Maryland's New Emergency Frequency

[porschenut]

Yesterday, a TV news announcement , stated that the new emergency frequency of 700 Mhz. will be used as soon as possible so the Fire dept., Ambulances, Hospitals, and Md. State Police helicopters will be able to communicate freely, without interruption. Nothing was said as to installation date but will be as soon as feasable.
Problem: RS Pro-96 users will not be able to pick up this frequency unless there is a way to program the 700 Mhz. frequency into the radio!

 

[hfxChris]

Enable extended frequencies?

 

[SCPD]

YOu will be ONLY able to monitor iN FM mode & not trunk . for tracking you will need a PSR 500 or perhaps some other brand/models

 

[ka3jjz]

or the Uniden BCD396T, BCD996T or GRE PSR-600 73 Mike

 

[SHAKEY]

looks like I'll have to work some more overtime soon.

 

[maus92]

Keep in mind that 700Mhz refers to a band, not to a specific frequency.

 

[porschenut]

Maryland Safety service band change

Keep in mind that 700Mhz refers to a band, not to a specific frequency.

If you check carefully, you will see that the RS PRO96 owners manual states that the radio does not support the 700 Mhz band. I checked with RS in Texas and they told me that the PRO96 can not be changed without extreme cost to the owner because it was not designed to use the 700 Mhz. band.

 

[pasadenamd]

I bet this will be put on hold because of the economic crisis.

 

[troymail]

These things take years - even when the economy is good... there will probably be 5 new scanners before a 700Mhz system comes online....

July 2008
http://www.firerescue1.com/fire-pro...rticles/410084-Md-plans-uniform-radio-system/
"The project, which includes construction of 12 towers, laying fiber optic cable and connecting all of the state's 911 centers and hospitals, will take five to eight years, officials said."

November 2008
http://www.radioresourcemag.com/onlyonline.cfm?OnlyOnlineID=63

http://mlis.state.md.us/2009RS/budg..._DoIT_Public_Safety_Communications_System.pdf

 

[kb3jkc]

For a project this size, it'll be a miracle if it's finished in ten years. The 12 towers referred to are but a small part of the big picture. They estimate the need for 350 sites to make the entire system function properly, and right now they have 168. It is possible that it may eventually end up being a good system for the state agencies that will be the primary users, but I wonder how efficient it will be at true interop with county and local governments which already have a variety of radio systems of their own. Maybe tac stacks and NIPSPAC freqs will make connecting these disparate systems possible, but it likely will not be very useful for everyday comms between state-county-locals governments in many cases.

 

[Dispatcher308]

It's called sharing templates of radio systems, as well as the ability to create patches to each radio system on certain pre-defined talkgroups, most of the state system will be in the same shelters as the local systems and it wont be hard to do this at all, just look at DC they did it with UHF and 800mhz and it works, the same technology can be employed with the state system. Anything is possible with the technology today.

Nathan