Johnson County

[WA9JGB]

One more

48288 is GFD-FIRE

Heard traffic on it today.

 

[Dispatch2323]

Gwood & WRT

Greenwood Fire just made an announcment for all units and stations to change their radio's to digital.
Noon
11/11/08

 

[WA9JGB]

Greenwood Fire just made an announcment for all units and stations to change their radio's to digital.
Noon
11/11/08

Yes, and everything sounds good. Bargersville is the only dept left to go Digital. I have been told that BFD with stay Analog for a long time. BFD is a hand off dispatch center, and all of there radios are purchased by them. Hopefully some money will come through to help them out. No major issues with the system for FD's. There has been several PI's and a couple of Fires with no issues of noise.

 

[WA9JGB]

More Tg's

GFD-Fire is 48288
EFD-OP 41 is 48496

Also there are 4 more tg's that are not identified

My guess is BFD-Admin
NWFD-Admin
Trafalgar-Admin
EFD-Admin
The 4 that are left to identify is 48176, 48384, 48512, and 48480

Also 48208 is listed as Clark Fire Admin 8 and it's Needham Fire not Clark.
Needham took over Clark Twp. They call Needham Admin not Clark.

EFD only uses there Disp tg for all comm's so it may be forever until we confirm there Admin tg.
BFD and TFD are dispatched by Bargersville so again it may be a long time until we can confirm there 2 Admin tg's. As far as NWFD goes they are full time Digital so Admin comms may be easier to hear and identify.
It looks as if all Digital tg's have been identified now except the 4 that are left.

 

[DiGiTaLD]

Admin 5 and Admin 9

With the switch to the new digital voice groups, it seems that there has been a bit of a reorganization of how Admin 5 and Admin 9 are used. So far, I have only heard Greenwood FD brass on Admin 9, but it seems as though Admin 5 is now being used by both Greenwood FD and White River FD units.

 

[WA9JGB]

With the switch to the new digital voice groups, it seems that there has been a bit of a reorganization of how Admin 5 and Admin 9 are used. So far, I have only heard Greenwood FD brass on Admin 9, but it seems as though Admin 5 is now being used by both Greenwood FD and White River FD units.

You are right. GFD and WRFD are really one of the same now. They are not only dispatched out of the same center, they are also sharing territory lines. I believe very few radios have the Adm 5, but almost all have the ADM 9 tg in there radio.

 

[WA9JGB]

Bargersville Fire

When BFD added the second station they also added a second 2-tone for paging. At first it was the same tone reversed. After several tone outs from a distant station they changed the second tone. Does anyone know what the second tone is? It's a 2-tone close to the first one. Any help is appreciated.

 

[DiGiTaLD]

When BFD added the second station they also added a second 2-tone for paging. At first it was the same tone reversed. After several tone outs from a distant station they changed the second tone. Does anyone know what the second tone is? It's a 2-tone close to the first one. Any help is appreciated.

Don't know what it is, but I can tell you where that distant one was coming from. Danville, Illinois fire is on the same VHF frequency (154.175) and uses the same DPL code (023) as Bargersville. How much sense does that make?

 

[WA9JGB]

Don't know what it is, but I can tell you where that distant one was coming from. Danville, Illinois fire is on the same VHF frequency (154.175) and uses the same DPL code (023) as Bargersville. How much sense does that make?

It's hard to understand why. It's like out at the County. 154.010 no PL for fire dispatches. There are about 6 other agencies in the State on the same frequency. Why Johnson County didn't put a PL tone on the system is something I will never understand.
When I'm working I just turn it all the way down. I am not going to listen to that constant talking on that frequency. In the database it's listed as a DPL of 023 and that's not the case. I have submitted 4 or 5 times for that to be removed, and it's still showing a pl on the frequency.

 

[DiGiTaLD]

The Old Stuff!

It's hard to understand why. It's like out at the County. 154.010 no PL for fire dispatches. There are about 6 other agencies in the State on the same frequency. Why Johnson County didn't put a PL tone on the system is something I will never understand.

Tell me about it. I'm sure its not that bad now, because really you don't have to listen to it anymore, its just for tone-out for the VHF Minitor pagers now I suppose, and whoever isn't yet using MOSCAD.

I remember back in the day, before SAFE-T (and before PL decoding scanners, but it didn't matter with that frequency) I had to listen to the blowtorch VHF Hamilton County base station simulcasting traffic from the Hamilton County EDACS system's fire dispatch talkgroup just to hear White River's runs on 154.01. Back then Hamilton County was (and still is) doing exactly what Johnson County now does with the frequency - tone outs only. That's also back when Johnson County used 154.01 as the fireground in addition to the dispatch channel. It was great when they had units on a fireground and Hamilton County would key up right over top of them and Johnson County couldn't copy anything from the units in the field. Good stuff!

In the VHF days, I always thought 154.19, White River's old VHF channel (more or less analagous to today's Admin 5), would have been a better frequency for countywide dispatch. DPL it, put a repeater on it with a couple of remote receivers, and they would have had it made. Listening to it on my old carrier-squelch only scanners I only heard distant agencies' traffic on it when the band conditions were real good. Ah, the '90s, before the SAFE-T system came along and solved all the communications problems - until sites go into site trunking, that is!

Slightly OT, but in contrast to what we have around here, the county where my mom lives in Pennsylvania just transitioned from VHF low band analog simplex to UHF analog repeaters for their fire operations. Now everybody in the county - police, fire, and EMS is on the same band with common operations and dispatch repeaters available to all agencies, whereas rural fire was on VHF low, EMS was on VHF high, and the police and metro fire in the city were on UHF repeaters. They think their new system is advanced. Bet their jaws would drop if they saw what we have around here!

 

[WA9JGB]

Safe-T VS. Analog

I love Safe-T. I hated it at first because of the tg's and such. I guess I really didn't understand how it worked. For a scanner listener Safe-T is great. NO MORE SIMPLEX, no more missed traffic because they are too far away. I still am and have always been a analog fan because of the unique features. Some agencies in the County have completly gotten rid of there old radios against my will. As a Communications nut working for the County and other agencies in the County I have advised them to keep there radios as a back-up. The agencies that listened to me and others survived the Flood with little or no radio issues, and the others said well maybe we need a radio or two just in case. During the Flood the system did not fail, but has very over loaded and bonked many out of the system. Some of that was due to Priority Status's not being set right, and some due to the fact that several radios should have not been allowed to operate during a disaster. Examples being Court House, Animal Control, and the Jail. Those 3 agencies clog up more frequencies than anyone. With only about 7 frequencies to use on the Franklin tower it's very difficult to simulcast Fire dispatches at times. As a listener and a user I love the features the system has. I have always said the County has way too many tg's, but thats not my call. I guess everyone could do what Edinburgh does and use one tg for Police and one for Fire. But back on topic....Always keep those old frequencies programed in. At the Sheriff's Office we still use the old Tac 1 and 2 alot. The old Jail frequency of 158.445 is used almost 24/7 by the road officers as a chit chat channel.
Most consoles in the County still have alot of the old stuff in it. P2P, Mut Aid, Ihern etc. Very seldom does it ever get used, but I turn it up and listen in every now and then.
Sorry for the long post, and mis-spelled words.

 

[DiGiTaLD]

As a listener and a user I love the features the system has.

Very much agreed. Listening now is basically flawless and trouble free. Wasn't that way in the old days, especially when VHF high opened up!. You can control exactly what you want to hear and what you don't, and everything I really care to listen to regularly I can listen to on one site. The only thing I don't really care for is the reliance on leased T1 lines, but it is what it is. I think more voice channels at each site would be beneficial, but setting of priorities better, and even use of ruthless preemption would help also. In the days before the floods in June, the storms that ran through were also a pretty challenging time for the system in terms of traffic load, but it seemed to do fairly well.

Always keep those old frequencies programed in. At the Sheriff's Office we still use the old Tac 1 and 2 alot. The old Jail frequency of 158.445 is used almost 24/7 by the road officers as a chit chat channel.

Yup, I listen to those all the time in addition to the SAFE-T talkgroups. I use my Yaesu FT-2600M set up as a base station to scan both amateur and public safety VHF. I've got VHF Tac-1, Tac-2, Jail, and Point-to-Point, which are all used fairly frequently. ILEEN, which still gets some use from time to time and old Greenwood PD "4" are also in there (155.130 simplex, Plan-A car-to-car configuration with 103.5 PL) but that doesn't seem to be used anymore. I've got a bunch more VHF public safety in the radio that I don't scan all the time but I can add it to the list any time I want. I find using a separate radio for VHF makes for a little more efficient monitoring, especially on ILEEN and Point-to-Point, when listening to distant base stations.

 

[brentoli]

Greenwood Fire just made an announcment for all units and stations to change their radio's to digital.
Noon
11/11/08

They are still using analog for fireground communications right?

 

[WA9JGB]

They are still using analog for fireground communications right?

They are all Digital just like the rest of the County. The only exception is BFD. There FG-4 is Analog and JCF-FG3 is Analog. All others are Digital. GFD does used NPS-TAC 4 TA alot.

 

[brentoli]

They are all Digital just like the rest of the County. The only exception is BFD. There FG-4 is Analog and JCF-FG3 is Analog. All others are Digital. GFD does used NPS-TAC 4 TA alot.

I hope the fireground operations are on the Analog channel. Too many firemen getting hurt and killed because of digital radios.

 

[WA9JGB]

I hope the fireground operations are on the Analog channel. Too many firemen getting hurt and killed because of digital radios.

Very true. We have had 1 House Fire and several PI accidents with no issues at all. The issues come to play when the mics are used inside of the air masks in the structures. We have yet to have a inside attack when these types of comms have been used. The house fire was in Needham and the entry was recalled due to the structure being unstable. They were only inside for maybe 2-3 minutes.

 

[AK9R]

I heard a year or so ago that the NFPA had made a recommendation that fireground should be conducted on an analog, non-trunked channel. Anybody else heard this? Anybody have a reliable reference?

 

[WA9JGB]

I heard a year or so ago that the NFPA had made a recommendation that fireground should be conducted on an analog, non-trunked channel. Anybody else heard this? Anybody have a reliable reference?

They can recommend all they want, but it's all up to the end user. I can see them switching to a Anolog tg, but going to a non-trunked channel probably won't ever happen. Going simplex is like taking there lives into there own hand, and with todays technology it would be silly. Greenwood and County have the right idea by keeping a Analog tg......And I wonder where they got the idea.
NPS-TAC channels are user throughout the State. Mainly for FG chit chat comms. Sometimes GFD will use it inside of the Mall and other structures. I know my XTS 2500i does not receive good at all inside of the Greenwood Park Mall.

 

[ads47]

Yes the NFPA, IAFF, and IAFC recommend that. IPSC also recommends that. The obstacles that it presented before have been long overcome. Before being on a trunked/repeated system allowed for easier fireground recording in the control center. PTT ID and Emergency Status couldnt be easily done. Now all of it can be done and still remain off the system and analog, then return to the system after the fire. It just doesn't make since that you are in a building trying to talk to command 200ft away and you transmit 5 miles away to talk to them. However due to some aggressive sales tactics most communities go to trunked system with little consideration to the fireground. With a system that is spec'ed well, trunked as well as digital present little to no problems in 95%+ of situations. The problem is in the time you need it most, loud critical environments you cant get out of, analog non trunked far outperforms digital and trunked. This has been confirmed scientifically by NIST, Phoenix Fire and many of the manufacturers and in the field by alot of departments on new systems. One of the reasons so few complain is there are very few departments (until recently) that have gone from well built analog trunked systems to digital systems. Most transfer from antiquated old technology to well built digital systems, so they dont realize it could be even better in analog. The bottom line is for the user in the field of the radio (thats why we build these anyway) there is no advantage in the field to digital. The advantage is for the system owner and manager due to capacities gained etc.


ads

 

[DiGiTaLD]

That's one of the reasons why I don't understand why the fire departments here in Johnson County even went to digital talkgroups at all. Its not like they had to. The SAFE-T system is a Motorola Type II that can use both analog and digital talkgroups at all sites, not an APCO P25 system that uses exclusively digital voice end-to-end. In terms of basic communications functionality, an analog TG can do anything a digital TG can do. And since its fairly well documented that analog is better in fireground environments, why even switch?

I know some of the older, non digital voice capable radios some of the FDs were initially using on the system (MTS series for example) did not automatically roam from site-to-site as the XTS and XTL radios can. The new radios roam, but because they are also capable of using digital voice, does that mean that they have to? Nope. They could have stayed analog for as long as the SAFE-T system remains a Motorola Type II SmartZone Omnilink, which will probably be for a good long time to come.

Whatever the reasoning, its done. Let's hope it works out for everyone and nobody gets hurt or worse.