Maybe I was thinking I heard MARCS won't share existing cell towers or add antennas on water towers??? I do believe it's a requirement to have backup power for the tower site.
MARCS-IP ("New MARCS") Site and Talkgroup Discussion
No reason they can't have backup power at either of those. But they do share existing towers and do use water towers.
Then was Fairfield County sold a bill of goods when it had to build an $850K tower when there are cell towers in the area and a State owned tower near the new tower site?
Without more information you can't make that determination:
Did the existing towers have enough reserve structural capacity to support another tenant? Microwave dishes can use up a lot of structural capacity.
Are the existing towers built to TIA-222 Category III standards? Most cell towers are only cat II, public safety usually specifies the more stringent cat III standard.
Was the desired antenna height (rad center) available?
Were existing tower rental rates reasonable? The last time I received a quote from American Tower for 3 omnis & 2 MW dishes the estimate was $ 6,600 a month and that was 12 years ago.
How much of the $850k price tag was equipment costs that you would have also incurred on a rental site? Even with a rental tower you would still be purchasing a shelter, generator, antennas, feedlines and all the electronics inside the building. The difference between own or rent should be much smaller than the total project cost.
OK. I guess existing structures wouldn't meet requirements. Thanks for the education. 👍
gtaman
Member
If anyone wants to check these before I submit
Franklin County
61197 LCK AIRFIELD MAINT
61242 Animal Control Tac 3
Franklin County
61197 LCK AIRFIELD MAINT
61242 Animal Control Tac 3
61242 is Capital Area Humane Society.
Always felt the system was woefully under funded with high entry costs, despite the sales pitch of state grant money available.
Here’s the list of 2022 state fire marshal grants. Some of these seem so small they’d barely be able to purchase a single portable. Some counties, like Summit, were completely hosed.
Here’s the list of 2022 state fire marshal grants. Some of these seem so small they’d barely be able to purchase a single portable. Some counties, like Summit, were completely hosed.
Portage County Fire Departments a big winner in the grant battle.
Actually, those grant amounts may seem small, but I suspect most of them are intended to add Radio Authentication to existing radios (Radio Authentication aka Link Layer Authentication has been mandated to be in place by mid-2025).
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True. That was authorized within this grant and capped at $70/per radio.
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Cuyahoga Falls runs on their own Fireground TG, South side of summit county does operate on MAC TG, Akron itself runs encrypted, so you can't hear jack. Valley Fire also uses MAC TG. I don't know about portage county.
Unless their using direct channels? "MARCS Talk Around"? In Columbus area they call them direct A, B or C. In some areas in-building coverage is nil and they use those Pyramid or Motorola "convertacom" type devices where all ops is on a direct channel and a command unit has the repeater device that repeats the direct channel to a TG. This is just a general response as I'm not from that area.
Portage County is using "MTA-1" as their Fireground communications. It is simplex. Aurora uses Geauga Co's "7-TA" simplex. Twinsburg uses Summit Co's "P25 T/A" simplex.
Kent Fire and Stow Fire routinely use Summit MAC channels for their joint operations.
It’s these:
| .20625 | RM | 245 DPL | MARCSRP2 | MARCS mobile interop repeater 2 | FMN | Interop | |
| 852.13750 | WPWP626 | M | 293 NAC | M TA-1 | MARCS Talkaround | P25 | Multi-Talk |
| 852.36250 | WPWP626 | M | 293 NAC | M TA-2 | MARCS Talkaround | P25 | Multi-Talk |
| 853.65000 | WPWP626 | M | 293 NAC | M TA-3 | MARCS Talkaround | P25 | Multi-Talk |
You won’t hear them unless you are close as they are simplex channels.
I think I misread his question. Yea, I'm never close enough to even see if the M TA channels are in use.
The following were added to the DB today:
32524 - FD52WFD - Wadsworth Fire Department
32521 - PD52WPD - Wadsworth Police Department
No idea if they are Dispatch or Tac. Wadsworth had been on the Parma / Medina County / Ottawa County trunked system. I can't find any public documents suggesting that Wadsworth switched.
I am working on dialoging with the submitter regarding these two talkgroups.
Mike
32524 - FD52WFD - Wadsworth Fire Department
32521 - PD52WPD - Wadsworth Police Department
No idea if they are Dispatch or Tac. Wadsworth had been on the Parma / Medina County / Ottawa County trunked system. I can't find any public documents suggesting that Wadsworth switched.
I am working on dialoging with the submitter regarding these two talkgroups.
Mike
Looking at Calls, there have been a handful of testing calls, starting at 2/1/2022 11:54:46 AM for 32521, but no identifier as to use. I see nothing in the past week for 32524. I also haven't seen anything on council's agenda as such.