Kent County to receive $1.75 million grant to aid radio communication

[tjwgrr]

$1.75 million Homeland Security grant to aid radio communication for Kent County fire, police | MLive.com

I first thought this might be to transition Kent County to the MPSCS.

 

[Skud]

without a new tower I don't see Kent County moving over to it.

 

[drdispatch]

"...the upgrade -- the first of its kind in Michigan that he knows of..."
He don't get out much, does he?

Just some random thoughts:
So do any of the fire departments in Kent County have the DNR fireground frequency (154.295)?
Could they consolidate fire dispatching onto fewer frequencies & turn some of their fire frequencies into tac channels?
Could they install an MPSCS site at GRPD, switch all their LE to MPSCS, & use the vacated VHF police channels as fire tac channels?
If they haven't narrow-banded yet, that would be the perfect time.

They've taken some steps in the right direction by consolidating their dispatching, they just need to continue that process & now work on improving their comms.

 

[rdale]

without a new tower I don't see Kent County moving over to it.

They aren't, if you check the article he posted they are specifically not.

 

[jack3726]

That was a pretty vauge article about comms around GR. They don't really say if they are going to leverage MPSCS but I doubt that they will. What happened to the statewide fire channels that they have had for years as well as 155.370/070 on the PD side. If the FD/PD had these freqs in there respective units couldn't they communicate with each other. I think over the years the main downside was that these were not on a repeater. If you put these older interop(s) on a repeater then you would essentially have the interop that they want/need.all ready today for probably a fraction of the cost.

 

[Skud]

This was very interesting. First of it's kind that he knows of. I wonder if he doesn't know much or something really new. This will be interesting.

Grand Rapids Deputy Fire Chief Jerry Salatka said the upgrade -- the first of its kind in Michigan that he knows of -- is expected to be especially useful in large-scale emergency events involving multiple agencies.

 

[drdispatch]

That was a pretty vauge article about comms around GR. They don't really say if they are going to leverage MPSCS but I doubt that they will. What happened to the statewide fire channels that they have had for years as well as 155.370/070 on the PD side. If the FD/PD had these freqs in there respective units couldn't they communicate with each other. I think over the years the main downside was that these were not on a repeater. If you put these older interop(s) on a repeater then you would essentially have the interop that they want/need.all ready today for probably a fraction of the cost.

You can't license a repeater on 155.370 because of it being a nationwide interop frequency. Although it's not used as much anymore, since a lot of states have migrated to 800 Mhz. There used to be continuous traffic on it from Indiana - they used it a LOT.

 

[PMSCAN]

Sounds like this will be using "Black Box" Technology to patch Kent County Fire ( VHF) to Grand Rapids City Fire (UHF). Unknown if existing frequencies will be used or new " Patch" frequencies.