MSP "R" cars 800 capable??

[doctordave]

Search ongoing right now on Balt Co "Essex 111" .....heard what sounded like two "R" cars advise County Dispatch that they were on the channel to assist. It is very possible that I was hearing a Co PD HQ unit w/ a "Car" designation simply speaking w/ poor clarity.

Wondering if anyone happened to catch this. If MSP "R" units are finally 800 capable in some fashion, this would be a huge step forward for coordination w/ the County.

 

[mlevin]

Dave, I heard Golden Ring cars on the Baltimore Co. TRS a a few months back during a chase on the westside. I don't think all cars are 800 capable, but I'm sure a few of them have access to the system.

 

[doctordave]

Thanks, Mo....sounds like I truly was hearing some "R" cars, then.

Speaking of 800 MHZ & mutual aid, there was a rather involved Balt Co surveillance operation Tuesday that spilled well out of Balt Co....reception on the Balt Co trunked system was getting worse as they continued on & so the various units spent >15 min trying to figure out how to switch to the simplex 8-CALL & 8-TAC freqs. None of them had the bandplan chart available and in the end they could not determine which channels to switch to.

 

[skipshark773]

When I used to run with the county we didnt have the I-CALL/TAC stuff in the radios. We had two talkarounds available in the portables: B10 TA246WST and C10 TA247EST. I do not know what frequencies these were on since nobody ever used them. I remember hearing about a couple other talkarounds but never saw them in the radio or in use. I think they were TA244, TA245, and TA248.

[edit]: We also had mutual aid talkgroups in the radios for surrounding jurisdictions that were on trunked. For carroll county we had: B14 CAR CO 2, C14 CAR CO 1. If i remember correctly, one was MSP westminster and two was the sheriffs office. For anne arundel county we had B15 AA CO 2, C15 AA CO 1. I dont know what these corresponded to in the anne arundel system, i was too far north to ever hear any traffic on these. For baltimore city we had B16 CITY 2, and C16 CITY 1. I never picked up any traffic on these either, i figured they would probably correspond to citywide talkgroups on their system. We also had C5 LGMA 130 which I alawys figured was a patch to the local govt system (local government mutual aid?). Dynamic regrouping occurred on A16 DYNMIC 100, never saw this feature in use though. Of course there was A10 PF-99 for police/fire coordination within the county. And then there was the mystery surrounding talkgroups B13 IAC 78 and C13 IAC 88. Nobody knew what they did, who used them, or what IAC meant....I still dont know... Sorry, looks like ive digressed, but i thought Id just add this on since it was slightly relevant to the previous comment on mutual aid.

 

[patrolman123]

I finally have a thread that I can post an answer to a question I know for sure. All MSP Golden Ring barrack units have a portable radio from the Baltimore county police. Usually they'll come up on the channel and you can hear them say something like, "R-51 Baltimore County Clearance to your unit out with the disabled on the ramp at route 1". I believe the radios are maintained by the Baltimore Co. radio shop and were either purchased by the state or given on loan by Baltimore Co to the state.
You will hear the same thing in Harford County.

 

[skipshark773]

A while back (long while) I remember hearing that Balto Co had given/was going to give/was thinking about giving a handful of portables to Golden Ring, but I never heard any of their cars come up on our talkgroups when I would be working. Even when we were coordinating our efforts with them we would have to relay our information through our dispatcher (see Fig. A).

Fig. A:
County unit -> 800MHz -> County Dispatch -> Telephone -> MSP dispatch -> Lo-band -> MSP unit and then in reverse.

My how times have changed, I wish i could have enjoyed the benifits of coordination...

 

[doctordave]

Thanks for the replies. Reminds me of a cheap solution that used to be employed by law enforcement & FD/EMS on the Eastern Shore for inter-agency coordination ....nearly all units were equipped w/ scanners for cross-monitoring assisting agencies. A trooper/deputy could talk on his freq and then monitor the response from the fire truck, etc on his scanner....and visa-versa. Pretty low-tech, but the protocol was well understood & it worked beautifully.

Shipshark.....glad to hear you are doing well in CO....and it's great that you are keeping in touch w/ us here on the board! How's the reception of the statewide 800 system?

 

[Dispatcher308]

MSP Golden Ring does have capabilities of getting on Baltimore Co's Trunked System (as you guys have determined) but when they use it is another story.

SkipShark IAC (Inter-Agency Coordination) channels, all radios have them programmed in (ie Fire & Police) for just that purpose. This came about after 9/11. Also what exactly did you dod for Baltimore Co?

Also MSP Bel Air works on the Harford Co Trunked system therefore they have all the same talkgroups as all the other Police Depts do in Harford.

Just FYI.

 

[skipshark773]

ohhh, inter-agency coordination. that makes sense. I was an auxilliary for them, nothing overly special.

thanks doctordave, Im glad to see you all in MD are doing well also. The statewide DTRS is amazing. Ive gone from south of denver all the way to wyoming and never lost signal. The audio quality is great too! Ive been using the pro 96 com program with great success too!