Medford Twp. Police Dispatch

[Skypilot007]

Does anyone out there listen to Medford police on a regular basis? Does anyone else notice that their dispatch has the most horrible audio ever heard out of a two way radio! There is more back ground noise and feed back coming from that dispatch center than anything. The dispatchers continously undermodulated, overmodulate, and when they unkey the mic there is a loud clunk everytime. When they transmit on their old conventional channel the back ground noise is not as bad but it's there still and so is the clunking mic. I hear officers tell the dispatch all the time that they are unreadable so its no just on my end. I've also monitored they system with a system radio and its just as bad. All the mobile units sound fine and so does central dispatch, fire and all other users of the system. It's not like I can call and complain (so I'll complain here) but for $500,000 a year in tax payer money to float a 911 dispatch center for the township you think they would get some decent equipment or train their dispatchers on the proper use of a microphone and attached radio system.

 

[jeff]

When Medford went on the TRS, they were cheap (believe that!) and purchased Johnson control stations, which produce the horrible alerting tones. They are also using MACOM consoles which were purchased while they were still on conventional. One of the consoles was later hooked to a Motorola control station which is why sometimes the tones and voice are OK. They also have a control station that is not hooked up to the consoles and for whatever reason is turned up. All the work on the consoles is being performed by the local MACOM dealer, I don't believe they can get the settings right. Probably the only way to correct this to scrap all the non Motorola stuff and replace it. Have you noticed that in all the bond issue ordinances that there is always money set aside for police communications equipment?

 

[Skypilot007]

Thanks for the deatailed explaination jeff, I appreciate it. Its funny kinda, they sounded so much better say 10-15 years ago with the old school equipment in the old railroad station!

"Have you noticed that in all the bond issue ordinances that there is always money set aside for police communications equipment?"

Sure have....it's just too bad that incompetent people are spending the money.

 

[nosoup4u]

Do they still use encryption? I bought my first PL capable scanner because I couldn't take the noise when they switched over to voice guard.

 

[jeff]

They no longer have the Voice Guard capability as they have gotten rid of all the MACOM equipment. The only user on the county TRS who uses encryption is the Prosecutors Office, TG 16048. The SRT TG's are also capable of encryption (16400 and 16432), I've never heard any traffic on there, they usually use one of the low power simplex freqs.

 

[policefreak]

You know, not to change the subject but its not only the Medford PD I'm having problems with on my scanner. I have a 396 (arguably not the best scanner to monitor digital transmissions), and I monitor the Burlington County West system from my house. The Control channel gets about 3 bars of power in the place I am most likely to keep my scanner when listening to it. Most voice freqs get about 2 bars of power on a normal day. One gets full power, and one gets about 1/2 a bar. Yet I notice, especially with the police TGIDs (P-8, Medford, and sometimes P-2) that with two and three bars, the audio cuts in and out and takes a long time to decode. I programmed the Northwest system in my scanner, which is farther away and has less power, and with one bar, or maybe no bars, the audio on most channels is fine. I tried fine tuning the West system to no avail. What could the problem be?