Kerr County Texas (New Thread late 2023)

[TLR2019]

I will unzip this when I get back home.. looks very interesting. 10.2 kilo

 

[boernegang]

So what is Kerr County SO doing for comms while this get's setup?? I was in Kerrville today and did not hear any traffic on the LCRA SO TG. I also did not hear any traffic, except a KFD pageout, on the VHF frequencies. Guess I should have checked LCRA for patches but you know how clear hindsight is!!

 

[rattlerbb01]

So what is Kerr County SO doing for comms while this get's setup?? I was in Kerrville today and did not hear any traffic on the LCRA SO TG. I also did not hear any traffic, except a KFD pageout, on the VHF frequencies. Guess I should have checked LCRA for patches but you know how clear hindsight is!!

Are you sure they weren't on 155.085 NAC 365 still? They were a week ago even though it was showing up as a voice and data channel on the GATRRS site.

I'm honestly not sure how this plays out in the long run. I can say that besides Hwy 16 and 173 south to Bandera/Medina where I haven't driven to check signals, the LCRA system still has pretty dang good coverage everywhere else in the county. Kerrville, Hunt, Harper, Comfort and Boerne do a pretty good job of covering all the North, West and East portions of the county from my travels in the last year, with excellent coverage in the city. The SO VHF conventional system is also very good in all those mentioned areas. Kerrville's and the County VFD's regional repeaters do the deed for their areas as well. I know that the SO, Road and Bridge, Constables and VFDs will be operating on GATRRS for the county's investment to pay off, but the wildcard is Kerrville Fire for their countywide EMS response area and which system suits them best for both operating in the county coverage area and talking to the other first responders.

 

[TLR2019]

For the longest time 155.085 was VHF so main. But it was converted like mid February... So I can tell you that is not NAC 365 anymore.... As of activity on the new truck sys.... I saw some on abig wreck toward Medina. But have not tuned in since, and saw activity on a county repeater. That was shared with a VFD fire com

 

[rattlerbb01]

I can tell that 10041 and 10042 on the LCRA system are related to the county somehow. Calls has captured a couple tests in the last few days from a GATRRS radio ID in the 627XXXX range coming up on those talkgroups identifying as radio maintenance. The last time 10004 was seen on Calls was 2/17 with a 999XXX radio ID which indicates a VHF patch most of the time on LCRA.

Another interesting talkgroup is 10024. It is sandwiched in the Kerrville Fire and EMS talkgroups, but the traffic Calls has recorded appears to be buses, possibly from a private school or daycare/after school care. They identify as "Red, Blue, Orange, Grey, Brown" etc and only pop up at 6-7 AM and 4-5 PM.

 

[rattlerbb01]

I’ve captured some brief GATRRS transmissions on 46301 that appears to be SO 1, and 46330 seems to be EMS related. The system is still definitely a work in progress. The control channel drops data briefly every 30 seconds or so and doesn’t switch channels during the brief drops. Only caught 8 total transmissions all night and I have a good signal with my new rooftop antenna north of Boerne.

 

[boernegang]

Looking at Unitrunker on Boerne LCRA site today to see if there were any patches created for today's incident in Boerne and I see that Kerr SO LCRA tg 10004 was active again.

 

[rattlerbb01]

Looking at Unitrunker on Boerne LCRA site today to see if there were any patches created for today's incident in Boerne and I see that Kerr SO LCRA tg 10004 was active again.

Yeah I caught that, I also caught ICE National TAC 3 heavily used in town on 163.1125 NAC 169 as well as one of their nearby 172.8625 NAC 301 repeaters busy with data bursts. All completely encrypted and not patched, just like you said.

 

[rattlerbb01]

46330 may be fire dispatch, heard fire unit asking if they were live, and dispatch replied yes, she could tone over the new system
46331 is referred to as "OPS 1" and had same fire unit ID it as such

46301 is SO 1 and radio maintenance referred to his transmission as "non-encrypted" which is a bad sign.......hopefully they limit it on primary
46302 is SO 2 and is completely encrypted so far, caught a lot of transmissions on Calls but they are all secure.

 

[rattlerbb01]

Question for some of the GATRRS guys on here, why does the control channel switch to the alternate every few minutes for 3-5 seconds before reverting to the primary? I’m seeing this for about a week between 155.385 and 155.550 on site 2.22. The rollout is still in the testing phase from my logs.

 

[rattlerbb01]

Just a hunch, I’m seeing 155.415 is still linked to TG 10001 with both sides encrypted. It is super busy, I think the SO is hiding out here for primary ops for now since their old repeater pairs have been repurposed for GATRRS.

 

[TLR2019]

I've noticed PD is linked to gatrrs... The channel would activate when SO wasn't using it, and still on the county repeater... I've been busy but I'll try to monitor a little more

 

[rattlerbb01]

I've noticed PD is linked to gatrrs... The channel would activate when SO wasn't using it, and still on the county repeater... I've been busy but I'll try to monitor a little more

You're saying KPD is linked to GATRRS? As in 155.415/LCRA TG 10001 is linked to the new county simulcast on GATRRS? I haven't noticed it yet myself if so, but I only have a calls node up and am not logging events on DSD since its on my Pi 5.

As of right now, all I've noticed is that 155.085 and 155.550 are no longer on the air conventionally at all from what I've listened for, and GATRRS is still being tested out at this time. I haven't seen 10004 on LCRA used recently but 10001 is running non-stop in full encryption lately. I don't think that's too big of a deal for dispatch, since Kendall County has everything here plus Fair Oaks Ranch, which is mostly in Bexar County, all run off one talkgroup. But when they get the bugs worked out I'll start logging all the activity through the calls node.

 

[TLR2019]

I have a big hunch that it's just got to be linked..
Cause of how SO and PD work so closely together down here. With my waterfall I can watch the GATRRS Channels light up when PD keys up every time.. as for Kerr so ch1 and ch2 conventionals, yes they are definitely reconfigured. I'd even recommend we update the data base since they are now trunk assigned with the new License.

 

[TLR2019]

159.135

Is the frqz where I noticed they operating during the time being

 

[rattlerbb01]

159.135

Is the frqz where I noticed they operating during the time being

Are they using the P25 side? NAC 365? Firecom only has DPL 365 in the database, I have never put those Firecom repeater outputs into search mode to investigate.

 

[TLR2019]

I'll have to check. I did notice fire personnel... I believe turtle Creek was on the same channel for the backup sheriff dispatching... When I was in Ingram volunteer fire. It was told me they can operate on digital

 

[rattlerbb01]

I’ll give the fire channels a digital search and see if anything hits.

 

[rattlerbb01]

Ok, I had some time to play with my antenna and confirmed 159.135 NAC 365 is where the SO is operating for the time being. I did not catch any traffic on 155.7975 which is the repeater that is closer to me in Comfort and is otherwise linked to the Central and West repeaters on the analog fire side.

In other news, the GATRRS site is down and it appears they are testing all 4 repeaters with continuous data streams. Probably part of the coverage testing, this is the first time I've noticed it. The last transmission was on 4/1 at 4 PM.

 

[TLR2019]

today i recognized .... As for 155.415 = LCRA TG 10001
155.415/416 is the Kerrville PD conventional channel happens to be sandwiched between the Gattrs frequencies..