New Allegheny County System?

[IStebleton]

With the T-Band takeover, Allegheny County will be affected. Does anyone know what they may be planning to replace their T-Band channels?

 

[ffemt134]

There was actually a WPXI news segment on this a few days ago....

Federal law could require very expensive changes to local 911 systems

<p>Allegheny County's state-of-the-art 911 center is where more than a dozen dispatchers respond to thousands of calls daily. When they dispatch an ambulance or police to a scene, most times they do so on a spectrum of the radio system known as the T-band.</p>

www.google.com

Basically it all depends on if the "Don't Break up the T-Band Act" is able to get passed.
Opposite of Butler's approach, Allegheny's taking the gamble the T-Band Giveback from 2012 gets repealed and it all goes away.

 

[maus92]

Yea, It won't cost $250M to replace T-band in Allegheny. And T-band is probably not the best band for Public Safety if you want in-building coverage. But the Feds should require that proceeds from the sale of T-Band pays for Public Safety relocation.

 

[radio259]

The auction date has not been set. if it was auctioned off, it will only provide at best less than 1% revenue to move every one.
los Angelas, New York, Chicago, new jersy and believe parts of florida and Texas betting T band here for good. No suitable spectrum .

 

[Drachen_Fire]

ACES command staff has told me on several occasions that they have a commitment to maintaining T-Band analog channels. These occasions were all 2014 and earlier, but the gist was that it would be entirely too expensive to replace the system, and that they wouldn't leave the departments and agencies hanging, thus necessitating the high price tag, as that would involve subscriber units as well as infrastructure.

 

[Matakovich1]

I used to work in the north end of the county for an EMS service. We had to upgrade in 2012 to be narrow band. We had Motorola mobiles and portable. With the move to having units be narrow band we hd to drop all of our MT2000’s which we loved. Lucky for us we had some HT 1250’s sitting around. We had to swap out our VHF mobiles that we used for for LZ’s, Highway, and local PD. For cost reasons we had to swap to Kenwood mobiles for VHF. We did use a new Kenwood when we got the new bus but it was purchased on a grant. After we swapped all the radios and spent lots of money we where told that the ACES got a waiver from the FCC that we didnt have to narrow band. This was because some services couldnt afford to narrow band. Now your going to ask cities, and private EMS and VFD’s to spend money on new radios they cant afford.
Take Lawrence county to the north. They wanted to have a 700mhz trunked system. But now other city or private ambulance could afford to upgrade their radio fleet. So they said ok so everyone is happy they looped the old VHF into the new 700mhz system.

 

[Drachen_Fire]

Not really.

Congress exempted the T-Band from narrowbanding at the eleventh hour. I remember scrambling to get our agency into narrowband capable radios, then to have it not really matter.

Lawrence just reallocated their existing VHF frequencies for a Phase 2 trunk. All new equipment, all new architecture. Lawrence also covered the cost of the subscriber units.

To be fair, narrowbanding had been coming down the road since at least 1992. In true business fashion, a whole lot of agencies put it off until about 6 months out. They only had 20 years to prepare. The MT2000s and Spectras that all the former NORCOM agencies were using were 2 decades old, or approaching it, by the time the narrowbanding edict came down.

Station 150?

 

[n3obl]

I'm surprised they don't just flip the narrow switch on the old norcom channels. Just need to reprogram stuff. Also the news release from FCC requesting congress to undo the t band giveback I assume it will happen soon enough.

 

[Drachen_Fire]

To my knowledge, a lot of the old Norcom repeaters aren't capable of narrowband. Still on old equipment. Have to remember, this was right around the time that South and West had been narrowbanded, and they had just built the East system a year or so prior. Budget was likely pretty thin.

 

[Drachen_Fire]

They were also in the middle of building the Northwest system, too. There was a lot going on from 2011-2013.

 

[ffemt134]

To my knowledge, a lot of the old Norcom repeaters aren't capable of narrowband. Still on old equipment. Have to remember, this was right around the time that South and West had been narrowbanded, and they had just built the East system a year or so prior. Budget was likely pretty thin.

Hard to bellieve that system is over 20 years old now...went online 1997 or 1998, I believe?

 

[Drachen_Fire]

From the equipment I saw in a lot of the trucks, I'd believe it. Lots of Motorola MT2000 portables and Spectra dual head W9 mobiles. Lots of MCS2000 mobiles in squads, too. There were a lot of original equipment still in use back in 2012.

 

[Drachen_Fire]

I did a whole lot of the programming work for the Ross and West View companies when the Northwest system was deployed. The equipment coming out of those trucks was ancient as well. GM300 VHF wideband only rigs, stuff like that. Seemed in good shape, too.

 

[ffemt134]

From the equipment I saw in a lot of the trucks, I'd believe it. Lots of Motorola MT2000 portables and Spectra dual head W9 mobiles. Lots of MCS2000 mobiles in squads, too. There were a lot of original equipment still in use back in 2012.

Looks like it was indeed 1998.....NORTH HILLS EMERGENCY SERVICES

Under the "home" tab theres a bit about it.
I know the original pagers were Minitor 2's as well. From what I understand they were some of the very last ones ever ordered before the Minitor 3 came out.

 

[Drachen_Fire]

Yes. The station monitors were still heavy on the Minitor 2 when we started replacing everything. NEWCOM. That was the name. I think NORCOM still exists.

 

[n3obl]

NORCOM is located in passavant hospital. They mainly handle non emergency transport scheduling for Passavant, Cranberry and St. Margaret hospital. Also they coordinate incoming UPMC insurance transfers from AHN / other system.

 

[Drachen_Fire]

Yes. The only dispatch activity I hear from them is on 155.205 simplex.

Or at least, used to. No idea if they still use it.

 

[Matakovich1]

Not really.

Congress exempted the T-Band from narrowbanding at the eleventh hour. I remember scrambling to get our agency into narrowband capable radios, then to have it not really matter.

Lawrence just reallocated their existing VHF frequencies for a Phase 2 trunk. All new equipment, all new architecture. Lawrence also covered the cost of the subscriber units.

To be fair, narrowbanding had been coming down the road since at least 1992. In true business fashion, a whole lot of agencies put it off until about 6 months out. They only had 20 years to prepare. The MT2000s and Spectras that all the former NORCOM agencies were using were 2 decades old, or approaching it, by the time the narrowbanding edict came down.

Station 150?

Station 145!
145 Medic 1 (2012-2013)

 

[Drachen_Fire]

Oh, wow!

145 Ceased to exist, last year or maybe the year before.

 

[Matakovich1]

Oh, wow!

145 Ceased to exist, last year or maybe the year before.

Its been about 2yrs now. I do miss working there. If I had unlimited cash flow Id love to buy the place and restart the service. I have worked west cost and east coast. EMS is way better on the east.
For a short time I was 8231 at Medivac 2010-2011