NRV 911 Authority is pitching a trunked radio system for Montgomery County. Several years away but looks like a P25 Phase II trunked system. 700/800 & simulcast
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Montgomery County Going Phase II Trunked
- Thread starter mocofeed
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Very interesting find. Was wondering when this was going to take place.
It was a matter of time. I'm a little surprised this didn't happen several years ago.
You are right, it was 16 years since VT's shooter incident. I thought, like you, this would have been completed by now. My daughter was at VT that day.
Wow. And yes, this was mentioned in the VT report. This will go from one of the cheapest counties to monitor to a very expensive one! Especially since they're going with simulcast.
Yes, that county is what I call "scanner rich". I can pick up Montgomery County, Blacksburg, and Christiansburg way east of Roanoke County on most of the roads I travel around the area. Not to mention the ability to encrypt on the new system. We will have to way and see how the process goes and enjoy the county for now.
It really is a great county for scanner listeners. Seems like Virginia law enforcement is very quick to encrypt when given the chance. Even nearby Roanoke County has encrypted fire! How silly.
That is why I have over the years to monitor different agencies. Roanoke City went completely encrypted this past Summer and I wonder if they will follow Roanoke County and encrypt the fire department. With a new police chief I see some changes coming. Will have to be creative and see what will be available to monitor in the future.
I should know this but I don't. A good chunk of Montgomery County fire and EMS is volunteer, and wouldn't paging them be difficult with encryption? If they encrypted fire and EMS.
Roanoke County is a bit different as they have all career fire and EMS if I'm correct?
It will be interesting how the interpretative end fits in.
That’s an interesting question. Looked up Roanoke County Fire and Rescue Department (Volunteering | Roanoke County, VA - Official Website), it states, “Roanoke County Fire and Rescue Department is a combination system. We have both career and volunteer personnel providing fire and rescue services for the citizens of Roanoke County. Our Fire and Rescue Department includes 12 stations strategically located throughout Roanoke County. We have 15 fire and rescue volunteer organizations with about 200 active volunteer personnel who serve as either firefighters, emergency medical technicians or rescue drivers.” The volunteers serve during the hours of 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. weekdays and 24 hours on weekends and holidays.
Another interesting area is Franklin County is on the same simulcast system as Roanoke County. Met a volunteer firefighter from Franklin County and he was carrying an Unication G5 pager. He explained that is how the volunteers on call get their call. I guess Roanoke County would have a similar set up. So Montgomery County would have something similar in their planned system.
As you can see you are surrounded by other counties with different radio systems and they will figure out the interpretative end of it as well. Sixteen years ago they called in many agencies to cover VT’s situation. We will have to see how they tailor the system and how their will be frequencies that can be scanned.
RRDB has these Wikis that might provide some interesting reading:
Montgomery County (VA) - The RadioReference Wiki
Roanoke County (VA) - The RadioReference Wiki
Craig County (VA) - The RadioReference Wiki
Giles County (VA) - The RadioReference Wiki
Pulaski County (VA) - The RadioReference Wiki
Floyd County (VA) - The RadioReference Wiki
Not sure how current these are but I found them interesting. So it will be interesting to watch and listen.
I don't see how Unications could be used if everything is encrypted. That's where I get confused on how volunteers would get paged in a fully encrypted system. Especially when you have lots of volunteers.
With the exception of Roanoke County, every neighboring county is on a different type of system! The state bears a lot of blame here. Why isn't there a statewide system for localities to join...like dozens of states have setup? So now we have this mess of different systems across the state. From a look at the database, a whopping one county has joined STARS. But I imagine VHF coverage wouldn't be fantastic without repeaters in the cars like VSP does.
Unications support AES-256 decryption, but it requires layers of authorization.
Do Roanoke volunteers still participate in home response?
I am not sure how Roanoke County responds it volunteers. The site says they utilize them from 6:00P to 6:00am and on weekends Volunteering | Roanoke County, VA - Official Website.
So I expect these are utilized to the ability of their training.
The individual departments that use Unication pagers have someone that programs them according to the needs of the system. The G pagers are capable of encryption by programming. It seems the different counties have in place the ability to use interoperability frequencies or systems to cooperate with one another. Not sure what they are but you hear VSP requesting certain counties support on some calls.
Using Franklin County as a possible example, they simulcast transmit on an analog and the P25 frequencies. Not saying Montgomery will do that but we will find out as it happens.
Using Franklin County as a possible example, they simulcast transmit on an analog and the P25 frequencies. Not saying Montgomery will do that but we will find out as it happens.
In Montgomery County, I would guess 70-80% of fire/EMS are volunteer. That's a lot of Unications. It's common to see fire and EMS paging take place on analog VHF simplex in West Virginia, which allows the fairly inexpensive Motorola Minitors to work.
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Does Roanoke county still use 155.055 to simulcast fire dispatch and Tac 2? It's still listed in the database and the FCC license is still active with more than one tower sites in the county.
JSsignal16, all the time I send around Roanoke and Vinton area, I cannot recall ever hearing anything on "155.0550 KYG761 156.7 PL Vinton Rescue Rescue Administration (simulcast of Roanoke Co. Fire Dispatch/Tac 2)". It is in my programming , just nothing heard. Matter of fact the only Vinton was Power Workers and that was back in the Summer 2023.
Halfway across the state, Powhatan County has issued Unications to all of their volunteers and administrative staff. It provides their personnel a means to monitor all of the Tac channels without having to bother using a radio, scanner app, or other means.
I think going the Unication route is a good move. The only fussing I've heard from volunteers is that their Minitors as considerably more lightweight and the battery life is much better. Of course, the Unications have a lot more features, too.
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