rneals
Rosco P. Coltrane
This is probably a bit unusual as a post about a radio system because I've written up a lot of detail.
As background, I was a radio systems engineer for a few years at the batwing company, and worked in technology for quite a few years.
Broadcastify Stream for CKL Fire
A broadcastify stream for Kawartha Lakes Fire is now active. Kawartha Lakes County Ontario Live Audio Feeds
It's a Uniden scanner with 5 frequencies 152.465 (Paging), 153.005 (Lindsay Tower), 150.830 (South Tower), 153.995 (Northwest Tower), 153.710 (Northeast Tower).
Northeast and Northwest towers/repeater are weak in Lindsay, largely because they are on short towers (under 100 ft).
Paging Tone-Out
Using the audio archives from Broadcastify, I ran the various paging tones thorough a PC based audio spectrum analyzer and deciphered the paging tone-outs, and figured out the numbering scheme/cap code for all 19 stations, the all call, etc. I've updated the Wiki.
wiki.radioreference.com
Pro-tip: when decoding tone outs with a frequency counter, consult the Motorola Quick Call II tone frequency chart, and find the actual reed frequency and group that is a best match for what you've measured. They will not be random frequencies, the original tone chart and precise frequencies were chosen so that audio harmonics would not falsely trigger other reeds/tones.
Kawartha Lakes Fire Paging Backgrounder:
Kawartha Lakes Fire Stations are dispatched by the Kawartha Lakes Police Service from the Police station on Victoria Avenue.
They use a telephone to dial into the paging encoder (You often hear them hang up the telephone receiver and hear telephone busy tones at the end of the page)
The paging tones/cap codes for the 19 stations (1 full-time+ volunteer/18 volunteer) are documented in the wiki.
Technical:
The telephone Paging Encoder drives a UHF link transmitter on 414.1625 which is licensed for the Cogeco/Telus tower, a 400 foot tower south of Lindsay on Hwy 35 and near the Hwy 7 intersection.
VHF Paging Drop Repeaters are licensed for:
Lindsay (Cogeco Tower) 44.314722,-78.713889 120 Meters
Pontypool (Rogers Tower) 44.107222,-78.653889 67 Meters
Bobcaygeon (Fire Hall) 44.545,-78.542222 22 Meters
Kirkfield (City Tower ) 44.558333,-78.975278 30 Meters
Kinmount (City Tower) 44.774167,-78.644722 30 Meters
Paging Coverage
The paging system doesnt even come close to covering the entire County, however, for a volunteer fire department, you primarily need paging coverage (which is a high RF level because pagers do not have external antennas) within the response area of the fire stations. That response area is about 5 minutes for VFFs to get from home to the station, so I plotted 3 mile radius circles of each stations. Looking at line-of-sight coverage from each of the paging towers, there are some substantial coverage holes in the CKL fire paging network, even when looking at just the 3 mile station response area. (Maps attached)
Carden, Coboconk, Norland, Woodville, Cameron, Burnt River, Dunsford, Omemee and Bethany are only partially covered.
Looking at one of the sites (Kirkfield - photo attached), it's obvious that this is a cheaped-out radio infrstructure in the northern part of the county using short sub-100 ft towers. The system in the southern part of the county uses Cell towers at 300-400 ft, but the use of these southern towers were done by the municipalities that existed before the City of Kawartha Lakes amalgamation. Since amalgamation, the radio infrastructure investments by Kawartha Lakes are low-end and not really of the caliber you expect in a county/city of 80,000 population.
On Frequency Page Repeaters.
The system seems to include unlicensed (Not in ISED TAFL) simplex-page-repeaters for some of these northern stations.
Having listened to the system for several weeks, pages for some of the northern stations occur on the main transmitters, and then the page is recorded, time-delayed and then repeated from a different transmitter site. A typical solution is to have a VHF base station and short tower at a fire station on the paging frequency.
Driving by the Norland Fire Station I see an unexplained UHF yagi on the fire station tower, yet nothing on UHF is licensed there in ISED databases.
On the topic of ISED Licenses, CKL Fire has their Carden Station (Dalrymple Lake, NW CKL)) location licensed with ISED as being in Peterborough County, east of Highway 28 and about 70km wrong.
There seems to be some inattention to details in many of their radio licenses, and complete lack of radio licenses for other bits.
Kawartha Lakes Fire Radio Communications Backgrounder:
Kawartha Lakes Fire is dispatched by Kawartha Lakes Police which respond to "Fire Control".
They also dispatch Kawartha Lakes Police via a VHF DMR Encrypted radio system.
From time to time you will hear the dispatcher come on a fire radio channel and call 101 or 102 which are actually KLPS police cars.
Dispatch Console:
The dispatch console at the Police Station has some of the worst audio quality that I have ever heard on a Public Safety radio system.
The audio balance between high and low frequencies is incorrect, and the microphone gain is at times cranked so high you hear telephone ringing and other conversations in the background on radio audio which makes the dispatcher unintelligible. Some of the dispatcher audio comes across great, most do not, and some should go through a dispatcher-refresher-course because they don't seem to understand how to project their voice and be consistent in addressing the microphone. (For comparison, OPP Orillia on P25 is about 4 times better sounding audio, and Lindsay CACC on analog narrow FleetNet is at least twice as good, and those are narrow-band systems - CKL Fire remains wideband)
(This is why a good console system has a VU meter on transmit audio so the dispatcher can self-monitor their transmit audio level.)
Dispatch Tower and Control Stations
The short tower at the Kawartha Lakes Police Service bristles with antennas side mounted. It's a budget sheet metal tower Delhi/Trylon.
Several of the VHF Yagi antennas are on-frequency links to the 4 Fire Repeater Towers and KLPS repeater.
The top antenna is likely the KLPS simplex back-up, the side mounted dipole is likely the Police Interoperability Consolette for KLPS to communicate with OPP via Fleetnet on the FENLON tower north of Lindsay.
This is also a low-budget/cheap design because when a dispatcher talks on one of the control stations (to a repeater), the transmit signal of that control station radio overpowers the receivers of the other control stations with antennas on the same tower, desensing and/or completely obliterating the signal from other repeaters. There are a lot of VHF frequencies at play on this tower. (KLPS repeater pair, KLPS simplex, FleetNet Fenelon OPP, 4 Fire repeater pairs)
Traditionally Public Safety base stations are wireline controlled, or wireline over microwave. This ensures that the dispatcher is always in control of the radio channel with dispatcher priority and can overcome stuck microphones etc.
A further problem includes the control station in Lindsay not having line-of-sight to the Kirkfield or Kinmount towers, resulting in a noisy radio signal from dispatch through repeater to fire trucks across the 6 stations that use the 2 northern repeaters. Combined with the poor audio quality, it seems like the fire trucks are far too frequently asking Fire Control to repeat details like addresses, or the whole transmission. Moving the northern repeaters to a 300 foot cell tower (as they do in the south part of the county) would mitigate this considerably.
Fire Repeater Towers: (All CTCSS Tones are 173.8 Hz)
Lindsay TX 153.005 / RX 150.950 (Cogeco Tower) 44.314722,-78.713889 120 Meters
Pontypool TX 150.830 / RX 151.700 (Rogers Tower) 44.107222,-78.653889 67 Meters
Kirkfield TX 153.995 / RX 171.705 (City Tower ) 44.558333,-78.975278 30 Meters
Kinmount TX 153.710 / RX 150.125 (City Tower) 44.774167,-78.644722 30 Meters
I've attached Mobile Coverage Map for the 4 repeaters. The tall towers in the south (Lindsay 120 M, Pontypool 67 M) really work well.
The "Budget" towers in the north (Kirkfield 30M, Kinmount 30M) leave a lot of mobile coverage holes.
/END
As background, I was a radio systems engineer for a few years at the batwing company, and worked in technology for quite a few years.
Broadcastify Stream for CKL Fire
A broadcastify stream for Kawartha Lakes Fire is now active. Kawartha Lakes County Ontario Live Audio Feeds
It's a Uniden scanner with 5 frequencies 152.465 (Paging), 153.005 (Lindsay Tower), 150.830 (South Tower), 153.995 (Northwest Tower), 153.710 (Northeast Tower).
Northeast and Northwest towers/repeater are weak in Lindsay, largely because they are on short towers (under 100 ft).
Paging Tone-Out
Using the audio archives from Broadcastify, I ran the various paging tones thorough a PC based audio spectrum analyzer and deciphered the paging tone-outs, and figured out the numbering scheme/cap code for all 19 stations, the all call, etc. I've updated the Wiki.
Kawartha Lakes County (ON) - The RadioReference Wiki
Pro-tip: when decoding tone outs with a frequency counter, consult the Motorola Quick Call II tone frequency chart, and find the actual reed frequency and group that is a best match for what you've measured. They will not be random frequencies, the original tone chart and precise frequencies were chosen so that audio harmonics would not falsely trigger other reeds/tones.
Kawartha Lakes Fire Paging Backgrounder:
Kawartha Lakes Fire Stations are dispatched by the Kawartha Lakes Police Service from the Police station on Victoria Avenue.
They use a telephone to dial into the paging encoder (You often hear them hang up the telephone receiver and hear telephone busy tones at the end of the page)
The paging tones/cap codes for the 19 stations (1 full-time+ volunteer/18 volunteer) are documented in the wiki.
Technical:
The telephone Paging Encoder drives a UHF link transmitter on 414.1625 which is licensed for the Cogeco/Telus tower, a 400 foot tower south of Lindsay on Hwy 35 and near the Hwy 7 intersection.
VHF Paging Drop Repeaters are licensed for:
Lindsay (Cogeco Tower) 44.314722,-78.713889 120 Meters
Pontypool (Rogers Tower) 44.107222,-78.653889 67 Meters
Bobcaygeon (Fire Hall) 44.545,-78.542222 22 Meters
Kirkfield (City Tower ) 44.558333,-78.975278 30 Meters
Kinmount (City Tower) 44.774167,-78.644722 30 Meters
Paging Coverage
The paging system doesnt even come close to covering the entire County, however, for a volunteer fire department, you primarily need paging coverage (which is a high RF level because pagers do not have external antennas) within the response area of the fire stations. That response area is about 5 minutes for VFFs to get from home to the station, so I plotted 3 mile radius circles of each stations. Looking at line-of-sight coverage from each of the paging towers, there are some substantial coverage holes in the CKL fire paging network, even when looking at just the 3 mile station response area. (Maps attached)
Carden, Coboconk, Norland, Woodville, Cameron, Burnt River, Dunsford, Omemee and Bethany are only partially covered.
Looking at one of the sites (Kirkfield - photo attached), it's obvious that this is a cheaped-out radio infrstructure in the northern part of the county using short sub-100 ft towers. The system in the southern part of the county uses Cell towers at 300-400 ft, but the use of these southern towers were done by the municipalities that existed before the City of Kawartha Lakes amalgamation. Since amalgamation, the radio infrastructure investments by Kawartha Lakes are low-end and not really of the caliber you expect in a county/city of 80,000 population.
On Frequency Page Repeaters.
The system seems to include unlicensed (Not in ISED TAFL) simplex-page-repeaters for some of these northern stations.
Having listened to the system for several weeks, pages for some of the northern stations occur on the main transmitters, and then the page is recorded, time-delayed and then repeated from a different transmitter site. A typical solution is to have a VHF base station and short tower at a fire station on the paging frequency.
Driving by the Norland Fire Station I see an unexplained UHF yagi on the fire station tower, yet nothing on UHF is licensed there in ISED databases.
On the topic of ISED Licenses, CKL Fire has their Carden Station (Dalrymple Lake, NW CKL)) location licensed with ISED as being in Peterborough County, east of Highway 28 and about 70km wrong.
There seems to be some inattention to details in many of their radio licenses, and complete lack of radio licenses for other bits.
Kawartha Lakes Fire Radio Communications Backgrounder:
Kawartha Lakes Fire is dispatched by Kawartha Lakes Police which respond to "Fire Control".
They also dispatch Kawartha Lakes Police via a VHF DMR Encrypted radio system.
From time to time you will hear the dispatcher come on a fire radio channel and call 101 or 102 which are actually KLPS police cars.
Dispatch Console:
The dispatch console at the Police Station has some of the worst audio quality that I have ever heard on a Public Safety radio system.
The audio balance between high and low frequencies is incorrect, and the microphone gain is at times cranked so high you hear telephone ringing and other conversations in the background on radio audio which makes the dispatcher unintelligible. Some of the dispatcher audio comes across great, most do not, and some should go through a dispatcher-refresher-course because they don't seem to understand how to project their voice and be consistent in addressing the microphone. (For comparison, OPP Orillia on P25 is about 4 times better sounding audio, and Lindsay CACC on analog narrow FleetNet is at least twice as good, and those are narrow-band systems - CKL Fire remains wideband)
(This is why a good console system has a VU meter on transmit audio so the dispatcher can self-monitor their transmit audio level.)
Dispatch Tower and Control Stations
The short tower at the Kawartha Lakes Police Service bristles with antennas side mounted. It's a budget sheet metal tower Delhi/Trylon.
Several of the VHF Yagi antennas are on-frequency links to the 4 Fire Repeater Towers and KLPS repeater.
The top antenna is likely the KLPS simplex back-up, the side mounted dipole is likely the Police Interoperability Consolette for KLPS to communicate with OPP via Fleetnet on the FENLON tower north of Lindsay.
This is also a low-budget/cheap design because when a dispatcher talks on one of the control stations (to a repeater), the transmit signal of that control station radio overpowers the receivers of the other control stations with antennas on the same tower, desensing and/or completely obliterating the signal from other repeaters. There are a lot of VHF frequencies at play on this tower. (KLPS repeater pair, KLPS simplex, FleetNet Fenelon OPP, 4 Fire repeater pairs)
Traditionally Public Safety base stations are wireline controlled, or wireline over microwave. This ensures that the dispatcher is always in control of the radio channel with dispatcher priority and can overcome stuck microphones etc.
A further problem includes the control station in Lindsay not having line-of-sight to the Kirkfield or Kinmount towers, resulting in a noisy radio signal from dispatch through repeater to fire trucks across the 6 stations that use the 2 northern repeaters. Combined with the poor audio quality, it seems like the fire trucks are far too frequently asking Fire Control to repeat details like addresses, or the whole transmission. Moving the northern repeaters to a 300 foot cell tower (as they do in the south part of the county) would mitigate this considerably.
Fire Repeater Towers: (All CTCSS Tones are 173.8 Hz)
Lindsay TX 153.005 / RX 150.950 (Cogeco Tower) 44.314722,-78.713889 120 Meters
Pontypool TX 150.830 / RX 151.700 (Rogers Tower) 44.107222,-78.653889 67 Meters
Kirkfield TX 153.995 / RX 171.705 (City Tower ) 44.558333,-78.975278 30 Meters
Kinmount TX 153.710 / RX 150.125 (City Tower) 44.774167,-78.644722 30 Meters
I've attached Mobile Coverage Map for the 4 repeaters. The tall towers in the south (Lindsay 120 M, Pontypool 67 M) really work well.
The "Budget" towers in the north (Kirkfield 30M, Kinmount 30M) leave a lot of mobile coverage holes.
/END
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