Maryland FIRST 700mhz TRS

[boatbod]

Not for long I suspect...

Right on the money.
QA Law is already fully encrypted across all tgids. Talbot Law Tac tgids are now encrypted although Law Dispatch and EPD are still clear for now. Not sure about Caroline - I think they are still clear. That said, a friendly blue birdie did hint that Talbot Law was considering fully encrypting too.

 

[Dispatcher308]

Thank You!

Also it was a concerted effort between multiple agencies to get everything back up at multiple sites for those agencies, MIEMSS had a small part in restoring their equipment. SHA, MDFirst, MSP DNR, Allegany County DES and private entities all responded.

 

[tolley]

Certainly looks like local LEOs will be encrypted. God knows it's needed in that hot bed of crime known as Dorchester County. Meanwhile, neighbors to the north, south and east are in the clear.

Yeah got to keep it hush hush when they are doing patrol checks at Dunkin Donuts at 2AM.

 

[boatbod]

Update on the Dorchester cutover: LEO, Fire & EMS were all switched over on Tuesday. Busses and some other local-authority services are still running on the old 800 Mhz system.

 

[MIEMSSTECH]

No Sir, I drove 731 miles Thursday and Friday, my coworker had to drive out Wednesday and Thursday and had about the same amount of mileage.

MIEMSS have a small dedicated staff supporting the entire state out of Baltimore. While the lightning strikes were particularly violent, daily equipment maintenance and repairs keeps our staff roaming the state on a daily basis. Only through partnerships developed over the years between state and local radio technicians are we able to respond to emergencies in a timely fashion.

 

[riveter]

MIEMSS have a small dedicated staff supporting the entire state out of Baltimore. While the lightning strikes were particularly violent, daily equipment maintenance and repairs keeps our staff roaming the state on a daily basis. Only through partnerships developed over the years between state and local radio technicians are we able to respond to emergencies in a timely fashion.

And brilliantly you all do.

 

[ThePhotoGuy]

Passed through Dorchester today.

12431 was pretty active with full encryption on Talbot & Dorchester Sites. I think 12431 is Dorchester Law Dispatch (ENC), 12432 Law Tac 2 (ENC), 12433, Law Tac 3 (ENC).


Cambridge PD had talkgroups on the old system. 12441 was active a bit. 12441 should be Cambridge PD. With 12442 & 12443 Cambridge Law Tac's.

 

[ThePhotoGuy]

Are the Berlin Police, Worcester Sheriff, OC Police, Ocean Pines Patches still in service? I didn't catch any activity on them while I was down on Saturday. I know the plan was to deactivate them when their P25 systems were in place.

I did notice that the Somerset talkgroups were all still active on FiRST and fully encrypted.

 

[de784]

Is cambridge pd going encrypted also?

 

[maus92]

Are the Berlin Police, Worcester Sheriff, OC Police, Ocean Pines Patches still in service? I didn't catch any activity on them while I was down on Saturday. I know the plan was to deactivate them when their P25 systems were in place.

I did notice that the Somerset talkgroups were all still active on FiRST and fully encrypted.

I logged (denied) hits on the Worcester Co Sheriff TG today at 1:07 and 2:46 via the Talbot site. Back in Feb, I logged numerous hits on OCPD North TG from the OC site.

I logged activity on various Somerset Co TGs back in January via the Worcester - Somerset site.

I haven't logged any activity on either Berlin or Pocomoke TGs since last summer.

 

[emtLarmy15]

All the patches for Worcester were taken down a little while back. Kind of stinks for MSP as they can’t hear anyone anymore without switching to County system (of course then they cant hear the barrack). I realize it’s this way in most every other county in the state that has separate system for FiRST but no other county operates as police agencies like in Worcester... it creates officer safety issues that haven’t existed before when we were all together on edacs. Many times Sheriffs office has 3 people and MSP 2 which means we back each other up a lot. Way more than most other places. Just sad to go backwards for daily use.

 

[maus92]

All the patches for Worcester were taken down a little while back. Kind of stinks for MSP as they can’t hear anyone anymore without switching to County system (of course then they cant hear the barrack). I realize it’s this way in most every other county in the state that has separate system for FiRST but no other county operates as police agencies like in Worcester... it creates officer safety issues that haven’t existed before when we were all together on edacs. Many times Sheriffs office has 3 people and MSP 2 which means we back each other up a lot. Way more than most other places. Just sad to go backwards for daily use.

Are you saying that prior to FIRST, the troopers and deputies were operating on a common TG?

 

[emtLarmy15]

Prior to first everyone operated on Edacs, separate talkgroups but everyone scanned each other and knew what each other had going on.

When first came online and msp went to it, we at least still had patches in/out of edacs and then wor p25. Now the patches are gone. We can still hear msp (at least for now) but they can’t hear us.

In small counties we operate together on a daily basis as opposed to the counties across the bay where it’s not the case.

I understand FiRST doesn’t want to patch basically an entire second system Into theirs but in the long run we are not as interoperable as we were before.

I know some naysayers will say the county should have gone on FiRST. I don’t agree with it. THe coverage is just not there that we have (and for less money). Going on FiRST was explored but it was far cheaper to build a stand alone system.

 

[maus92]

Prior to first everyone operated on Edacs, separate talkgroups but everyone scanned each other and knew what each other had going on.

When first came online and msp went to it, we at least still had patches in/out of edacs and then wor p25. Now the patches are gone. We can still hear msp (at least for now) but they can’t hear us.

In small counties we operate together on a daily basis as opposed to the counties across the bay where it’s not the case.

I understand FiRST doesn’t want to patch basically an entire second system Into theirs but in the long run we are not as interoperable as we were before.

I know some naysayers will say the county should have gone on FiRST. I don’t agree with it. THe coverage is just not there that we have (and for less money). Going on FiRST was explored but it was far cheaper to build a stand alone system.

I would have liked to see the cost comparisons when the evals were done, and how many extra sites FIRST would have had to add at county expense (roughly $750K per new tower site.)

I hadn't thought about scanning between TGs. Did the troopers have EDACS mobiles as well as portables? I suppose the troopers and deputies can keep their portables on their department TGs, and their mobiles on each other's TGs to at least mitigate the situation.

 

[emtLarmy15]

They did have both mobiles and portables on EDACS. The county provided them.

That’s what some of the troopers are doing. There’s a patch from first into Worcester p25 so the deputies can still hear msp on all devices.

Cost would have been higher all around. The terminal products alone are 20% or more higher priced with the big M.

 

[maus92]

Well let's hope Worcester gets all their issues sorted out without any more expense. St. Mary's isn't particularly happy with their Harris system that cost >$20M to build, and they are considering moving to FIRST (which would require additional sites and probably new subscribers aka not cheap.)

 

[de784]

Talking about counties going full E there is a FB page for wicomico county that posts active calls like b&e, shootings, fights with a page like that I can see why E is becoming the norm

 

[ThePhotoGuy]

Capital Budget for FiRST/DOIT: http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/pubs/bud...FB04-Department-of-Information-Technology.pdf

Looks like they have to build a new tower in Dorchester since the land where the site is being sold.

Also looks like they want to build 9 more sites to increase coverage throughout the state.

Video from House Meeting: CPH_2_13_2019_meeting_1

 

[boatbod]

I learned the other day that Talbot is going to be implementing Fire/EMS paging on FiRST in the next 3 weeks or so. This is (in my opinion) an improvement over their plan to retrofit their old UESC system to full P25 for the purposes of digital paging.

 

[ThePhotoGuy]

Looks like there was a radio control board meeting on Wednesday - https://doit.maryland.gov/support/Radio Control Board Minutes/March 20, 2019 Agenda.pdf

Coppin State University and Baltimore City Community College Police Departments want to become primary users.