Kennebec county

[Thorndike113]

Out of all the counties I listen to, this one is most confusing. I am hoping someone can shed some light on this. In most counties, they have a county dispatch that covers most if not all towns.
Who dispatches what when it comes to fire departments in Kennebec county?

It says the Winthrop rcc dispatches for multiple towns and ive had the frequency listed (154.145) going in my radio and have never heard a thing. Its actually licensed to the kennebec SO.

Also it says Waterville uses 154.205 with a pl of 151.4. I have been 100 yards from the scene of an accident and watched fire fighters talking on their radios and but not a thing on their frequency on my radio.

Delta ambulance is another one. I have listened to all their frequencies listed and they are silent, even the one frequency listed as a repeater.

The town of Albion. Is that their fireground freq or the one they are dispatched on?

I can hear the police departments in the Waterville area on a portable radio at my house perfectly fine for the distance but fire departments are non-existent.

 

[djg320]

It is a bit of a mess as of late, I've been trying to monitor what I can and compile a meaningful spreadsheet to submit little by little to try to update things.

Licenses have changed a good bit since the narrow banding, frequency usage has definitely changed. Repeaters and mobile extenders have been deployed.

I provide the feeds for Waterville and Winslow on Broadcastify, you can listen to them and see possibly what you're missing. Waterville PD dispatches over 155.700 with a DPL of 506, that's their repeater frequency. Fire WILL dispatch over 154.205, however I have noticed their portables don't get out very well when on scene. I am not sure of the other frequencies they use once command is established.

I can't help too well with Winthrop as I'm not close, I work in Augusta and don't usually hear anything when I'm up there. The feed on Broadcastify has either been down or had issues so I cannot put two and two together.

Most of the frequencies employed are still used in some fashion but need to be updated accordingly with their new licenses for the county. Winslow is also a mess. They had to employ new repeaters when they narrowbanded and dispatch over the second frequency listed now. PW frequency is PD only now and I believe is their mobiles. PW has new frequencies and a license.

Delta does dispatch over 155.115, listen to 150.805 without a tone and you'll hear other traffic from the ambulances. They have quite a mess of radios they use with multiple licenses. There are mobile extenders in use.

 

[W1MTW]

Have you checked here? Kennebec County Fire Departments - Scan New England Wiki
You can find out who dispatches what departments, and I can see you should try 154.100 PL 114.8 for Waterville FD also. Albion according to the WIKI is their dispatch frequency.
154.145 is used by Winthrop RCC for multiple towns. Are you using open squelch, as there are different PL tones for each town?

 

[djg320]

I understand there's usually a reason for everything, but I cannot wrap my head around this mess with frequency coordination. The population density is just not there to justify it. A lot of consolidation has occurred over the last several years as well.

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[Thorndike113]

Thanks for the replies. I have a better understanding now. Seems like you have a situation of several dispatches with each fire dept in some cases having their own dispatch frequency vs say, waldo county having 2 dispatches for multiple fire departments. That gives me something to work with in sorting the mess out. I live in northwestern waldo county so I can pick up at least the northern half of Kennebec county and I also make trips to Waterville area from time to time. I will keep searching and putting together a list here and if I find anything I will submit it if its not there. I have a couple portable radios here that I am programming and one of the programs is basically the Maine state police zones including at least the fire and police dispatches. Thanks again for shedding some light on this.

 

[djg320]

Good to hear back, definitely looking forward to investing more time in the hobby. Hopefully going into the winter months we can get some good info into the database.

Keep in touch.

 

[tac9c819]

Waterville Comm Dispatches for many of the Northern County towns. Each town's fire and police have their own repeaters and frequencies. Towns they dispatch for include: Waterville Fire & Police, Winslow Fire & Police, Oakland Fire & Police, Belgrade Fire, Sidney Fire, Rome Fire, China Fire, Albion Fire, Clinton Fire & Police.

Delta has their own Dispatchers - they recently have put up two new repeaters one in Augusta and one in Oakland - their quality of reception has faded.

Augusta Police Dispatch for Augusta Fire & Police and Hallowell Fire & Police - all have their own Frequencies

Winthrop Dispatches Winthrop Fire, Ambulance & Police, Mount Vernon Fire, Vienna Fire, Wayne Fire, Manchester Fire, Readfield Fire, Fayette Fire, Monmouth Fire, Ambulance, & Police - all have their own Frequencies

Maine Department of Public Safety (MSP) dispatches All the state agencies, Kennebec Sherriff, Vassalboro Fire & Police, Gardiner Fire, Ambulance & Police, Windsor Fire, Randolph Fire, China Police, Chelsea Fire - all have their own Frequencies

Lincoln County Dispatches Litchfield Fire, West Gardiner Fire, Pittston Fire - believe all are on the same dispatch channel

Somerset County answers the majority of the landline 911 for Kennebec County. Maine State Police answers many of the 911 cell phone calls & texts

I think you will find that the database for Kennebec County is pretty accurate.

 

[djg320]

It is generally accurate, and will get the job done, but missing some newly licensed frequencies I haven't been able to monitor as of yet for tones. There are some decrepit or redundant frequencies and licenses. It's ability to give a good site picture for the area needs improvement in my opinion.

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[djg320]

Also - didn't want to take away from a great write up, did not know much about the 911 configuration.

 

[Thorndike113]

What is there is pretty accurate. I did find a couple frequencies that were not listed and I submitted them. What I did notice was the input to repeaters being listed separately as emergency or talk around frequencies. That was the part that I found confusing but I spent the time and did the research and found what the listing should really look like. Kennebec county does have a peculiar way of doing things with dispatch centers using many different frequencies for many towns instead of a universal frequency for dispatching. I live in Waldo county where everything is taken care of by a central dispatch with the State Police taking care of cell calls and sharing responsibility with law enforcement response.

 

[djg320]

You hit the nail on the head with the repeater inputs. Winslow is/was like that.

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[Thorndike113]

Yeah, Winslow was one of them like that. I usually go straight to the fcc database and look. When looking at the frequencies, you'll see FB, MO, FB2, FX1,FX2 etc. FB2 is your repeater, FX1 is the link from dispatch to the tower, FX2 is the output to the dispatch to tower link if they use a repeater on the link. If you pay attention to those little things (and there are others) you can figure out what all the frequencies listed on the database are for. That's basically what I had to do. Hope this helps a little for those trying to figure out radio frequencies.

 

[djg320]

Much obliged.