coordinaters perhaps?

Mike

 

[SCANdal]

A question about monitoring police traffic – is it possible to listen to all car to car / tac frequencies? I have them all programmed, but almost all of the traffic I hear – on both the NJ State PD Trunked system and my local / regional PD here in Monroe County, PA – is car to dispatch / dispatch to car. I do hear some car to car traffic, but it seems to me there should be a lot more talk than what is occurring. Do the PDs drop down to some low band freq for local communications?

wherron,

No, it is not possible to listen to all car-to-car or tactical frequencies. Many are simplex and low power, as low as two watts for some tactical channels. Unless you are near the units themselves as they are transmitting (or the units are on rooftops, allowing their signals to travel unobstructed further), it is quite possible that you will not hear them.

You claim that "...there should be a lot more talk occurring..." What leads you to believe that? There might be a large number of issues that come into play here. If, for example, you monitor a unit advising his dispatcher that he'll "be out at that location" but never heard the unit initially dispatched to any assignment in the first place, it may be that

a) the unit was dispatched via computer in the car (a method also used to pass car-to-car messages), or
b) the unit was in the stationhouse, got the assignment direct from the dispatcher, and responded direct from Headquarters, or
c) the unit got the assignment via NexTel (or other similair service). This service as permeated the public safety services to such a degree that at times entire assignments are handled over the NexTel - never making it over the department's two-way radios.

Lastly, you ask if "PDs drop down to some low band freq for local communications?" It's unlikely, unless the particular department already operates on low band for dispatch purposes. Low band's popularity has diminished of late, as more and more public saftey systems migrate further and further up the spectrum.

Good luck,

SCANdal

 

[FuelForFire]

the unit got the assignment via NexTel (or other similair service). This service as permeated the public safety services to such a degree that at times entire assignments are handled over the NexTel - never making it over the department's two-way radios.

This has actually become a huge problem in a lot of agencies. Many have adopted strict SOP's regarding the use of Nextels. I know of a group of officers who ended up in a large amount of trouble because an entire sting operation was conducted over Nextels instead proper radio channels.

I believe the issue there was that all radio traffic is recorded (as is the vast majority of public safety traffic I should think) and offers a record and timeline of events. Since a lot of law enforcement these days is all about CYA, I can understand why the higher-ups would make a big deal out of using the proper channels.

Another issue with using Nextels is that radio traffic and MDT messages are discoverable in court. I would imagine that would apply to communications made over Nextels also but how could they be recovered?

Mike

 

[nosoup4u]

123.025 was very active with the State Police Helo's talking to the News Copters.

 

[wherron]

Thank you all for the info. I did hear traffic for the hostage incident over the Command and Air channels, stuff like getting the units batteries for their handheld radios, asking units to take up specific positions and asking units to talk to some local residents who had their heads by the windows, its just that I thought there would be more. Perhaps it was because I was scanning too many other channels and didn’t hear some communications; perhaps it’s my location and antenna (in Monroe County PA with a RS center loaded telescoping whip attached directly to the scanner) or perhaps I’m expecting too much. It’s just that I was hearing quite a bit during the chase and once they got him in the parking lot and then they switched to the Command channel and everything died down. Oh well, I’ll continue to read and learn; search and scan and understand more about what I hear. Thanks again.

 

[JoeyC]

SWAT operations among team members are often conducted on low-power simplex equipment as someone mentioned earlier. You will hear the logistics and preliminary comms as the team is assembled over normal radio channels but when it comes down to the communications in the thick of things (whispers and quiet radio ops), low-power simplex works best.

 

[joelincoln]

123.025 was very active with the State Police Helo's talking to the News Copters.

Why were they using that freq ??? What is it?

 

[JoeyC]

Why were they using that freq ??? What is it?

Because that is an air-air freq.

 

[joelincoln]

I know it's an air-air freq.

Why that particular one? Is it normally used in situations like this?

 

[carbineone]

Yes 123.025 is an assigned air to air frequency for helicopters. Another common frequency is 123.050 for heliports.

 

[joelincoln]

So it's specific to choppers?

Thanks.

 

[TomK]

Yep, you're right. Aviation, North Star, and South Star are all simulcasted across all 3 systems.
I am not sure if there are any others. Marine Police or Fire Coordinaters perhaps?

From what I can dope out from John Buriceli's excelent document on the NJ State System, I think almost all talk groups are simulcast on A,B,C. There seem to be about 12-13 in each Troop that are Troop specific but I think the rest are system(s) wide.
-TomK-