Jersey City Medical Center EMS - Hudcen

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KC2ZHY

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This evening hearing JCMC EMS - Hudcen using RJ PSIC Talkgroup 4413. confirmed - Unkown if this is permanent.
This patch has been in place on Comm4 for approximately 1 week. A lot of internal restructuring has been performed lately in the RWJBH EMS branches. This is unlikely permanent per se since JCMC will likely become primary on NJICS and the VHF will go offline. Remains to be seen and is certainly not an imminent move.

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mondaro

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I work in the field on Monday I will see if I can find anything out on the official end I would hate to go by assumptions.
This RWJ thing is a strange bird when it comes to Jersey City, for now by fellow EMS people I would monitor
this new NJICS Talk Group, HUDCEN main VHF and Ops 5.
 

mondaro

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They are owned now by RWJ Barnabas Health, some of there ambulance's also have RWJ Barnabas health on them, as I stated before wouldn't a bad idea to monitor them.
 

mondaro

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The skinny on Jersey City Medical Center, for now, they are going to remain on that Talkgroup 4413, they will still have some communications on the VHF channel as well 155.235 PL 146.2 and VHF Ops 5 remains in the place moderators, please do not delete the older information lets not make the same mistake with Jersey City as in some of the agencies that go on PSIC and we are quick to delete the older systems case in point Bloomfield and Belleville will keep there older system in place as a back up - people that have the 536 and sds 100 etc etc can put everything in one favorites list to monitor Jersey City / Hudcen -
 
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902

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The skinny on Jersey City Medical Center, for now, they are going to remain on that Talkgroup 4413, they will still have some communications on the VHF channel as well 155.235 PL 146.2 and VHF Ops 5 remains in the place moderators, please do not delete the older information lets not make the same mistake with Jersey City as in some of the agencies that go on PSIC and we are quick to delete the older systems case in point Bloomfield and Belleville will keep there older system in place as a back up - people that have the 536 and sds 100 etc etc can put everything in one favorites list to monitor Jersey City / Hudcen -
Reminds me of when they went to the 900 MHz SMRs and were half between the WTC site for east and Claridge House to cover the west. I wonder how well NJICS covers into Hudson County.

VHF coverage on 155.235 was a nightmare when it was simplex. I had to put voting receivers in Bayonne and West New York to stop the private services in Staten Island from capturing over the portable radios.
 

robbinsj2

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...VHF coverage on 155.235 was a nightmare when it was simplex. I had to put voting receivers in Bayonne and West New York to stop the private services in Staten Island from capturing over the portable radios.
Which reminds me of being unable to use 155.235 simplex in Somerset County at times because JCMC (repeated then, I think) was clobbering even my mobile. Local dispatchers thought I was nuts switching to the fire channel to raise them because they never monitored the channel; I also think the local system relied upon manual switching between sites instead of automatic voting so they were listening on a worse site geographically and topographically.
 
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902

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Which reminds me of being unable to use 155.235 simplex in Somerset County at times because JCMC (repeated then, I think) was clobbering even my mobile. Local dispatchers thought I was nuts switching to the fire channel to raise them because they never monitored the channel; I also think the local system relied upon manual switching between sites instead of automatic voting so they were listening on a worse site geographically and topographically.
Well, since everything is different now, maybe some history is in order. JCMC EMS was originally on 155.265 MHz, which had been shared with Hatzolah's "H-base." There were frequent conflicts. Prior to coming on as "MC-11" (the communications coordinator and a line paramedic), one of the early tasks was switching from 155.265 to 155.235. The frequency was selected because it was co-channel with West Orange First Aid Squad, and several people at the time had affiliations with the squad. There were a number of Mocom-70s and MX portables that needed to be re-crystalled. The 1986 base station power levels for 155.235 on WNGK988 were 20 W, same as they are now. I had met with the NJ frequency coordinator and EMS frequency coordinator at the time to try to get more, as the ambulette company in Staten Island would heterodyne with the MC in Jersey City, but following the 1985 expansion into Bayonne, the ambulette company would completely capture over the MC to units in the field, and would block simplex talk-back. Everything was simplex then, and repeaterizing the system was not possible at the time.

When Henry Bros. built out the "New HUDCEN" into one of the training rooms, the system went from a T-1600 HEAR Radio remote that used to be in the ambulance garage foyer (marble walls and terrazzo floor with lots of echos - punching a card to document status sounded like banging a 2x4 on the desk), where it was known as "MC" (and sometimes "WEMS" with horseplay) to the "Old HUDCEN" which was a small room to the left of the stairs. The name was formally changed because of the expansion to Bayonne and the soon-to-be expansion into North Hudson. There was a three-section table with a pegboard for punch cards. We called it the Flintstones console. The "MC" and "Old HUDCEN" used a non-unified Micor base that was the HEAR standard T2-2R package, with 155.235 on channel 1 and 155.340 on channel 2. There was a unity gain trombone antenna smack in the middle of the Medical Building's roof, about a foot off the roof, to which Hector, WB2TSH had mounted a ham repeater antenna (which was subsequently dismounted, lol). Hector told me he thought the antenna was for abandoned junk :) No, and yes, respectively. There was also a 16 channel Wilson on the Flintstones console and a 3 dB omnidirectional antenna installed on the roof or the ambulance garage. That was the backup for EMS.

The "New HUDCEN" - a project to coincide with the Statue of Liberty Centennial - was a Kustom Procomm console with an Epic ECG medical control console and two operator positions. We had 155.235 (JEMS 1), 155.280, 155.340 with DTMF decoder for both the JCMC and Hudson County codes, and 153.785 for special events. There was also a MED 9 semi-duplex base and a T8-R8 semi-duplex base for the MED channels. Bayonne hospital and West New York township hall had 155.235 voting receivers, a MED 9 base, and an 8-channel MED base. 155.235 and the MED bases were MASTR-II, and JEMS 2, 3, and 4 were wall-mounted consolettes in the Surgical building, which departed from where everything else was on the other building. The antennas were exposed dipoles and the pattern was along the long axis of Hudson County from Bayonne to the Bergen County border. The Flintstones console, with access to the non-unified HEAR Micor base was moved into the corner of "New HUDCEN" as a backup. Three Epic consoles were placed into the ER with two 25 pair cables run up to the main console. The dispatcher would select the MED channel on the main console and would be able to patch it to the Epic in the ER.

About 5 years after I left, they had changed the consoles to Centracom II and went onto several Motorola-owned 900 MHz trunked systems. McCabe's also leased talkgroups on this system (an upgrade from their original WTC 800 MHz community repeater they shared with an oil company). The MC needed the WTC to cover the eastern part of the City and county, but the WTC was shadowed to the west. The 900 system on Claridge House in Verona filled in the gaps to the west. That lasted until the WTC came down, at which point, they switched back to VHF on the system I designed and HBE built. When I came back "home" as part of a DMAT deployment, I was amazed that it was still all working. A short time later, that became repeaterized. The 800 MHz community repeater used by McCabe got decommissioned and the frequency sold to Nextel. The 900 SMRs also went away.

You don't know where you're going until you know where you came from. That's the story. The pic is "New HUDCEN" circa 1986 or so. On the left, the late Judd Fuller of REMCS (not my picture).

1549472824136.png
 

Tac-1

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Reminds me of when they went to the 900 MHz SMRs and were half between the WTC site for east and Claridge House to cover the west. I wonder how well NJICS covers into Hudson County.

VHF coverage on 155.235 was a nightmare when it was simplex. I had to put voting receivers in Bayonne and West New York to stop the private services in Staten Island from capturing over the portable radios.

NJICS has very good coverage in JC i think one of the west orange towers is located in JC
 
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radioman2001

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Hey 902 didn't JCMED have a 330 watt Micor on the roof, I believe it was on .265 or .205 in the 70's. I used to listen to JCMED from my home in mid Westchester county.
I foolishly turned down a full "scholarship" as it was decribed to me at JCMED for the paramedic program in 1978. It included room board meals etc in the old nurses dorm building that was torn down in 1980. Always loved the ER being on the 5th floor, the last time I rode there was May of 1980.
 

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lifestar53

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An announcement was made 2/7/2019 on the VHF that they are now operating on the P25 system. The vhf has been quiet ever since. I'm still trying to sort out the P25 system on my TRX-1. I can hear HUDCEN but nothing from the portables.
 

mondaro

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Jersey City HUDCEN will be keeping 235 in place so let's not get any crazy ideas about deleting it, My information comes directly from a HUDCEN Chief that 235 will remain in place.
 
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Tac-1

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Jersey City HUDCEN will be keeping 235 in place so let's not get any crazy ideas about deleting it, My information comes directly from a HUDCEN Chief that 235 will remain in place.
Did hey say how many TG's they will have and if they will be in the Clear
 

lifestar53

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I'm currently not hearing anything on the 4413 tg.
There are occasional key ups with no voice on VHF though.
 

902

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Hey 902 didn't JCMED have a 330 watt Micor on the roof, I believe it was on .265 or .205 in the 70's. I used to listen to JCMED from my home in mid Westchester county.
I foolishly turned down a full "scholarship" as it was decribed to me at JCMED for the paramedic program in 1978. It included room board meals etc in the old nurses dorm building that was torn down in 1980. Always loved the ER being on the 5th floor, the last time I rode there was May of 1980.
No, it was a 75 W non-unified T2-2R Micor, same as the HEAR radios (that's what it was). The MED base was a 4 channel upright Micor cabinet, but wasn't 330 or 250 W.

Hmmm... I don't remember a 5th floor ER. Could this be somewhere else? The program started in June, 1978 (the timeline would be right) and expanded to Bayonne in October, 1985 and into North Hudson maybe 3 or 4 months later. I remember scholarships for Englewood and Holy Name in 1982 in preparation for the upstart MICU programs in 1983. Hackensack was already spooled up, but their fire department started. They had a room off the ER and used to dispatch on 155.3400 before MICCOM was a thaing.

1979 Final Report MICU Pilot Programs
 
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