Monitoring Raleigh PD on 800Mhz

[KE4ZNR]

UPDATED 9-5-2010. Please Read over and let me know if you have questions!

Raleigh PD has migrated from UHF 460Mhz to VIPER 800Mhz a year or so ago.

You will need a digital capable scanner to be able to monitor Raleigh PD (and any other public safety agencies in Wake County).

The database has the current talkgroups used...Here is how the 800Mhz radios are programmed:

As many of you are aware Raleigh PD divides up the city into 6 Districts...Here is a map of the 6 districts:

Each of the 6 District Radios should be setup in the following format:

• District Specific Dispatch
• District North or South Status
• District Specific "Tac 1"
• District Specific "Tac 2"
• 8 Citywide "LE Ops" Talkgroups Numbered 5-12

Let's go over each set of Talkgroups used by Raleigh PD.

Dispatch Talkgroups:

• RPD NWD DISP TGID 40016
• RPD ND DISP TGID 40032
• RPD NED DISP TGID 40048
• RPD SED DISP TGID 40064
• RPD DD DISP TGID 40080
• RPD SWD DISP TGID 40096

Districts breakdown as follows:

• RPD NWD DISP Northwestern District 1xx Units
• RPD ND DISP Northern District 2xx Units
• RPD NED DISP Northeastern District 3xx Units
• RPD SED DISP Southeastern District 4xx Units
• RPD DD DISP Downtown District 5xx Units
• RPD SWD DISP Southwest District 6xx Units

Raleigh/Wake 911 is not equipped to have a dispatcher for each of the 6 Districts. So they are using a feature called MultiSelect or "talkgroup merge" that allows talkgroups to be "merged" together to allow radio users to familiarize themselves with unique home talkgroups (like Raleigh PD districts) while bringing them all together. So for the time being (and the foreseeable future) one dispatcher handles all 6 Districts.

Status Talkgroups:

• Northern Units (NWD 1xx, N 2xx, NED 3xx) Status TGID 40112
• Southern Units (SED 4xx, DD 5xx, SWD 6xx) Status TGID 40192

Note: As far as RPD Status Channels/Talkgroups are concerned the 3 Districts of NWD 1xx, N 2xx, & NED 3xx are known as the "Northside Districts" and are patched together handled by one dispatcher while the SED 4xx, DD 5xx, & SWD 6xx Districts are known as the "Southside Districts" and are patched together to be handled by another dispatcher...The Northside Status Talkgroup/Channel (1xx, 2xx, 3xx units) is known by its old UHF nickname of "Raleigh 3" while the Southside Status Talkgroup/Channel (4xx, 5xx, 6xx units) is known by its old UHF nickname of "Raleigh 2"...

District Specific TAC 1 & TAC 2 Talkgroups:

• RPD NWD TAC1 TGID 40208
• RPD N TAC1 TGID 40224
• RPD NED TAC1 TGID 40240
• RPD SED TAC1 TGID 40256
• RPD DD TAC1 TGID 40272
• RPD SWD TAC1 TGID 40288
• RPD NWD TAC2 TGID 40304
• RPD N TAC2 TGID 40320
• RPD NED TAC2 TGID 40336
• RPD SED TAC2 TGID 40352
• RPD DD TAC2 TGID 40368
• RPD SWD TAC2 TGID 40384

A Note about the District Specific "Tac 1" and "Tac 2": These talkgroups are designed for intra-district communication only and are NOT monitored by Raleigh/Wake 911. These are basically a "Car to Car" chit chat channel.


8 LE OPS Talkgroups (Numbered 5-12):

• LE OPS5 TGID 40432
• LE OPS6 TGID 40448
• LE OPS7 TGID 40464
• LE OPS8 TGID 40480
• LE OPS9 TGID 40496
• LE OPS10 TGID 40512
• LE OPS11 TGID 40528
• LE OPS12 TGID 40544

The 8 LE OPS Talkgroups (Numbered 5-12) are used for communication of on-scene events where a Dispatcher needs to be able to monitor what is going on...these talkgroups are also used when units from more than one District respond to a situation...most events worth monitoring end up on an LE OPS channel...LE OPS 12 is usually reserved for units assigned traffic duty around the RBC Center and the NC State Fairgrounds.

Special Ops Status Talkgroup:

• RPD SO STATUS TGID 40400

The RPD Special Ops (SO) Status Talkgroup is for units doing speed enforcement, Animal Control and other assorted RPD Units. It is sometimes known by its old UHF nickname of "Raleigh 8".

Hopefully this gives you a good starting point for monitoring Raleigh PD on VIPER 800Mhz. Feel free to email me if you have further questions.

Happy Monitoring & Stay Safe!
Marshall KE4ZNR
KE4ZNR@radioreference.com

 

[KE4ZNR]

I went through and did some much needed housecleaning in this thread as well as updated the info within.
Hopefully this thread now provides a good starting point for monitoring Raleigh PD.
Marshall KE4ZNR

 

[Randyg711]

Thanks for this. I was talking with my neighborhood RPD officer recently and he said they are still struggling with how they break out the dispatching- away from every district all tied on to 1 channel. Maybe split them up , northside and southside on their own 2 groups with their own dispatchers. The concern is that if something major is happening on the northside group, the southside will not hear it in real time. They really need to get with the times. There are so many simple solutions for this.

Coming from NY and knowing firsthand how these logistics work, I am sure there are workable solutions for RPD. They way they have things now where officers monitor dispatch and often their Status Talkgroup at the same time is just crazy IMO. IF they have a dispatcher on the Status channel already, why not just split and switch all dispatch to northside and southside?

 

[KE4ZNR]

Raleigh PD expanding Districts.

Good info contained within. Looks like RPD is having to adjust to our ever expanding city boundaries.
Marshall KE4ZNR

 

[WA4MJF]

Thanks, Marshall. I see they now have a small CRASH unit. Hopefully, it can grow and do as good a job as LAPD's CRASH unit did in the South Central on their gang bangers. It is too bad that their Chief when he came west from PA disbanded it. Our gangs need to know that they won't be handled with kid gloves.

 

[Randyg711]

Yes, thanks Marshall, this document was great additional info. . Their changes affect me directly, and it looks to be positive. I am in the Raleigh PD North district , north of 540 off Falls of Neuse. and today it is one large officer beat. Under the changes they will split this large beat into 2 and be part of the Northeast district. Regardless of the district, 2 units covering the area that just 1 does today is a good thing.

It will be interesting to see if the put the NW, North and NE districts on just 1 channel and the SW, downtown and SE on another for all operations.

 

[mthom50]

Marshall (and others), Thanks for the info here. I wonder if you could expand a little on what info is contained in individual unit numbers. I get that the districts and beats are there, but I'm wondering if the numbers give any idea as to which are supervisors, which are one or two-person cars, etc, similar to LAPD with its A cars (2-person), L (one), beat numbers ending in zero for supervisors, and so on. Anything like that to listen for here? Likewise, Wake SO seems to have 3 digit numbers for its patrol units. Is there any similar info to glean from those numbers? Any insight appreciated! Mike

 

[mthom50]

Marshall, Upon reading farther down the list of topics, looks like you already answered the Wake SO part of my question in the "Wake... platoon" thread. Thanks - Mike

 

[Randyg711]

Has anyone confirmed if/when RPD will switch to the new district lines and the radio designations for units in concert with the district changes?

 

[Randyg711]

I can now answer my own question. This is taken from the RPD Strategic Plan '09-'14, page 37 of the section PLANNING AREA FOUR: Infrastructure and Organization:

October 2009 – Present final proposal of district realignments and additional beats along with
any changes in existing beat boundaries.
November 2010 – Implement new districts and beats.
Annually – Over the next five years we should be expanding by three patrol beats and four
detectives a year to meet growing population and land acquisitions. This standard will be
used as a guide.

 

[KE4ZNR]

Randy,
Glad you spotted that. I know I saw it in the documents somewhere.
No surprise seeing as how Raleigh's borders keep expanding everyday.
Marshall KE4ZNR

 

[Randyg711]

At first I was a bit surprised it would take them that long to implement. But thinking about it more, there will need to be mod's to the CAD system, relocation of the NE personnel (23) to the current North (22) location and moving the North 22 personnel to their new but temporary location. All this takes some time to prearrange.

From a "monitoring" perspective, it will be interesting to hear them make the switchover. I have heard direct from the front line that with this transition, they are toying with the idea of splitting dispatching to a north and south model- NW,N,NE on one talk group and the rest on another; so, no main/single dispatch channel, with or without a 'status' channel. I think this is the right way to go. It would split the total 'in use' airtime for dispatching calls in half thereby leaving the air even more clear than it is today using just 1 dispatch channel. An added benefit from a listener's point of view is, you can listen to more local coverage and not have to listen to things not in your own neck of the woods. We will see what happens. Their current VIPER radio layout is well designed to support all this growth.

I come from NY (moved here 4 yrs ago) and worked in NYC back in the 90's. The trend we had was always to add more channels (standard UHF no trunked) or rearrange who was on what channel based on volume to reduce air congestion as much as possible in case of a pursuit/emergency help needed. Some significant changes were made after I left, well needed.

 

[KE4ZNR]

I have made changes in the database and this post to reflect the changes that RPD is slowing making.

I know that plans are to have the following dispatch talkgroups patched together later this year:

NWD/SWD Districts (1xx/6xx)
ND/NED Districts (2xx/3xx)
SED/DD Districts (4xx/5xx)

But for now only the alpha-tags/names have changed for the 6 districts along with going back to 2 status talkgroups (North/South).

I will keep everyone advised on what happens.
Happy Monitoring!
Marshall KE4ZNR

 

[KE4ZNR]

Use Google Earth to view New Raleigh PD Districts

Evening Everyone!
Do you live in Raleigh and want to better understand
Raleigh PD's District & Beat layout?
You can now use Google Earth to see every PD Beat & District.
Very easy to do:

1) Go to Google Earth and download Google Earth and install it for your operating system. I run it on both my Windoz and Linux Partitions so
you should be covered no matter what type of computer system you have.

2) Go to the following site:
RPD Google Earth KML files - Windows Live
and download both the "New Beats.kml" and "New District.kml" files.
Make sure you save the above files with the ".kml" extension.
Also make sure you know where on your computer you have saved them.

3) Start up Google Earth and Select "File" then "Open" as shown below:

4) Select both ".kml" files you just saved a few minutes ago.

If successful you should see the new beats/districts in the places
column on the left hand side:

And you should be able to click on them and see something like the following:

You now have the ability to zoom in to street level and out and click on individual Beats/Districts and see which beats cover which areas.

Let me know if you have any issues!
Happy Monitoring!
Marshall KE4ZNR

 

[trumpetman]

Very cool Marshall. Did you get really bored, find this from someone else, or did RPD put this together for the general public? Either way, that is nifty, I might have to do something similar for CMPD when I get bored. Might even start off with Asheville PD to get a feel for the setup.

 

[KE4ZNR]

Very cool Marshall. Did you get really bored, find this from someone else, or did RPD put this together for the general public? Either way, that is nifty, I might have to do something similar for CMPD when I get bored. Might even start off with Asheville PD to get a feel for the setup.

I know people

This is 100% accurate "straight from the horses mouth".

And if you put a Google Earth .kml together I will make sure it
gets noted here at RR.com

Marshall KE4ZNR

 

[Randyg711]

This is still slated to take effect in the fall?

 

[KE4ZNR]

This is still slated to take effect in the fall?

The new beats are already being used. Which is why I made this thread.
Marshall KE4ZNR

 

[Hemi348]

talkgroup 40128 is one I never saw listed for rpd, but I am hearing everynow and then what seems to be like a dispatch for it.

 

[KE4ZNR]

talkgroup 40128 is one I never saw listed for rpd, but I am hearing everynow and then what seems to be like a dispatch for it.

That would be the old RPD North District Status Talkgroup.
It is in the works to be removed from use so I would not worry about
keeping it around.
Marshall KE4ZNR