General Docket No. 87-112 created the NPSPAC channels and mandated the Regional plans. The regional plans require that 800 MHz NPSPAC licensees have access to the ITAC channels, so, in a manner of speaking, there IS a requirement. The ITAC licenses are issued at the state level, so a city or county would have to apply for a state ITAC license to be issued.
General Docket No. 87-112 created the NPSPAC channels and mandated the Regional plans. The regional plans require that 800 MHz NPSPAC licensees have access to the ITAC channels, so, in a manner of speaking, there IS a requirement. The ITAC licenses are issued at the state level, so a city or county would have to apply for a state ITAC license to be issued.
They are not in the database; they are common everywhere in the country and so are placed in the RR Wiki as Common Public Safety frequencies.Alright, stupid question maybe, but where can I find these National Interop channels in the database?
Correct, but it only requires the state to have a license for the ITAC channels. I can find no evidence that this plan requires every agency that also uses 800 MHZ channels also are required to have these frequencies in their radios. They may, and certainly should, apply to the state to have these channels in their radio load but compliance is strictly voluntary. There are absolutely no requirements I'm aware of that require anyone to have VHF or low band interoperability channels.
Since we we discussing 800 MHz national interoperability channels, VHF and low band were not part of my comments.
How many public agencies have the national interops channels into their radios?
Some nice posts there. I recall not so long ago just a few mutual aid frequencies, now there are more than you can shake a stick at.
For example, the next county over from us is on EDACS Provoice. They do have the 800 MHz interop channels in their radios. All the surrouding counties are on VHF. There are Alabama common channels most agencies have in their radios but most don't have the VHF national channels. The county on 800 have no VHF radios in their cars. The counties surrounding them have no 800 radios in their cars. At this point, what good are interop channels anyway? No one can talk to each other except the counties on VHF. We have to wait for the magic van to show up and do radio patches or hope that cell phones and SouthenLinc continue to work. Until we develop radios that can transmit on any frequency on any band that don't cost $15,000, there's never going to be radio interoperability.
You are aware that you can link two systems not just by radios but also between the systems themselves (e.g. switch to switch), thereby allowing interop even the coms on one side are encrypted?ProVoice, Open Sky, and God forbid, TETRA, and you you're just SOL unless everyone has the right radios with the right interop channels.
You are aware that you can link two systems not just by radios but also between the systems themselves (e.g. switch to switch), thereby allowing interop even the coms on one side are encrypted?
It obviously defeats somewhat the purpose to do so since then the encryption is rendered useless but it is technically possible.
Oh, and in TETRA an authorized dispatcher can just combine different groups, so there is no need to have one (or more) interop group(s) in the radio. But in case if that is not good enough the dispatcher can create a new "interop" group and download it to all the units that require it. Such a group can be manually deleted (say, when the incident is over), or it's possible to set a timer that it will "self-destruct" later. This is really simple and quick to do via the GUI of the dispatch application.