Lots of activity this morning, tg1074( Radio Service) testing patches to and from various counties on the KSCIS system. Patches to vhf, uhf and 800 being tested off the 207 site. Including one test to Doniphan county for mutual aid on 867.5125 analog. Sounds like this system is going from complicated to transparent if all the links are succsesful. True push button interop? Sounds more and more likely.
The Motobridge system is supposed to be a neat IP based interop system. And it is not actually part of KSICS, but a stand alone system that will be operable statewide by the end of this year. Each of the KDOT tower sites will have an 800 analog, UHF, VHF high band and even old VHF-low band (39.58 and 39.70)portal installed.
KDOT is supposed to be putting out a guide to local agencies that will show a map of the state with the tower sites including which MA channels are used for each site. The only cost to local agencies will be the reprogramming of their radios to include the national mutual aid channels (UHF, VHF, 800 etc) if they don't have them already.
To activate the system, a user will call in on one of the MA calling channels and request they patch they want. The KHP Central Dispatch Center in Salina will then route the call and give the user directions on which freq to go to. They can then patch them to any one of the other portals (KSICS, 800, UHF, VHF etc or any combination of portals) on any other tower site in the state. In this way, a Johnson County Fire Chief in Lenexa could get on a V-TAC channel and talk to his crews at a disaster scene in western Kansas (such as Greensburg last year).
I am interested to see if the system will also allow patches into the Johnson County, Wyandotte County, Shawne County and Sedgwick County trunked systems as they are hard-lined into the KHP dispatch center.
Really a neat system- it will be interesting to see how much it is used.