NBFD Firegrounds

[FT752]

Last I knew, New Brunswick Fire Department was operating purely on NJICS with 1-2 TAC/FG TGs outside of their primary and admin. The new DB submissions raise some flags for me considering one of them is the current CC for Site 8. What is the story?

 

[GTR8000]

I don't see any conflicts between the newly listed New Brunswick 700 MHz fireground channels and any of the frequencies of the New Brunswick Simulcast (Site 8).

Perhaps you misread the frequencies and confused 774.79375c with 774.9375 FG F?

 

[GM]

Just about every fire department has fireground channels in their radios that are programmed in the event the primary system goes down, or need to be used on-scene at low power.

And I'm not sure why there would be a red flag raised when I was the one who verified and submitted the info to the database to share with everyone. I'm also the one who has been verifying data in the various counties to see if it is still up to date, such as Edison, North Brunswick, Highland Park, etc. on my own time for the benefit of all.

 

[GTR8000]

I don't believe any insult was intended, @GM. Seems like a simple mixup in overlooking one digit which caused undue concern.

 

[FT752]

Perhaps you misread the frequencies and confused 774.79375c with 774.9375 FG F?

Yeah, that's precisely what it was.

Just about every fire department has fireground channels in their radios that are programmed in the event the primary system goes down, or need to be used on-scene at low power.

I am fully aware of how firegrounds work; but also that many accredited agencies put their eggs in the trunk system basket for off-site recording among other paper-driven rationales. I'd rather see LP/backup frequencies on the channel plan than none whatsoever. As GTR8000 stated, a simple mixup with the frequency adjacency. That does not constitute a dismissal of the work that you do "on my own time for the benefit of all". Context helps make the discussion flow. Are these new frequencies pending deployment, or have they been in use for a while?

 

[GM]

I'm not sure if the Fireground frequencies have been in use for a while, but they are programmed in multiple agencies radios (HP, Edison, Metuchen) that provide mutual aid to New Brunswick. I do know that New Brunswick Fire have said in the past to switch to Fireground, and then nothing was heard on the NJICS talkgroups for a while until they needed to communicate back to dispatch, and then that was on the NJICS. I've been trying to hunt down these fireground frequencies for a while now, and finally was able to get them within the last week.

Now, I will say that there is a possibility that the frequencies I submitted might be in a 6.25 kHz step, instead of the 12.5k step listed in the database. I used signal stalker to find them, so they might be a slight bit off in frequency. But the listed frequencies should be enough to monitor them if you are close by. I tried to do a search through the FCC licensing system with the listed frequencies, but nothing was found on them. Perhaps they are licensed as low power 700 analog frequencies by the State under some sort of blanket license that they have (similar to Newark's 700 FG frequencies)?

 

[GTR8000]

It's likely that they should be 6.25 kHz stepping, not the 12.5 kHz. In fact I'll probably adjust them to match the designated regional low power frequencies. Those do need to be licensed by each agency or by the county; a statewide license won't cut it and there is no blanket "by rule" authorization for them as their is for the nationwide interop channels.