Montgomery County Fire/Rescue changes

[resqpig]

There have been some changes to the frequencies and the way some of the agencies are dispatched. All agencies with the exception of Virginia Tech Rescue, Blacksburg Rescue and Blacksburg Fire (they are being dispatched the same way as they have been) are being dispatched initially on the same frequency which is now called Fire Rescue 1 (156.165 which is the old Shawsville Rescue channel). Once enroute, they will then be told to go to another channel for the incident (either South 3, South 5, South 7, South 9 or South 11). I'm assuming the even channels (ie. South 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10) are talkaround channels. I do not know what the South channels frequencies are currently, but will post to the database as soon as I do. I don't know if they are reverting back to VHF or staying with UHF currently.

 

[LMRHam]

A lot of changes happening and they're happening in phases, so it will be a little while before it's all done.

There are several brand new frequencies-- a new license WRAF638, along with some existing that are being consolidated. It should be primarily a UHF system, as all of the new Repeater pairs are UHF, they may be doing some paging and/or data via VHF and some agencies still have it as a legacy system I assume.

I'm hearing some paging on 453.3125 as well as on the 156.165. South 3 appears to be 460.450, I haven't had a chance to really scan the others and see what's where.

Again this is all in flux and according to my sources the North agencies (Blacksburg, Tech, etc) will be changing in the future also.

 

[resqpig]

I figured something was in the works for the future as there had to be a reason they are labeled "South" channels. Thanks for the info so far!

 

[resqpig]

It appears the 156.165 is a simulcast (sort of) as there are still two agencies on VHF. The 453.3125 will probably be the primary Fire Rescue 1 eventually.

 

[LMRHam]

I agree.

Still really haven't had time to mess around with it in depth. TPL on the two UHF frequencies I've found so far are 123.0. I don't know if that varies by area. They're not using standard 5 Mhz splits on the UHF repeaters as far as I can tell listening to usual inputs from my location, and I assume there is some remote reception/voting/backhaul system in place or planned given the number of dedicated fixed simplex frequencies on the license.

Site locations on the license are:
2 on Poor Mtn
1 on Price's Mtn
1 on a tank in Riner
1 at the Buffalo Dr. Water Tank in C'burg
1 on Mt. Lake

This of course doesn't account for existing licenses and sites (eg Brush Mtn in Blacksburg)

Most sites have a set or two of common frequencies (with Mobiles and pagers) assigned while others have discrete assignments. Poor and Price's sites have several VHF frequencies as well, some with Pagers, so they may keep VHF around for a little while, at least for paging.

If/As I come up with anything else I'll post and I'm watching the thread.

 

[LMRHam]

Strike the part about the repeater splits, they are truly at +5 Mhz-- my reception of the inputs was just not good enough from home, caught them on mobile. Using various DPL on the uplinks and the 123.0 TPL (so far) on the downlinks.

Still trying to sniff out South 5 and South 11

 

[LMRHam]

All I've come up with so far--

Fire/Rescue 1: 453.3125 PL 123.0
South 3: 460.450 PL 123.0
South 7: 460.050 PL 94.8

CFD/BFD/BRS: Legacy repeaters still operating

VTRS: new repeater, unsure of license, frequency.

Have the TRX setup to record and log activity on all the newly licensed frequencies so I can hopefully catch some more as they come up.

I'm getting some traffic on 458.45, which should be the input for a 453.45 repeater licensed to Bald Knob on Mt. Lake, but I can't really tell what it is-- doesn't sound public safety related.

 

[Albert13]

460.1625 appears to be south 9

 

[LMRHam]

ok, here's what I have so far:
Fire/Rescue 1 453.3125 123.0Hz
South 3 460.45 123.0Hz
South 5 460.4125 107.2Hz
South 7 460.05 94.8Hz
South 9 460.1625 94.8Hz
South 11 453.8375 107.2Hz
VTRS 1 461.125 107.2Hz

I've submitted this as an update.