MontCo upgrades
- Thread starter cavmedic
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bballdawg84
Member
I am writing in response to your August 24, 2016 email to County Commissioner Chairman Josh Shapiro. He has asked me to review the email and respond to your concerns.
I completely understand your concerns about encrypting primary police talk groups when the new radio system goes live in late 2017. We share many of those concerns as well. While there is value in clear communications that is open to the public, officer safety as well as citizen privacy is also a concern. For those reasons, we developed a hybrid system which will incorporate both encryption and full interoperability.
This policy was arrived at after substantial deliberation and with the input of the Chiefs of Police, the County’s Ambulance Association, Fire Chief’s Association and the Municipal Fire Officials Association.
When the new system goes live, all police talk groups will be encrypted, but receive-only access to primary police channels will be granted to fire and EMS command officers and duty officers. Receive-only access to monitor primary police channels will also be available in fire and EMS primary response and command vehicles, fire, EMS and municipal EOC base stations so long as the audio is limited.
All disciplines — police, fire, EMS and emergency management — will continue to have interoperable communications on the Fire, EMS, Event, PS Cord, Emergency and National channels, all of which will be unencrypted and able to be monitored in real time by the public and the media. Any major emergency event will operate on those unencrypted talk groups, unless it is strictly criminal case.
All of our policies are subject to continual review and we intend to carefully monitor the implementation of this policy as well as to continue to research “best practices” in the public safety industry related to this topic.
If I can provide any additional information concerning our police communications system, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Thank you for your consideration.
Thomas M. Sullivan
Director of Public Safety
Tsulliva@montcopa.org
I completely understand your concerns about encrypting primary police talk groups when the new radio system goes live in late 2017. We share many of those concerns as well. While there is value in clear communications that is open to the public, officer safety as well as citizen privacy is also a concern. For those reasons, we developed a hybrid system which will incorporate both encryption and full interoperability.
This policy was arrived at after substantial deliberation and with the input of the Chiefs of Police, the County’s Ambulance Association, Fire Chief’s Association and the Municipal Fire Officials Association.
When the new system goes live, all police talk groups will be encrypted, but receive-only access to primary police channels will be granted to fire and EMS command officers and duty officers. Receive-only access to monitor primary police channels will also be available in fire and EMS primary response and command vehicles, fire, EMS and municipal EOC base stations so long as the audio is limited.
All disciplines — police, fire, EMS and emergency management — will continue to have interoperable communications on the Fire, EMS, Event, PS Cord, Emergency and National channels, all of which will be unencrypted and able to be monitored in real time by the public and the media. Any major emergency event will operate on those unencrypted talk groups, unless it is strictly criminal case.
All of our policies are subject to continual review and we intend to carefully monitor the implementation of this policy as well as to continue to research “best practices” in the public safety industry related to this topic.
If I can provide any additional information concerning our police communications system, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Thank you for your consideration.
Thomas M. Sullivan
Director of Public Safety
Tsulliva@montcopa.org
royldean
Member
Typical non-answer: "We don't want to respond to your true concerns, so here's some propaganda that we've already published several times."
Would somebody explain to me what this means? What is limited audio?
Meaning it's not being listened to so loud, the peasants can hear what going on outside of the immediate operating position.
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Septa3371CSX1
Member
I don't see how that setup will last long. To me it would make more sense to just have the primary dispatch channels in the clear and encrypt the rest. Could also add a secondary encrypted dispatch channel to use when tactically necessary.
Like encrypting P-tac channels. If it's going to be a multi agency response, just use the event channels like they do now.
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I had been reading that to mean "not streamed or rebroadcast". For example, there are fire companies that rebroadcast their fire region talk group on VHF.
That makes sense , like the idiots who are rebroadcasting all the fire regions on V-tac 11
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Montgomery County PD Dispatch Issues!
Is anyone else who has a scanner having issues with the following PD Dispatch 4, 6, 8 and 9? For some reason there is a carrier with no modulation at all that shows up from time to time. And of course it hangs up my 996P2 and my 325P2 from continuing to scan.
So I either have to temporarily lockout the group or suffer with it. This seems to have started within the past week or so. I don't know if there is a setting on the radio's that if there is a un-modulated carrier that you can have the scanner just continue scanning.
It is sporadic at times and at others it is not. I don't think that the dispatcher even knows it is going on because sometimes he or she will dispatch over the carrier and a car will respond. At least with the PA Turnpike system they know if a carrier is present and will transmit a message for everyone to check their microphones. Of course that's rather dumb because if you have your radio transmitting, you won't be able to hear the dispatcher.
PD 9 is locked with ID I3022 at present, and also EMS Hailing. It seems the guilty frequency is 855.2375. Perhaps they are having issues that they are not aware of!!!!
Mark Griffin, KB3Z
Is anyone else who has a scanner having issues with the following PD Dispatch 4, 6, 8 and 9? For some reason there is a carrier with no modulation at all that shows up from time to time. And of course it hangs up my 996P2 and my 325P2 from continuing to scan.
So I either have to temporarily lockout the group or suffer with it. This seems to have started within the past week or so. I don't know if there is a setting on the radio's that if there is a un-modulated carrier that you can have the scanner just continue scanning.
It is sporadic at times and at others it is not. I don't think that the dispatcher even knows it is going on because sometimes he or she will dispatch over the carrier and a car will respond. At least with the PA Turnpike system they know if a carrier is present and will transmit a message for everyone to check their microphones. Of course that's rather dumb because if you have your radio transmitting, you won't be able to hear the dispatcher.
PD 9 is locked with ID I3022 at present, and also EMS Hailing. It seems the guilty frequency is 855.2375. Perhaps they are having issues that they are not aware of!!!!
Mark Griffin, KB3Z
I can not monitor the east zone due to my location but it could in fact be someone triggering the emergency button. The radios are programmed for a hot mic for a short period , but if I believe they revert back to a specific talk group " orange" per channel announcement.
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I went into my BCD325P2 last night to see if the frequency of 855.2375 could be found. Of course, nothing at all. Montgomery County East has 4 control channels which are 851.8875A, 852.2625, 852.375PC and 853.7625A. The A stands for Alternate and the PC stands for Primary Control. I have the option of being able to lock out certain control channels through the software program. The question is that I'm not sure which control channel controls the frequency of 855.2375. And it could be that it's totally arbitrary and the computer that controls the radio controls the frequency.
CavMedic wrote, The radios are programmed for a hot mic for a short period , but if I believe they revert back to a specific talk group " orange" per channel announcement. I really don't understand this but this problem has only started within the past 2 weeks. So evidently Montgomery County has changed something. Or I need to delete and reload Montgomery County again. The only frequency that is involved is 855.2375 and it is just plain annoying that it hinders the scanning process. I also forgot to add that it only happens on the Dispatch Channel.
Any insight on a possible solution would be appreciated.
Mark Griffin, KB3Z
CavMedic wrote, The radios are programmed for a hot mic for a short period , but if I believe they revert back to a specific talk group " orange" per channel announcement. I really don't understand this but this problem has only started within the past 2 weeks. So evidently Montgomery County has changed something. Or I need to delete and reload Montgomery County again. The only frequency that is involved is 855.2375 and it is just plain annoying that it hinders the scanning process. I also forgot to add that it only happens on the Dispatch Channel.
Any insight on a possible solution would be appreciated.
Mark Griffin, KB3Z
One control channel covers the entire zone. The alternates are just that.
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You could possibly be picking up interference of sorts or the techs could be testing on one pair of the channels.
Each of those "voice" channels that aren't control channels are actually a repeater pairs. It is possible that that one pair could be having an issue.
We have major issues with one pair off a tower over here in the west zone. Just about any digital transmission that lands on that one is unreadable completely and any analog traffic is just as scratchy.
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Each of those "voice" channels that aren't control channels are actually a repeater pairs. It is possible that that one pair could be having an issue.
We have major issues with one pair off a tower over here in the west zone. Just about any digital transmission that lands on that one is unreadable completely and any analog traffic is just as scratchy.
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So if I understand correctly, 852.375 the primary control channel controls everything. It only the frequency of 855.2375 that has the problem. And it occurs when I'm at home in Collegeville, and at work in Malvern. So I don't think that it could be interference. And if the tech's are testing it must be 24 hours around the clock. It's not like it happens from 8:00 to 4:00. I also monitor Chester County and one of their frequencies that is used via the control channel is 855.2375. There has not been any issues with that.
Maybe, I'm just SOL on this one.
Mark Griffin, KB3Z
Maybe, I'm just SOL on this one.
Mark Griffin, KB3Z
The primary control channel controls everything on the " east zone" the alternates are there as a backup , the system will switch over if there is a problem on that one . Some times they are static , some systems they are dynamic. ( meaning they may rotate or just stay the same one )
It could very be that there is a repeater stuck on transmit on one tower and they don't know.
Or they may know and just don't care.
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It could very be that there is a repeater stuck on transmit on one tower and they don't know.
Or they may know and just don't care.
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You could try sending an email to someone listed at the DPS website and explain what you are getting along the id shown on your display and see if they are aware of the possible problem. I can tell you the id's that scanners display are typically a shortened version of what is actually displayed on our radios and aliased in the consoles.
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No, I usually just google it when in need to contact someone who I don't have in my directory
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