Luzerne County P25

One13Truck

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Yeah. The current system is a cobbled together mess of existing plus stuff that was taken over in the 90’s/2000’s when everyone was forced onto the County 911 system. I’m still not sure why a county so in debt already needed to blow this much money on a P25 stystem rather than just modernize a conventional. But that’s way above my pay grade.

It’s been in the works in various phases for about 5 years now but hasn’t really picked up steam until late 2019. I’m really curious to see how much of a chance they have at hitting the cutover goal of EOY 2021. But like I said due to life and being too busy with work I don’t run calls right now so all my intel is from others still running in various officer/peon positions in various departments. None have been told very much yet, either.
 

One13Truck

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Also if the fire and police zones stay as they are as to when they were listed in the proposals and information sent out when this goes online it’s going to be chaos. I can’t see a lot of those proposed zones and departments working on the same TGs. But I guess that’s a TBD for the future.
 

maus92

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Also if the fire and police zones stay as they are as to when they were listed in the proposals and information sent out when this goes online it’s going to be chaos. I can’t see a lot of those proposed zones and departments working on the same TGs. But I guess that’s a TBD for the future.
As a bystander, I cannot comment on the logic of a 5 or 6 zone system - I assume it is for historical / cultural / fire tax area reasons, as there is no technical reason for the zone structure. Seems complex to me.
 

W7FDX

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I read the RFP this morning and it indicates pretty ambitious coverage goals, particularly for VHF: 95/95 portable on hip with RSM inside of above grade buildings. Site density seems to support this goal; I wish them well. The consultant's report indicated substandard installation and maintenance techniques were used in the legacy system, and were supposed to be corrected in Phase 1 of the project. MCM also recommended reassigning frequencies to minimize co-channel interference and adding RF filtering where appropriate. This should help with adjacent channel interference. The new system design recommends a 5 zone system for police and fire, and a single zone for EMS. This should not be confused with the two cell simulcast implementation mentioned above - the zone structure will be implemented via tgs and subscriber programming.
A single EMS zone for a county a large as Luzerne seems like a bad idea in my opinion. I would think they should at least do north/south zones instead of a single one for the whole county.
 

HM1529

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A single EMS zone for a county a large as Luzerne seems like a bad idea in my opinion. I would think they should at least do north/south zones instead of a single one for the whole county.

Montgomery County, PA, had 81,971 EMS incidents in 2019 (last year data is online). They have one EMS response talkgroup countywide. Granted, it is rarely quiet for long, but they seem to do just fine.
 

W7FDX

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Montgomery County, PA, had 81,971 EMS incidents in 2019 (last year data is online). They have one EMS response talkgroup countywide. Granted, it is rarely quiet for long, but they seem to do just fine.
It might work just fine with one but if they're splitting FD into 5 zones and they have less calls overall compared to EMS it just doesn't make much sense.
 

One13Truck

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As a bystander, I cannot comment on the logic of a 5 or 6 zone system - I assume it is for historical / cultural / fire tax area reasons, as there is no technical reason for the zone structure. Seems complex to me.

Goes back to the olden days where nobody plays well with others one day but is best friends the next. The run cards are still buddy boxes and atrociously done. Add in geography and poor apparatus fleet planning in some areas the regional thing still kind of makes sense. Sort of.
 

One13Truck

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A single EMS zone for a county a large as Luzerne seems like a bad idea in my opinion. I would think they should at least do north/south zones instead of a single one for the whole county.

I can’t wait to see that in real life. Even back in the day where a lot of EMS used County Fire & Ambulance as their main channel it was hard to find open air at times. I have a feeling the EMS will go from one to an equal number of fire zones or at least close fairly quickly. I would say at least a North/Central/South.
 

One13Truck

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Montgomery County, PA, had 81,971 EMS incidents in 2019 (last year data is online). They have one EMS response talkgroup countywide. Granted, it is rarely quiet for long, but they seem to do just fine.
MontCo is also better trained and has better radio protocols and radio etiquette as well. Some do here. Others? Let’s just say it takes them 5 minutes and at least 1219 radio transmissions just to say they’re 10-17 and repeat again when 10-23.
 

One13Truck

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Also still nothing heard on those found channels so far. One of these years before I get much old(er) I need to learn the dongle monitoring thing. Learning tgat is a bucket list item I never seem to have the time to properly dedicate to.

But as of now even as chatter finally picks up on the new state system in NEPa the SDS 100 and 200 have heard nothing on this just yet.
 

ra7850

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Also still nothing heard on those found channels so far. One of these years before I get much old(er) I need to learn the dongle monitoring thing. Learning tgat is a bucket list item I never seem to have the time to properly dedicate to.

But as of now even as chatter finally picks up on the new state system in NEPa the SDS 100 and 200 have heard nothing on this just yet.
The dongle thing "SDR" isn't that complex. Take a look at this device, SDRPlay, RSPdx it has its own software suite so that you're listening easier and much faster, as opposed to the high learning curve, I love it. Don't et me wrong, it still has a learning curve, but it is IMO far more easier. Check out HRO, ham radio outlet, they have them available, that's where I got mine. They have models that have 2 tuners as well. I'm going to get the other model with the 2 tuners, RSPduo shortly.
 
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One13Truck

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The dongle thing "SDR" isn't that complex. Take a look at this device, SDRPlay, RSPdx it has its own software suite so that you're listening easier and much faster, as opposed to the high learning curve, I love it. Don't et me wrong, it still has a learning curve, but it is IMO far more easier. Check out HRO, ham radio outlet, they have them available, that's where I got mine. They have models that have 2 tuners as well. I'm going to get the other model with the 2 tuners, RSPduo shortly.

I keep saying I need to sit down some weekend and figure it out but never seem to have the time. One of these years. Maybe I’ll have to see what happens first. This system goes online or I finally find the time to get this figured out.
 

One13Truck

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Sorry for the unicorn barf coloring but I whipped this up in a few minutes on break from work today. It maps out the current fire zones for comparison to the proposed zones.

Currently BLS or ALS will use whatever zone the call is located in for operations. They currently don’t technically have designated zones of their own.
Wilkes Barre is somewhat an island on it’s own but will switch to other channels if being requested out of the city. Fire or EMS going into the city from outside agencies will switch over to Wilkes Barre Fire.
Plymouth Twp no longer has fire or EMS services based in the township. It’s split based on the location of the call in the township. I split it basically into thirds for ease. EMS is primarily from Medic 25 in Nanticoke on Fire North.
Conyngham Township is split between Mountain Top for the Hobbie section and Fire West for the Mocanaqua section.
Franklin Twp is covered by Northmoreland Station 140 out of Wyoming County. They would only use Luzerne County channels (mostly Back Mountain or Fire East) when placed onto boxes in other towns. Luzerne County units going into Franklin would normally switch over to Wyoming County channels once they Luzerne County they’re 10-17 or 10-23.

Luzerne County Fire and Ambulance is countywide channel for units to use if there’s a working incident on a fire zone. Some zones are much better at remembering fire grounds exist than others. EMS units on the working call will usually switch here and units on any other calls on the zone with the working incident will usually be told to use this with varying success. It’s also used as a landing zone channel a majority of the time rather than have the fire zones tied up. And it will also occasionally be used by out of county units coming into the county if they have no access to the other fire zones.
 

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One13Truck

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Back closer to the actual topic. As of yesterday my admittedly not so great abilities to navigate licensing has still found nothing other than what’s already known. And also as of last night my weekly checking for any recodings caught on the know frequencies still has zero hits. So all appears to still be quiet.
 

smorris

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A single EMS zone for a county a large as Luzerne seems like a bad idea in my opinion. I would think they should at least do north/south zones instead of a single one for the whole county.
Monroe Co has a single channel for EMS dispatch, it works well. I imagine though over in Luzerne, W-B has a channel for EMS seperate from the rest of the county.
 

maus92

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Depends on how much call detail is transmitted as voice. CAD systems can publish notes to EMS units, which cuts down on voice radio traffic.
 
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