WeldGuy

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Aug 12, 2009
Messages
226
Location
Canal Winchester, Ohio
I stopped by last Friday (12/4) and it looks like all the hard line coax is installed and the strobe light is permantly working now. Electric power has been run into the building. There is a smaller concrete pad and I'm wondering if a backup generator will go there. The mystery is there is a muffler on the outside of the building for an internal backup generator. The building is USED and relocated from a Highway Patrol post in New Philadelphia according to an existing sign on the door. That's why I am suspecting the additional pad will be for a generator. There were no workers around. If things are quiet in the morning I'll head out there and hopefully get more info from workers.
 

wa8pyr

Technischer Guru
Staff member
Lead Database Admin
Joined
Sep 22, 2002
Messages
6,982
Location
Ohio
I stopped by last Friday (12/4) and it looks like all the hard line coax is installed and the strobe light is permantly working now. Electric power has been run into the building. There is a smaller concrete pad and I'm wondering if a backup generator will go there. The mystery is there is a muffler on the outside of the building for an internal backup generator. The building is USED and relocated from a Highway Patrol post in New Philadelphia according to an existing sign on the door. That's why I am suspecting the additional pad will be for a generator. There were no workers around. If things are quiet in the morning I'll head out there and hopefully get more info from workers.

If there's a muffler sticking out of the building, the backup generator is inside (in a smaller room to the right or left of the radio room). You would also probably see a big hood which covers the air intake for the generator room.

MARCS uses propane for all of their sites (unless the shelter was inherited from an earlier system of some sort), so depending on how far away from the building it is, the smaller concrete pad is probably for the propane tank.
 

GregOH

Member
Joined
May 16, 2014
Messages
421
Location
New Phila, OH
Question about Public Works...

Do snow plows, salt trucks, and road crews use the Marcs-IP County Engineer talkgroups or do they still use the UHF low band frequencies, or would they be on ODOT talkgroups?
 

mtindor

OH/WV DB Admin
Database Admin
Joined
Dec 5, 2006
Messages
10,362
Location
Carroll Co OH / EN90LN
Question about Public Works...

Do snow plows, salt trucks, and road crews use the Marcs-IP County Engineer talkgroups or do they still use the UHF low band frequencies, or would they be on ODOT talkgroups?

ODOT uses their own talkgroups on MARCS (and they have a ton of them). For county/city road crews, there are plenty of them on MARCS and then still plenty of them on VHF/UHF conventional. If a whole county is on MARCS (those simulcast counties), typically the county road crews are on MARCS or on whatever simulcast trunked system they are on. But that's not always true either . Jefferson Co public safety are all on MARCS, but I think their engineer traffic is still on VHF. IT's hit or miss, except for ODOT - which is totally on MARCS (except for flaggers that use UHF simplex).

Mike
 

GregOH

Member
Joined
May 16, 2014
Messages
421
Location
New Phila, OH
ODOT uses their own talkgroups on MARCS (and they have a ton of them). For county/city road crews, there are plenty of them on MARCS and then still plenty of them on VHF/UHF conventional. If a whole county is on MARCS (those simulcast counties), typically the county road crews are on MARCS or on whatever simulcast trunked system they are on. But that's not always true either . Jefferson Co public safety are all on MARCS, but I think their engineer traffic is still on VHF. IT's hit or miss, except for ODOT - which is totally on MARCS (except for flaggers that use UHF simplex).

Mike
I have Stark, Coshocton, Wayne and Tuscarawas Engineers programmed and I can also easily add the ODOT conventional frequencies. If I have to have ODOT talkgroups programmed to hear state plow trucks, I'll probably have to buy a pc and use a software program to program them to the scanner because I'm using a Linux machine.
 

mtindor

OH/WV DB Admin
Database Admin
Joined
Dec 5, 2006
Messages
10,362
Location
Carroll Co OH / EN90LN
I have Stark, Coshocton, Wayne and Tuscarawas Engineers programmed and I can also easily add the ODOT conventional frequencies. If I have to have ODOT talkgroups programmed to hear state plow trucks, I'll probably have to buy a pc and use a software program to program them to the scanner because I'm using a Linux machine.

Or you could just choose the ODOT talkgroups that you really need. There is no need to have every ODOT talkgroup programmed in. Probably only need to program in the ones for the specific counties you care about.

As far as ODOT conventional, unless there are flaggers within a mile or less of you, you'll probably never hear anything on their conventional. They are low power handhelds that flaggers use.

You do have to have ODOT talkgroups programmed in to hear state plow trucks, but again you can pick and choose based upon district and county.

Mike
 

GregOH

Member
Joined
May 16, 2014
Messages
421
Location
New Phila, OH
Or you could just choose the ODOT talkgroups that you really need. There is no need to have every ODOT talkgroup programmed in. Probably only need to program in the ones for the specific counties you care about.

I agree, and those will be the ones I'm looking for.

My main hurdle may be programming them to the SDS100, because I don't think it can be done by hand or if it can be, I'm unsure how to do it (maybe talk group id search mode will do it).
 

WeldGuy

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Aug 12, 2009
Messages
226
Location
Canal Winchester, Ohio
If there's a muffler sticking out of the building, the backup generator is inside (in a smaller room to the right or left of the radio room). You would also probably see a big hood which covers the air intake for the generator room.

MARCS uses propane for all of their sites (unless the shelter was inherited from an earlier system of some sort), so depending on how far away from the building it is, the smaller concrete pad is probably for the propane tank.
We drove out today and were disappointed to see no additional progress made since last week. The unoccupied pad has two runs of plastic conduit from it to the electrical entrance of the control building... One about 1inch and the other about 3 or 4 inch (same as what is buried from the utility pole). That's why I thought a generator would be located there. I imagine the site will need to be fenced in too.
 

jjbllitz

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Jul 19, 2017
Messages
38
Location
Baltimore, Ohio
We drove out today and were disappointed to see no additional progress made since last week. The unoccupied pad has two runs of plastic conduit from it to the electrical entrance of the control building... One about 1inch and the other about 3 or 4 inch (same as what is buried from the utility pole). That's why I thought a generator would be located there. I imagine the site will need to be fenced in too.
Well that is disappointing. Was hoping to play with some SDR stuff using this site over my Christmas vacation. Currently where I live west of Baltimore, I'm really not able to get a good signal from any of the other towers around me. So hoping this new tower will help coverage here.

Thanks for checking on it.
 

sopranosno1

Member
Joined
Dec 19, 2002
Messages
590
Picking up 58299 montgomery county. Street dept talking about snowplows. Heard going up 49. thinking this may be phillipsburg.
 

GregOH

Member
Joined
May 16, 2014
Messages
421
Location
New Phila, OH
Well, i was trying to get odot for franklin on a sds100. I believe i got the tgid in but when i try it says nothing to scan.
If you press the menu button on the side and then press the knob on Set Scan Selection and then rotate the knob to highlight Select Lists to Monitor and press the knob, does MARCS show ON?
 

Servius618

Member
Feed Provider
Joined
Feb 3, 2020
Messages
5
Location
Mineral Ridge, OH
Some news about he admin side of the MARCS system.

There will be a steering committee meeting.
Tuesday, December 22, 2020
Time: 10:30 AM

Source:

Looks like the last one was two years ago?

New Partnerships
a.Stark County
b.Summit County
c.Tuscarawas County
d.Richland County
e.Trumbull
f.Greater Cleveland RTA

Infrastructure Updates
a.Jesse Owens State Park
b.Clinton County
c.Fayette County
d.Fairfield County
e.Trumbull
f.Richland County
g.Miami County
h.Cuyahoga County

Link to Agenda
 

Attachments

  • 1608238887394.png
    1608238887394.png
    102.5 KB · Views: 22
  • 1608238896675.png
    1608238896675.png
    399.1 KB · Views: 24

a388sig2

Member
Joined
Jul 15, 2004
Messages
293
Some news about he admin side of the MARCS system.

There will be a steering committee meeting.
Tuesday, December 22, 2020
Time: 10:30 AM

Source:

Looks like the last one was two years ago?

New Partnerships
a.Stark County
b.Summit County
c.Tuscarawas County
d.Richland County
e.Trumbull
f.Greater Cleveland RTA

Infrastructure Updates
a.Jesse Owens State Park
b.Clinton County
c.Fayette County
d.Fairfield County
e.Trumbull
f.Richland County
g.Miami County
h.Cuyahoga County

Link to Agenda

Also of note, they require an to email the MARCS program director to receive a link to the Microsoft Teams virtual meeting.
 
Top