LA County Fire "Future Use" freqs testing

[xilix]

From a brief listen this weekend, it appears that the "Harvard Sentences" on the new freqs have stopped and there's now traffic.

I am hearing dispatch traffic on the new D2, D3 and D4 channels. Blue-1 appears to be patched to D2 - I heard Avalon traffic on the channel today. I would have thought the Avalon traffic would be on D5. Similarly, Countywide dispatch Blue-8 is patched to D3 & D4.

Also, C44, C45, and C11 have dispatch traffic.

Just a guess on my part, but I am thinking the radio techs are still testing and they want to hear how real traffic sounds thru the system, so maybe that's why the seemingly random patches ?

Anyone know of a "go live" date for this system ? With so many radios involved, including those of outside agencies, I wouldn't think it would be done during wildfire season (admittedly, is all year now).

 

[avascan522]

Since everything is patched, the new channel assignments don't directly line-up with the Blue channels. For example, Catalina traffic is mixed in with LA Basin battalions on Blue-1. In the future, "Catalina and Coastal" will have its own TRO channel. I can only speculate that in the future, D-2 and D-5 might be patched together from time-to-time since TRO's at C&C have been known to cover multiple channels during a shift. That happens currently with the Blue channels as well. Just tonight I heard Blue-5 and Blue-1 patched together, wondering why I was hearing SGV foothill traffic on Blue-1.

I do believe that the radio techs are just mixing and matching in order to semi test-run the new channels. I've heard a few hiccups with audible echoing and distortion. They will most likely want to iron-out those issues before the new config "goes live." Personally, I like the new configuration and think it will fit LACoFD much better. Even if some areas are spotty with repeater coverage, being analog conventional gives FF's the ability to use direct on the repeater output on an incident. Also easier for outside agencies to use other brands of radios and makes programming easier without multiple TRS's in the radios.