MARCS-IP ("New MARCS") Site and Talkgroup Discussion

[KD8FSJ]

On MARCS? I don’t know about that.

I monitored this on the calls platform. Is that thing not accurate for Ohio? Unknown/Unknown Group Calls Live

 

[mtindor]

I monitored this on the calls platform. Is that thing not accurate for Ohio? Unknown/Unknown Group Calls Live

It isn't. There is a particular BCFY Calls provider who is, against the rules, feeding another trunked system's data into the Ohio MARCS feed when in fact those talkgroups should be sent over a separate BCFY Calls session to another calls node for the county system. Been doing that for probably half a year. I messaged him about it but he basically told me to go pound salt.

Those 135/137 calls should be (and may be) going to this system:

Shelby County P25 Trunking System, Various, Ohio

Shelby County P25 Trunking System Profile

www.radioreference.com

We definitely should not be seeing them injected into the Ohio MARCS system

 

[KD8FSJ]

It isn't. There is a particular BCFY Calls provider who is, against the rules, feeding another trunked system's data into the Ohio MARCS feed when in fact those talkgroups should be sent over a separate BCFY Calls session to another calls node for the county system. Been doing that for probably half a year. I messaged him about it but he basically told me to go pound salt.

Those 135/137 calls should be (and may be) going to this system:

Shelby County P25 Trunking System, Various, Ohio

Shelby County P25 Trunking System Profile

www.radioreference.com

We definitely should not be seeing them injected into the Ohio MARCS system

I did wonder why the majority of the database showed 5000 and up. Thanks!

 

[mtindor]

I did wonder why the majority of the database showed 5000 and up. Thanks!

Specifically, it's coming from the Celina MARCS node:

Node 126: Ohio MARCS-IP: Multi-Agency Radio Communications (Site: Celina) - Live

BCFY Calls Node: Node 126: Ohio MARCS-IP: Multi-Agency Radio Communications (Site: Celina) - Live

www.broadcastify.com

The provider should be applying for a separate node for Shelby Co P25 and just sending two separate Calls streams from their SDRTrunk into Ohio MARCS (Celina) and Shelby Co P25 separately using the same instance of SDRTrunk. It's very easy to do.

 

[radioscan]

Sounds like fire/ems ops.

135 - Shelby County "TAC-1"
137 - Shelby County "TAC-3"

Apparently, you are all confused.
These are not on MARCS and does not belong in this discussion thread.
These are talkgroups for the Shelby County P25 system, and I added
137 from a submission by the Shelby County Frequency Acquisition Team (SCFAT) on Tuesday

 

[KD8FSJ]

Apparently, you are all confused.
These are not on MARCS and does not belong in this discussion thread.
These are talkgroups for the Shelby County P25 system, and I added
137 from a submission by the Shelby County Frequency Acquisition Team (SCFAT) on Tuesday

It's since been figured out.

 

[mtindor]

Apparently, you are all confused.
These are not on MARCS and does not belong in this discussion thread.
These are talkgroups for the Shelby County P25 system, and I added
137 from a submission by the Shelby County Frequency Acquisition Team (SCFAT) on Tuesday

The issue was that the person who questioned those talkgroups heard them on the MARCS BCFY Calls platform. And he actually did hear them there. Those talkgroups do not belong there. Whomever provides the Celina MARCS BCFY Calls feed is also injecting Shelby co P25 talkgroups into the same BCFY Calls feed -- and thus Shelby Co talkgroups are showing up (and have been for quite a while) on the MARCS BCFY Calls.

Mike

 

[saioke]

Found these Talkgroups monitoring the Jackson and Wellston (Indian Camp) Sites, but unfortunately I've never heard them talk. Just, that they've been registered as a "hit" in DSD+ and/or my Whistler 1065. Hope we can get them identified eventually:

7030 - Unknown
19001 - Unknown
26375 - Jackson TG I presume.
24508 - Hocking
26000 - Wellston?
26023 - jackson?
26035 - jackson?
26027 -
26035
- Jackson County?

40036 - Unknown
42568 - Unknown
48017 - Unknown
48022 - Unknown

 

[saioke]

I picked up Talkgroup 26035 and heard some speech today:

"19-07 to county, be on scene" "19-07 on scene 11:47" "19-20 to county on FD1, We're going to be using MARCS" "You're clear".

So, this is some sort of Fire-ops for the Jackson County area maybe? Or dispatch? However, there's already a talkgroup - 26025 listed as Fire Dispatch in the county. I know 26025 is a legitimate talkgroup because I've heard them before, but would that be Wellston Fire perhaps? Could this 26035 talkgroup be Jackson City's Fire Department? Maybe vise versa.

 

[mtindor]

I picked up Talkgroup 26035 and heard some speech:

"19-07 to county, be on scene" "19-07 on scene 11:47" "19-20 to county on FD1, We're going to be using MARCS" "You're clear".

So, this is some sort of Fire-ops for the Jackson County area maybe? Or dispatch? However, there's already a talkgroup - 26025 listed as Fire Dispatch in the county. I know 26025 is a legitimate talkgroup because I've heard them before, but would that be Wellston Fire perhaps? Could this 26035 talkgroup be Jackson City's Fire Department? Maybe vise versa.

According to the wiki, 1900 is wellston fire. So 19-07 and 19-20 would be Wellston fire units. I don't know if Wellston Fire is self-dispatched or dispatched by the county, but my gut feeling says they are dispatched by the county. So when they say "19-20 to County" they aren't necessarily suggesting for sure that it's a county talkgroup, but rather they are requesting a response from County (who is likely who dispatches them). So it could be a Wellston Fire TG, or a County Ops TG. Who knows. And are you positive that 26025 is Fire Dispatch ?

Jackson County (OH) - The RadioReference Wiki

wiki.radioreference.com

Fortunately you are in a good position to be the one to figure out all of these Jackson talkgroups.

Mike

 

[saioke]

According to the wiki, 1900 is wellston fire. So 19-07 and 19-20 would be Wellston fire units. I don't know if Wellston Fire is self-dispatched or dispatched by the county, but my gut feeling says they are dispatched by the county. So when they say "19-20 to County" they aren't necessarily suggesting for sure that it's a county talkgroup, but rather they are requesting a response from County (who is likely who dispatches them). So it could be a Wellston Fire TG, or a County Ops TG. Who knows. And are you positive that 26025 is Fire Dispatch ?

Jackson County (OH) - The RadioReference Wiki

wiki.radioreference.com

Fortunately you are in a good position to be the one to figure out all of these Jackson talkgroups.

Mike

Wellston FD is pretty small so I presume that they're dispatched by the county. Last I heard, they didn't have the funds to go MARCs, but that was months ago so perhaps they're getting in on the action now. I appreciate the wiki link by the way. I guess I need to browse it more often since I didn't know such information was even listed, so that's cool. We already likely know who it is then!

As far as 26025 goes, I can't say for certain that it's Fire Dispatch. I've never heard them talk. I just noticed it was added to the MARCs-IP page a week or so ago so I added it to DSD. Rdio-Scanner hasn't recorded it either. But as I said, Jackson and Wellston cities both are in the same predicament with a lack of funds, or at least I thought so. So if they miraculously got the funds to go to MARCs, I imagine it'll take a bit for them to set up their radios and become more accustomed to it.

I do know Wellston PD supposed to move to MARCs for primary communications by the end of the year, but I also heard that MARCs can be too spotty inside the local schools so maybe more work needs to be done to the Indian Camp tower.

 

[mtindor]

As far as 26025 goes, I can't say for certain that it's Fire Dispatch. I've never heard them talk. I just noticed it was added to the MARCs-IP page a week or so ago so I added it to DSD. Rdio-Scanner hasn't recorded it either. But as I said, Jackson and Wellston cities both are in the same predicament with a lack of funds, or at least I thought so.

26025 was added because you submitted it and I worked the submission. Remember, we weren't necessarily positive it was Fire Dispatch, based upon you saying that you heard them call it "XO40FIRE". I said I'd put it in as Fire Dispatch for the time being, but it might change depending upon what is heard in the future.

Mike

 

[saioke]

26025 was added because you submitted it and I worked the submission. Remember, we weren't necessarily positive it was Fire Dispatch, based upon you saying that you heard them call it "XO40FIRE". I said I'd put it in as Fire Dispatch for the time being, but it might change depending upon what is heard in the future.

Mike

Oohh right, I apologize, I'm an idiot and terrible at this lol. I completely forgotten about that. But yeah, 26025, I definitely heard XO40Fire. Rdio-Scanner didn't record it (Thinking I had it disabled in that moment.) and I haven't heard them speak since that day.

What happened was that they popped up in the Jackson County fire talkgroup on either DMR frequency 453.2875 or 453.7625. I'm thinking 453.2875 because I think .7625 is too far for me to get a good decode signal. On DMR, they said they were switching over to "XO40Fire" on MARCs because their DMR coverage was spotty, and 26025 was the talkgroup on MARCS that I heard them on.

I do wish I could've recorded them but I guess I'll just have to wait until the next time. It could be that XO40 is ops and this new 26035 is dispatch, but just a thought.

 

[W8UU]

Wellston Fire Department is a combination paid/volunteer paid-on-call department. They have three full time firefighters that serve as Chief and two Assistant Chiefs working a 24 on/48 off schedule. The rest of the rank structure is volunteer with about 25 active members. They are Jackson County's busiest fire department with around 400 calls a year. Dispatching for all* fire and EMS calls are handled by the Jackson County 911 Center. Jackson County 911 also dispatches for the sheriff's office, Wellston PD, and Oak Hill PD.

* NOTE - The city of Jackson maintains a separate radio room for police and fire dispatching but there has been discussion about moving these operations to the county 911 center. Right now, a fire call inside the city of Jackson is dispatched by the city police dispatcher. Jackson Fire also covers Lick and Franklin Townships under contract, so the county 911 center will dispatch Jackson Fire to calls outside the city limits. All fire dispatching is done on the 453.625 MHz repeater in analog mode.

There are a number of lower profile UHF repeaters throughout the county that seem to flip back and forth between analog (usually for initial fire dispatching on alternate frequencies) and MotoTrbo DMR. The idea was to give better coverage through what amounts to a poor man's voter system ("go to Channel 7 if you're on the other side of the big hill") but honestly, it's a mess to follow and figure out.

The end goal in Jackson County is for everyone to be on MARCS. With that said, just about everyone feels the need to maintain an analog UHF repeater for fire dispatching, and MARCS coverage is still spotty in certain places due to local topography. Every fire department has a few mobiles and portables but I don't believe anyone is 100% MARCS equipped yet. It's a money issue for radio purchasing and dealing with the monthly fees. You should hear more traffic on the 40 FIRE MARCS talk group as the transition continues.

Jackson County EMS is 100% on MARCS including alerts. The 453.3125 MHz repeater is still operational but unused.

I'm working on finding out what Wellston Police is doing with their communication system. They are back on the 453.675 MHz DMR repeater with the MARCS talk group seeing occasional use. This may be temporary or permanent. I'm trying to get an answer on that.

That's all for now.

 

[radioscan]

The issue was that the person who questioned those talkgroups heard them on the MARCS BCFY Calls platform. And he actually did hear them there. Those talkgroups do not belong there. Whomever provides the Celina MARCS BCFY Calls feed is also injecting Shelby co P25 talkgroups into the same BCFY Calls feed -- and thus Shelby Co talkgroups are showing up (and have been for quite a while) on the MARCS BCFY Calls.

Mike

Thanks Mike, that makes sense now.

 

[saioke]

I'm glad we have someone like you to rely on down here, otherwise we'd all probably be in the dark knowing what's going on, what frequencies are active, etc.

But yeah, I give up on properly following the fire departments, and I just have the Wellston public DMR frequency 453.2875 added, and the analog 453.625. I heard from someone that Jackson fire department will also use the DMR frequency 451.975 sometimes but I haven't heard anything come from that.

I've also seen random conventional P25 signals in the 400-500mhz range coming through on my SDR in the early morning say, 4-5am two weeks ago on a Tuesday, with TG registrations appearing as EMS and etc. But those signals went away after a few hours, with no traffic heard.

MARCS coverage is still spotty in certain places due to local topography.

I wonder what the plan would be for getting better coverage. I do know the Indian Camp site isn't a great spot to begin with, there's a lot of topography just in the location where it's currently at. I wonder if they'd try making the Indian Camp tower taller, or maybe it would be easier just to add more sites around the city to increase coverage in problem areas. Either way, all of that costs money, but I imagine that the state of Ohio should be able to help out.

 

[W8UU]

I wonder what the plan would be for getting better coverage. I do know the Indian Camp site isn't a great spot to begin with, there's a lot of topography just in the location where it's currently at. I wonder if they'd try making the Indian Camp tower taller, or maybe it would be easier just to add more sites around the city to increase coverage in problem areas. Either way, all of that costs money, but I imagine that the state of Ohio should be able to help out.

The Indian Camp site is an old Western Union installation with the two towers side-by-side and bolted together at the top to hold microwave dishes. The MARCS antennas are mounted on the side of the tower facing AWAY from Wellston. This effectively makes the metal tower a reflector that prevents reception and transmission to and from the Wellston area. Moving the antennas to the other side of the tower may create the same problem toward Wilkesville and rural Meigs County. I'm not sure why the antennas weren't placed at the top of the tower. That would give more height and eliminate directional issues. Maybe the top wasn't available. Maybe the MARCS Gods thought Wellston could be covered by towers in Jackson or McArthur. Indian Camp is 6 air miles from downtown Wellston. There is no usable MARCS portable coverage inside any of the school buildings, the city building, the police station, and much of the downtown. 700 MHz mobile repeaters were installed in the cruisers and that helps when the officer is away from the car, but not if the officer is driving and cannot access the MARCS network on the mobile radio. The best solution is a MARCS tower in Wellston. There are a number of good hilltop sites owned by the city or the school district that could be used but there is an expense in building the tower and installing radio equipment. Right now, the 453.675 MHz repeater on Cherrington Ridge covers the city like a warm blanket. It may be the permanent solution for police dispatching if adequate MARCS coverage cannot be obtained. We will see.

 

[saioke]

That explains why I can pick up the Allensville site and Jackson site much, much better than the Wellston site despite Wellston being much closer. Every time it rains, I tend to lose good reception to the Indian Camp site, and I think all the departments do too because the Jackson site tends to open up with more traffic. That being said, I think my el-cheapo magnetic antenna isn't waterproof like I thought it was. I need to get it off the roof someday and at least seal up any crevices with maybe hot glue and electrical tape.

453.675 seems to cover a long way, I can pick them up like a dream here in Hamden and DMR sounds MUCH better than MARCS does. I do hope they can figure out MARCS coverage though just for simplicity sake. I'm sure the officers don't like the idea of using multiple radios for communication, or maybe their current radios support both digital systems, not sure. Anyway, thanks for the update!

 

[wa8pyr]

The Indian Camp site is an old Western Union installation with the two towers side-by-side and bolted together at the top to hold microwave dishes. The MARCS antennas are mounted on the side of the tower facing AWAY from Wellston. This effectively makes the metal tower a reflector that prevents reception and transmission to and from the Wellston area. Moving the antennas to the other side of the tower may create the same problem toward Wilkesville and rural Meigs County. I'm not sure why the antennas weren't placed at the top of the tower. That would give more height and eliminate directional issues. Maybe the top wasn't available. Maybe the MARCS Gods thought Wellston could be covered by towers in Jackson or McArthur. Indian Camp is 6 air miles from downtown Wellston. There is no usable MARCS portable coverage inside any of the school buildings, the city building, the police station, and much of the downtown. 700 MHz mobile repeaters were installed in the cruisers and that helps when the officer is away from the car, but not if the officer is driving and cannot access the MARCS network on the mobile radio. The best solution is a MARCS tower in Wellston. There are a number of good hilltop sites owned by the city or the school district that could be used but there is an expense in building the tower and installing radio equipment. Right now, the 453.675 MHz repeater on Cherrington Ridge covers the city like a warm blanket. It may be the permanent solution for police dispatching if adequate MARCS coverage cannot be obtained. We will see.

On top of that, Jackson County would have to foot a significant part of the bill for additional sites and/or site upgrades.

The coverage problems really started when they opened the system up to local agencies, for which it was never designed. MARCS was designed for state agency use, with 97% portable in-street coverage (which it actually exceeded); state agencies, for the most part, don't need in-building coverage at the local level.

 

[saioke]

Heard a new TG earlier on the Indian Camp site, 26275. Sounds like they were checking roads for potential flooding and some other damages in the region.

Some conversations I've heard - "424 to richard" "Yeah go ahead, over. What do you need me to do?" "You wanna come up and get started on 34/35 I'm going to go up to 57 and hit the loop and 33, then work my way back towards 35/34 over."

"428 to Andy" "I copy lee, go ahead." There's a tree on 10 that's off the road, but we'll have to come back and clean it up."

"34 in from Wellston, off of 80 there, it's good so far this way I'm going to jump down to 86".

They also have jokes - "Hey randy why did the chicken cross the road?" "He didn't have anything better to do" "About got squeeeshed".

I'm not sure who this could be. Thinking it's got to be local engineers, whether Wellston, Jackson or possibly Vinton, right? AFAIK Jackson County Engineer is still using DMR though, but I haven't heard him speak on DMR for awhile. Maybe an ODOT talkgroup but their talkgroups tend to be up in the 50k range.