Middlesex, Essex, Bergen County fire questions

[phillydjdan]

Hi, I was wondering if someone could give me the low-down on how these counties handle fire comms. I am planning on buffing North Jersey and want to make sense of the jumble. I'm used to my area where a county has 1 trunked system and everyone operates on it. I have several scanners all programmed with all the trunked systems and conventional channels, I'd just like to lock out what we know won't be used. So the question is, for everyday fire activity, do all these conventional channels and municipal trunked systems really get used? Any townships use their systems for backup? Any help would be appreciated.

 

[railtrailbiker]

In Bergen County there is no common trunked system being used for fire communications.

There are a few shared dispatch centers (the County itself operates one of them), but the majority of fire dispatch and fireground communications is handled on the municipal level.

Shared frequencies do exist in some areas, but often unique CTCSS/DCS tones are being deployed.

In short, it's quite a mumbo jumbo.

The RR Database is very accurate; check it before you arrive.

 

[phillydjdan]

I gotta imagine each fire truck has to have like 6 different radios for all this stuff. What a mess. Ok I have it all crammed in the scanners so I'll try to do my best to sift through it all. Fortunately my focus will be the county I am in and the immediate surrounding counties just in case. Thinking Newark and Jersey City are good places to buff...

 

[ansky]

In Essex County most municipalities use their own fire dispatch frequency for most communications. Newark, Bloomfield and Belleville use the NJICS state system for fire comms. You will definitely want to program the Essex County Mutual Aid frequency (470.5125). Whenever there is a large incident you will hear about it on here when mutual aid is called in.

 

[jvdet]

In Bergen County there is no common trunked system being used for fire communications.

There are a few shared dispatch centers (the County itself operates one of them), but the majority of fire dispatch and fireground communications is handled on the municipal level.

Shared frequencies do exist in some areas, but often unique CTCSS/DCS tones are being deployed.

In short, it's quite a mumbo jumbo.

The RR Database is very accurate; check it before you arrive.

Which means to cover just the Fire departments in Bergen takes at least 30+ freq's -

 

[AC2OY]

In Essex County most municipalities use their own fire dispatch frequency for most communications. Newark, Bloomfield and Belleville use the NJICS state system for fire comms. You will definitely want to program the Essex County Mutual Aid frequency (470.5125). Whenever there is a large incident you will hear about it on here when mutual aid is called in.

ansky thank you for that!!!! Now I have a question if Belleville,Newark Fire now use the interop system and that mutual aid frequency is analog how do these agencies hear both? Two radios or a radio that is capable of analog and digital? Thank you man if I don’t have that frequency in I need to put it in.

 

[ansky]

ansky thank you for that!!!! Now I have a question if Belleville,Newark Fire now use the interop system and that mutual aid frequency is analog how do these agencies hear both? Two radios or a radio that is capable of analog and digital? Thank you man if I don’t have that frequency in I need to put it in.

The Essex County mutual aid channel (470.5125) is only used for the county dispatcher to contact individual towns to request mutual aid coverage. So basically it's just a way for the dispatchers between towns to talk to each other. I have never heard individual fire units using this channel at a fire scene.

 

[AC2OY]

Ok thanks

 

[RadioChief55]

In Bergen County at a fire, you can have 3 or 4 different channels being used on different band. It's a mess.

In Jersey City, the FD is dispatched on the TRS system, EMS calls and still alarms all on TRS. Most of the fires with be on their analog UHF channels. 460-5500 FG 2 and 460-6000 FG 3.

It's easier to listen to the fire buffs, when there is a fire the'll put it over the radio. Then you can listen to that FD's channel.

 

[mdsxfire]

Middlesex County is a nightmare also there are a few of us that dispatch on our legacy vhf/uhf freq then move to the county system for everything else. Then a lot of the bigger towns all have their own TRS or are still using their own uhf freq for dispatch and ops. Very hard to monitor all of my county without going crazy.
Dunellen boro is dispatched on their vhf by somerset county then switch to somersets TRS region 3 I believe.
Middlesex boro/Sayreville/ south Amboy Fire all alert on the Middlesex County TRS and have Ops on that system.
Piscataway old bridge Woodbridge south brunswick east brunswick Perth Amboy Monroe and prob a few I missed operate their own TRS or use a neighboring towns TRS.
Very confusing and lots of radios on our rigs to go anywhere.
Almost 2019 and still an interoperability nightmare


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[phillydjdan]

Yeah it seems like it! If you dont mind, and this is just for sh*ts & giggles, would you mind snapping a pic of the jumble of radios on your truck? I kinda gotta see this lol.

So myself and 2 others went up Friday night. We travelled up the turnpike to Jersey City and stuck around that area and Newark. The Jersey City system was great. Loud and proud on both a mobile and portable Motorola radio. Even fireground was decent. Wasn't worth a crap on my 996P2 scanner. As for Newark, I only used a G5 pager to monitor them on the NJICS system. I noted some reception issues which I originally thought was on my end but then the dispatcher acknowledged the same exact issues from field units, so it sounds like NJICS has a few dead spots in the city. Woodbridge and Perth Amboy systems seemed to come in good on the Motorola gear but not on the scanner. Is it known for sure if all these systems employ LSM or not? Because it sure seems like they do, hence the failures with the scanner...