New Communications helps emergency management = MESIN?

[ka3jjz]

This story was posted on Scan-DC by Al Henney; is this MESIN? Now that it seems to be public, what about some links - freqs, maps, anything??
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http://www.wmdt.com/topstory/topstory.asp?id=1531

New Communication Helps Emergency Management
By JOSH DAVIDSBURG (CAMBRIDGE, MD -- WMDT) 5/17/2005

Photographer: Stephen Donoway


Maryland Governor Bob Ehrlich unveiled new radio technology for the
Eastern Shore Emergency Management crews Tuesday.

Cambridge Assistant Fire Chief Calvin Stack says a 10-alarm warehouse
fire two years ago sparked the interest in a new communication system.

"The communication are very poor because we didn't have the system we
have now," says Stack.

Fourty companies from six counties worked for hours to get the flames
under control.

Stack says about the new system, "If I had that then, we wouldn't have
had the problems, we probably wouldn't have needed that many fire
departments."

The new radio system is up and running to correct any communications
problems that happened before. Cambridge Mayor C.L. Rippons stood
answered the Governor's inaugural radio call from Reisterstown to test
the system Tuesday.

Steve Williams is the Cambridge Public Safety Director.

"We're all aboe to communicate now and that makes public safety
paramount," says Williams.

A 5.6 million dollar set-up connects all nine Maryland counties
through the 800 megahertz radio system the counties have already
implemented.

"We'll be able to talk to everyone, we won't have to send no runners,
we'll be able to do what we wanted to do with that one we couldn't
do," says Stack.

City officials say the new radio system will make everyone in
Cambridge much safer, and everyone on the Shore.

Officials have been working on the project since 2003.
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73s Mike

 

[WCRadioGuy]

The MESIN project is a multiple county communications system otherwise known as the Maryland Eastern Shore Interoperability Network. It covers all of the Eastern Shore utilizing frequencies set aside by the FCC for Nationwide Emergency Communications which are all conventional frequencies.
N-Call TX-866.0125 RX-821.0125, This is the calling channel which goes to MEMA for assignment to a Tactical channel.
N-TAC1 TX-866.5125 RX-821.5125
N-TAC2 TX-867.0125 RX-822.0125
N-TAC3 TX-867.5125 RX-822.5125
N-TAC4 TX-868.0125 RX-823.0125
All channels use a channel guard of 156.7

MESIN is all a M/A-Com System utilizing Network First tying all the Eastern Shore Counties together through the State of Maryland microwave network.

 

[ka3jjz]

Ah, I see; bonus questions - will these frequencies need to be reallocated due to the rebanding? It would appear that they would....

I keep on hearing about other TAC frequencies - specifically V-Tac and U-Tac; will MESIN interface with these, too - maybe down the line?

73s and thanx...Mike

 

[tolley]

They have been patching this into Dorchester's Tac 6 talkgroup. It sounded pretty good the other day.

 

[WCRadioGuy]

Ah, I see; bonus questions - will these frequencies need to be reallocated due to the rebanding? It would appear that they would....


From my understanding, there will eventually be a rebanding of these freq's. As for V-Tac and U-Tac, I haven't heard about an interface of these as of yet, but..............

 

[doctordave]

Curious if anyone in the Balt area copied the Gov's radio test of MESIN from this area to a point on the Eastern Shore the other day (see the media story above). I have the impression from a prior posting that the system allows for communication with & activation of the MESIN towers without necessarily having to activate the Beltway area towers. So, if there is an incident on the Shore & the network is utilized, those of us up here in the Balt area might not necessarily hear any of it, since our local towers (with the same I-CALL, I-TAC freqs) will not be on. It seems there is also the ability to make the chunks of the state equipped w/ these towers seemlessly connected. Maybe Nathan can clarify this for us.


This reminds me to inquire about MSP MARNIS 39.26 (MSP A2). Anyone know if MSP still maintains the cross-patch equipment for this freq? Years ago, I think it was based out of the old Valley barracks and ? Waterloo barracks....just two sites. Have not heard use of patching on that freq since maybe the early 80's. The freq was also used often as sort of an alternative to 39.1 for major events (chases, riots, etc) in the state....but even that sort of use has fallen off. One would think that, with the great need for mutual aid comms here in MD, perhaps a full-time patch of MSP A2 and something like I-TAC 1 would be a potential solution. We've certainly all heard the tremendous lack of coordination during multi-agency car chases.

 

[Dispatcher308]

it was done by patchin the microwave link at mema to the Shore Towers that is why no one up here heard the Governor also that is how we will patch the 2 together. Also if you watched WJZ that was me sitting at my desk.

 

[doctordave]

Thanks, Nathan. Missed the segment on JZ, unfortunately. You are famous now.

 

[Dispatcher308]

NO NO NO I am not famous and never will be, I like be a Country Boy