Iowa Statewide Interoperability Communication System (ISICS)

[burner50]

You are correct. Not intended or designed for phase 1, but they are still on the system.

As previously stated, they're only legacy radios from before the system was built.

If I bought an XTS5000 I doubt the state would allow it on the system... especially since my local tower only has two voice frequencies... They don't want one radio taking up two of four available timeslots.

 

[richwig]

The new TAC11 was in use at the airport during the POTUS visit yesterday.

Just as AF1 was landing, another round of jamming of the UHF DMPD dispatch channel commenced. Someone in town keys up a radio on occasion and blasts profane hip-hop over the channel.

 

[MCWKen]

Gentlemen: Continuing the saga in Clinton.

This morning as usual, went for coffee, and parked in S. Clinton, and as usual had to find the right location to get a signal from DeWitt, but also got two bars from the Trailer.

On my way out and about at noon, parked at home in the same place, only to note that the signal from the trailer was five bars! I thought something was wrong, so switched to the duck antenna. Same results, even inside the house. I listened for a while, and at 1330, all of a sudden, no signal, even outside with the mag mount.

I checked at 1545, and indeed, there was a signal again, not quite as strong, but moving the antenna around, was able to get 4 bars. Checking in the house, 3 bars although it was not steady. I did hear traffic on R2Call21, and someone on IACall1 getting a radio check from Cedar Rapids.

Could it be they are moving the trailer different locations?

 

[MCWKen]

Well that did not take me long. The trailer is currently (Friday 1730) along the river at 1st street. The antenna just barely clears the levee. It might help to point the antenna to 41.844847, -90.185445.

 

[mws72]

Gentlemen: Continuing the saga in Clinton.

This morning as usual, went for coffee, and parked in S. Clinton, and as usual had to find the right location to get a signal from DeWitt, but also got two bars from the Trailer.

On my way out and about at noon, parked at home in the same place, only to note that the signal from the trailer was five bars! I thought something was wrong, so switched to the duck antenna. Same results, even inside the house. I listened for a while, and at 1330, all of a sudden, no signal, even outside with the mag mount.

I checked at 1545, and indeed, there was a signal again, not quite as strong, but moving the antenna around, was able to get 4 bars. Checking in the house, 3 bars although it was not steady. I did hear traffic on R2Call21, and someone on IACall1 getting a radio check from Cedar Rapids.

Could it be they are moving the trailer different locations?

I was seeing a motorola tech on the unitrunker screen the last couple of days . Maybe they are setting up the new site and then switch back to the trailer? Using the frequencies for the SOW because they don;t have a site licensed yet.

 

[clinton911]

Good morning,

I am the Communications Director for Clinton County. I am somewhat into radios so I will occasionally get on this site. I believe in transparency so I thought I would get on this thread and address some of the of open questions that I see that you have had.

Michael is correct, yesterday there were several times that we took the SOW down. We originally located the SOW at 13th Ave. North and 14th Street because it is city owned property and according to the coverage prediction maps we should have expected poor mobile coverage throughout the Mill Creek Expressway area. Once we began testing we found out that was not the case because we actually had excellent portable coverage without the SOW in that area. So in conjunction with the Statewide Interoperability Coordinator and Motorola we decided to move the SOW to help us provide better coverage in the downtown area which is where we are really struggling with coverage.

Again coverage prediction maps are just that a prediction. Our original plan yesterday was to move the SOW to Mercy South Hospital to take advantage of the height from being on the top and edge of the bluff however, the building shadowing from the hospital negated all of that and actually made coverage worse because the radios kept recognizing that there was a site that was close but the signal from the site was so sporadic that it made it impossible to transmit.

Our backup plan had been to move the SOW to the Clinton Pool. Although it is one of the lowest points in town, we felt it was more important to be able to provide coverage in our downtown area. Fortunately moving the SOW to the pool accomplished this and we now have excellent coverage throughout the downtown area.

As of right now we plan to go live with Clinton PD on Monday during the day. On the fire side we are going to wait for a bit. It is important to the Fire Department to have in building coverage at all three stations. We will be installing BDA's at the stations to accomplish this. We are waiting for those to come in.

As far as long term plans, we do plan on putting up a permanent ISICS location in Clinton at some point however, we do not know where that will be yet and when I say long term I don't mean years I mean it will be sooner rather than later. The plan is to have the entire county join ISICS. Due to both Clinton PD and FD providing a lot of mutual aid resources to the entire county and as mentioned in this thread the poor audio quality of patching we feel for responder safety that this is truly our best option. At this point we are finishing up getting an accurate count of how many subscriber radios that we will need. We want to make sure that we "right size" the amount of subscriber radios that we have since the radios are more expensive. Once we get this information compiled we will be able to get an accurate cost of the total cost of the complete project so that we can figure out where all of the funding will come from.

On the funding side of things, although the resounding theme is always share towers whenever possible we have found out that when it comes to a disaster and you are not the owner of the tower and you are in the public safety world that it truly limits your options for any assistance. However, we are pursuing every possible option that we can.

Eric Dau
Clinton County Communications Director

 

[MCWKen]

Good morning,

I am the Communications Director for Clinton County. I am somewhat into radios so I will occasionally get on this site. I believe in transparency so I thought I would get on this thread and address some of the of open questions that I see that you have had.

Michael is correct, yesterday there were several times that we took the SOW down. We originally located the SOW at 13th Ave. North and 14th Street because it is city owned property and according to the coverage prediction maps we should have expected poor mobile coverage throughout the Mill Creek Expressway area. Once we began testing we found out that was not the case because we actually had excellent portable coverage without the SOW in that area. So in conjunction with the Statewide Interoperability Coordinator and Motorola we decided to move the SOW to help us provide better coverage in the downtown area which is where we are really struggling with coverage.

Again coverage prediction maps are just that a prediction. Our original plan yesterday was to move the SOW to Mercy South Hospital to take advantage of the height from being on the top and edge of the bluff however, the building shadowing from the hospital negated all of that and actually made coverage worse because the radios kept recognizing that there was a site that was close but the signal from the site was so sporadic that it made it impossible to transmit.

Our backup plan had been to move the SOW to the Clinton Pool. Although it is one of the lowest points in town, we felt it was more important to be able to provide coverage in our downtown area. Fortunately moving the SOW to the pool accomplished this and we now have excellent coverage throughout the downtown area.

As of right now we plan to go live with Clinton PD on Monday during the day. On the fire side we are going to wait for a bit. It is important to the Fire Department to have in building coverage at all three stations. We will be installing BDA's at the stations to accomplish this. We are waiting for those to come in.

As far as long term plans, we do plan on putting up a permanent ISICS location in Clinton at some point however, we do not know where that will be yet and when I say long term I don't mean years I mean it will be sooner rather than later. The plan is to have the entire county join ISICS. Due to both Clinton PD and FD providing a lot of mutual aid resources to the entire county and as mentioned in this thread the poor audio quality of patching we feel for responder safety that this is truly our best option. At this point we are finishing up getting an accurate count of how many subscriber radios that we will need. We want to make sure that we "right size" the amount of subscriber radios that we have since the radios are more expensive. Once we get this information compiled we will be able to get an accurate cost of the total cost of the complete project so that we can figure out where all of the funding will come from.

On the funding side of things, although the resounding theme is always share towers whenever possible we have found out that when it comes to a disaster and you are not the owner of the tower and you are in the public safety world that it truly limits your options for any assistance. However, we are pursuing every possible option that we can.

Eric Dau
Clinton County Communications Director

Eric, a note about coverage. Currently, from 18th Street S. along Bluff Road to downtown, good to perfect signal strength. From Fleet Farm to downtown along US 30, good to perfect signal strength. From Bluff Road to US 30 on 14th Street, good to fair signal strength. From Mercy South to 13th Ave. N, good signal strength, with poor signal in low areas. West of those locations, either Muscatine or DeWitt will offer coverage.

Ken

 

[clinton911]

Eric, a note about coverage. Currently, from 18th Street S. along Bluff Road to downtown, good to perfect signal strength. From Fleet Farm to downtown along US 30, good to perfect signal strength. From Bluff Road to US 30 on 14th Street, good to fair signal strength. From Mercy South to 13th Ave. N, good signal strength, with poor signal in low areas. West of those locations, either Muscatine or DeWitt will offer coverage.

Ken

Thank you I appreciate the information!

 

[MCWKen]

I have a question about affiliation on ISICS and the use of the "mobile extender" When a portable cannot communicate with a tower, does the extender affiliate with it? Do they have their own unique RID?

I may set up the DeWitt tower and log if any Clinton TG's show up. Just a curiosity bouncing through my limited brain cells.

 

[mws72]

I know on edacs it's a pass through. the mobile extender and BDA don't have an identity.

BTW I see and hear Clinton TGs down here on the Muscatine/Scott simulcast site.

 

[burner50]

I have a question about affiliation on ISICS and the use of the "mobile extender" When a portable cannot communicate with a tower, does the extender affiliate with it? Do they have their own unique RID?

No unique ID... It's a simple repeater. The "Mobile extender" that ISP used to use is not necessary anymore. Those devices used to be able to do frequency steering based on PL tones.

It's not necessary any longer because all talkgroups are on the same frequencies and the affiliation / identification functions are performed by the handheld radio without the need for frequency steering.

 

[mws72]

I have several Muscatine county rids showing up today. No talkgroups. They are affiliating with and using Region 5 Calling and TAC tgs.

Just idle thinking here. If you add 19000 to their current starcom TGs it would be in the ISICS talkgroup range for them.

 

[patmcc24]

Good morning,

I am the Communications Director for Clinton County. I am somewhat into radios so I will occasionally get on this site. I believe in transparency so I thought I would get on this thread and address some of the of open questions that I see that you have had.

Michael is correct, yesterday there were several times that we took the SOW down. We originally located the SOW at 13th Ave. North and 14th Street because it is city owned property and according to the coverage prediction maps we should have expected poor mobile coverage throughout the Mill Creek Expressway area. Once we began testing we found out that was not the case because we actually had excellent portable coverage without the SOW in that area. So in conjunction with the Statewide Interoperability Coordinator and Motorola we decided to move the SOW to help us provide better coverage in the downtown area which is where we are really struggling with coverage.

Again coverage prediction maps are just that a prediction. Our original plan yesterday was to move the SOW to Mercy South Hospital to take advantage of the height from being on the top and edge of the bluff however, the building shadowing from the hospital negated all of that and actually made coverage worse because the radios kept recognizing that there was a site that was close but the signal from the site was so sporadic that it made it impossible to transmit.

Our backup plan had been to move the SOW to the Clinton Pool. Although it is one of the lowest points in town, we felt it was more important to be able to provide coverage in our downtown area. Fortunately moving the SOW to the pool accomplished this and we now have excellent coverage throughout the downtown area.

As of right now we plan to go live with Clinton PD on Monday during the day. On the fire side we are going to wait for a bit. It is important to the Fire Department to have in building coverage at all three stations. We will be installing BDA's at the stations to accomplish this. We are waiting for those to come in.

As far as long term plans, we do plan on putting up a permanent ISICS location in Clinton at some point however, we do not know where that will be yet and when I say long term I don't mean years I mean it will be sooner rather than later. The plan is to have the entire county join ISICS. Due to both Clinton PD and FD providing a lot of mutual aid resources to the entire county and as mentioned in this thread the poor audio quality of patching we feel for responder safety that this is truly our best option. At this point we are finishing up getting an accurate count of how many subscriber radios that we will need. We want to make sure that we "right size" the amount of subscriber radios that we have since the radios are more expensive. Once we get this information compiled we will be able to get an accurate cost of the total cost of the complete project so that we can figure out where all of the funding will come from.

On the funding side of things, although the resounding theme is always share towers whenever possible we have found out that when it comes to a disaster and you are not the owner of the tower and you are in the public safety world that it truly limits your options for any assistance. However, we are pursuing every possible option that we can.

Eric Dau
Clinton County Communications Director

Thank You Eric... was going to message you but you cleared it all up

 

[mws72]

Wondering how the Highway Helpers are IDed. Do they have a number series for each of the areas there are? I don't get enough of a signal to hear ISICS on a regular basic. Just see the RIDs show up on unitrunker most of the time.

 

[timkilbride]

Wondering how the Highway Helpers are IDed. Do they have a number series for each of the areas there are? I don't get enough of a signal to hear ISICS on a regular basic. Just see the RIDs show up on unitrunker most of the time.

149xx

Tim

 

[mws72]

149xx

Tim

OK, I know the RIDs I wondering about their on air IDs.

 

[timkilbride]

OK, I know the RIDs I wondering about their on air IDs.

They are the "H" cars. Usually in the 200's when I listen them.

Tim

 

[autovon]

In the OMA/CB area, Pott Co just calls them Highway Helper. They use R4 TAC46 for coordination. I have heard their unit number used before; IIRC it was when Storm Lake State was talking to them.

 

[ISW376]

H 2xx is Cedar Rapids & Iowa City Area
H 4xx is Quad City Area
Not sure about Des Moines and Council Bluffs but they would be H 1xx and H 3xx units.

They have portable radios as well so it makes it hard to label them since they just pick a portable that won't match the truck they are assigned at shift change.

 

[autovon]

On the Council Bluffs Hwy Helper TG, 305 & 306 were 2 IDs today. I unlocked the TG for a bit today; it's pretty busy otherwise.