JeffCo going Digital

[eddiemax]

In today's B'ham News, Jefferson County Commissioners reported they have signed a 13.8 million dollar contract with Motorola to update their system to digital. They said their equipment is "aging" and needs to be replaced with digital technology, allowing communication between different agencies in the area. Hmmmm! I thought that was the purpose of the present system that B'ham and JeffCo were supposed to share.

Birmingham is in the process of implementing its 12 million dollar system, and the DPS is spending millions for equipment they don't have frequencies assigned for.

No wonder there's no money for schools. Motorola is getting all our tax money. I guess it sounds better to say we need a tax increase for our children instead of saying we need the latest radio technology, and every department needs a separate system, and the radios they spent millions for a few years back are just trash now.

Oh, who cares about kids anyhow? If you did, you would be screaming for more new taxes. (Does this make any sense?)

Over, and out,
eddiemax

 

[dave911]

I knew Jefferson County wouldn't be too far behind. I wonder if they're going to keep their current tower locations? Their system would be much better if they had greater signal coverage.

I heard Langford say it would be 20 months before they went live.

Mark my word, now that Birmingham has gone digital you're going to see other departments going digital. I've worked in EMS in Birmingham since 1985 and Birmingham has always been the trend setter... right or wrong... other departments do what Birmingham does. Especially over-the-mountain fire departments... whether they need it or not.

 

[EMS-1]

Jefferson County Digital Radio

well I guess I will have a great many scanners for sale soon since ALL the agencies are going digital now...and to think a few years back all that was worried about was whether the other EMS Agencies(ambulance) were listening to and trying to steal your calls. the Jefferson County Commission must really have a large chunk of money to waste considering as was mentioned in an earlier post the schools are going into the toilet as far as funding goes....and again what are they going to do with the 800 mhz. trunking network they have already wasted our tax money on? if they need help with communications they should start where the real problem is.....ask any Ambulance Service Dispatcher(private) in jefferson county where a common address is and you may as well have asked a drunk on the street....they have not a clue. and their management is not any better at it....God Help those who really need assistance. and they do the digital communications thing......see why
I dont like it??? are our public safety dispatchers trained any better?better training goes a long way when you have to trust your life to the person behind the microphone. not just having a system to keep up with the joneses or should we say the Kincaid's?... a point well worth pondering and not wasting millions of tax dollars on.....Carl

 

[GlacierClipper]

Dispatching in many parts of the USA is still a problem in Public Safety.
In a county in Tennesse, which I spend part of my summer, the Distatchers are not properly trained. The County 911 is answered by a county dispatcher. Finding the proper address seems to be a problem also.
Roads are not properly marked, houses not numbered and the response time for police, fire and medical is shortened in many events.

EMS is a vital service to the public and it should not be contracted out.

 

[wwhitby]

In today's B'ham News, Jefferson County Commissioners reported they have signed a 13.8 million dollar contract with Motorola to update their system to digital. They said their equipment is "aging" and needs to be replaced with digital technology, allowing communication between different agencies in the area. Hmmmm! I thought that was the purpose of the present system that B'ham and JeffCo were supposed to share.

Looks like another example of the public safety "keeping up with the Jones'"

I did a missing person search with the JeffCo SO in the Graysville area back in June of 2002. The deputies were using FRS radios to communicate with each other. I asked the supervisor why, and he said that their trunked system didn't work in that part of the county!

For the money, I hope this new system has better coverage!

Warren

 

[eddiemax]

System Crashes

There has been some interesting comments about Motoroal system crashes on the Strong Signals message board lately. Hope our trusted representatives have done their homework on this.

http://strongsignals.net/access/boards/message/board.cgi

 

[EMS-1]

Jefferson County Digital Radio

here's some food for thought concerning the waste of taxpayers money on radio equipment that probably wont work...I went fishing on the Warrior River yesterday and took along with me(as i always do) my trusty pro 93 trunktracking scanner which i have programmed with the Jefferson CountySheriff's Dept. 800 mhz. system specific talk group codes for the Oak Grove/Providence Tower only. and, not surprising to me was that ALL the analog channels picked up... Hueytown,Bessemer and all the other services i have programmed in chattered on all day...BUT what did i hear from the county's 800 system,which is supposed to cover ALL the county? NOT EVEN A SQUELCH BREAK! no transmissions were heard at all! NOTA! and this is not far from Oak Grove!!! do they really think that the digital overpriced system can reach these areas? when the one they already have cant do it....a system where everybody can talk to each other kinda reminds me of the F5 Tornado in 1998, nobody knew what the other one was doing and the result was just a fiasco and a communications nightmare! sure hope they reconsider because even getting cell phones to work south and west of hueytown is virtually impossible much less a radio system you can trust the lives of your officers with :shock:

 

[emcom]

Did Jefferson County have this many problems on their former low band channels?

The one thing that amazed me when I was driving thru Birmingham a few years ago was that their fire dept. wasn't even on a repeater! Mobile units were hard to hear if they were any distance away.

I always thought their police dept. uhf repeater system seemed good to me. Always had a strong signal present. Officers seemed to be able to get in fine. I never understood why they had to move to the southern linc now an 800 trunked system.

We have had an 800 Type I/II then all II system in Huntsville since 1995. It does well in the City, but in the newer annexed areas and valleys it doesn't do very well. Our fire dept. is having to rely on the old VHF repeater system for coverage in one area not served well by trunking. Our problem is that we only have 2 towers. I have always thought it was a bad idea when they stripped the vhf radios out of city police cars. At least the 155.010 (we call it north alabama net here) would get through in some of these areas.

Huntsville was using aging equipment, no one can argue about that. In 1995, the majority of the patrol cars were still using mocom or motran 4ch crystal & tube radios! The police records base was a mocom 70 consolette.


Our sheriff's office is looking at VHF trunking, but they don't have the money right now. The current primary vhf repeater pair that they have had since the 1960's has a lot of bleed over on it. It can completely wipe out a local radio transmission. Hand helds stink in buildings on vhf.

 

[GlacierClipper]

After the system is in place, it will cost more than the price mentioned in the local paper.

Motorola will be smiling all the way to the bank!

 

[CyberGoth1440]

The old VHF LO-Band system worked very well in the West Jefferson
County area, I listened to it since I got my first (and best!) scanner for
Christmas when I was 10, a BC-210xlt. The scanner's dead now but I
can recall hearing mobile units from my home in Center-Point on the
East end of the county with just the standard steel-whip Ant.
The old system worked well but just didn't have the channel capacity
for the growing area and handhelds had to transmitt through the car radio
which became a problem when there were multple units on scene.
The old VHF-LO frequencies were 45.740 for South/West & Civil,
45.900 for North/East & 45.66 was "CH-3", the only car/car Tac. CH.
Mobile-Extenders were on 154.7100 so if you heard anything on this
freq. you knew they were close!
The current analog trunked system went online in the summer of 1989
so I'm not suprised that the equipment is "aging".

 

[GlacierClipper]

Marshall County is still using the old 155 Mhz for the Sheriff's Dept. When Albertville went trunked a few years ago, alot of people was saying the entire county would be trunked within 2 years. :shock:

Boaz, Arab, Guntersville and Marshall County is still on the old system.
It seems to be working fine for now!

I grew-up in Albertville listening to them when they were only on 155.010, then moved to 453.?? and then on to the present trunked system.

 

[emcom]

Marshall County is still using the old 155 Mhz for the Sheriff's Dept. When Albertville went trunked a few years ago, alot of people was saying the entire county would be trunked within 2 years. :shock:

Boaz, Arab, Guntersville and Marshall County is still on the old system.
It seems to be working fine for now!

I grew-up in Albertville listening to them when they were only on 155.010, then moved to 453.?? and then on to the present trunked system.

Didn't Albertville get a 3 channel trunked system? If so, that would have 1 channel as a control channel and two voice channels, right? How did that solve anything? We were curious over here about that. Seems the same as having 2 conventional channels for police/fire.

I know thet they do have at least one of the mutual aid channels as well. Not sure if it is 866.0125 or what.

 

[emcom]

The old VHF LO-Band system worked very well in the West Jefferson
County area, I listened to it since I got my first (and best!) scanner for
Christmas when I was 10, a BC-210xlt.

Thanks,

The only low band stuff to listen to here is a prison, private companies, and just across the state line the Tennessee Highway Patrol uses low band still. With the right external antenna, I used to be able to pick up Mississippi Highway Patrol.

 

[GlacierClipper]

Yes Albertville is trunked.

856.7625, 857.7625, 858.7625 <Control Channel


I am not sure about the mutual aid frequency for Albertville.

 

[emcom]

Yes Albertville is trunked.

856.7625, 857.7625, 858.7625 <Control Channel


I am not sure about the mutual aid frequency for Albertville.

Right,

My point is that if you have 2 voice channels and 1 control channel, you can only have 2 conversations taking place at the same time and all 3 frequencies are busy.

During a simple house fire, if you have a firefighter talking on the fire talkgroup and a police officer talking about traffic control on a police talkgroup and a controller sending data over the third channel, you have just maxed out your system - no one else can talk. That is just for a regular happens all the time event. I see where in the database here, it states that the PD has been heard on their old channels some. I guess that is because they must be getting busy signals on the trunked system:roll: The next time I see someone from Albertville PD, I'll ask about that.

 

[DARRELL]

I live in Albertville and was working at the police department when they switched from UHF to 800 MHz. The 800 MHz radios are the only radios in the cars. The city sold all of the UHF equipment. Most of it was ready for the trash except for several mobile radios and about five hand held radios. We even still had four MT500 radios! We called them "dinosaurs." The only access to the UHF system is in the radio room. It is programmed in their computer and they have a control station for it. The radio room also has access to 155.010. It is rarely used.

866.0125 is the mutual aid repeater for Albertville. It is located at the police department and is not very powerful. It is used as a tac channel and for backup when there are problems on the trunking system.

I believe the city had planned to add more frequencies when the system was purchased. They thought the utilities and public works would be added but that has never happened.

There was little research done on the 800 trunking system. The idea was that everyone was going to 800 MHz and that was the way to go. They listened to a communications company to decide the needs. The bid was too high and they mades cuts to the system.

I have to say that the system was a big improvement over the old UHF system. We could only talk on one channel and it was shared with a fire/rescue department that makes 2500 to 3000 calls a year.

 

[emcom]

Thanks for the clarification. It puts everything into perspective now.

 

[jfarr318]

Albertville 800mhz

It would seem that a lot was cut from the system budget..A 3 channel trunked system, with one channel being a control channel is not much of a system. There shouldn't be much of a need for multiple talkgroups considering you only have 2 voice channels to work with. I think I would have bought all new equipment for the UHF system. I used to listen to them when I was making the drive to Boaz every week once I got on top of the mountain from Atalla.

 

[crandy2]

Any Update on Jeffco going Digital

Does anyone have any more info (or even speculation) on whether Jeffco will go with 3600 or 9600 Apco-25?

If they were to go 9600 does that make them incompatible with Birmingham?

I am getting ready to buy either a BC250 or a BC296. Unless Jeffco goes 9600, the BC250 will meet my needs (Birmingham is already 3600), and they have some good prices on Ebay right now.