New County TRS

[foster_006]

Washington County is the latest to go trunked in the Northwest Arkansas area. All county fire departments will be equipped with trunking radios. This project has been ongoing for a few months now. Equipment was purchased last month, and the system is expected to be online in about a year.


Article on nwanews.com

 

[wbswetnam]

Do you know the talkgroup ID? Occasionally I hear new talkgroups appearing, and it takes a bit of detective work to figure out what new service they are. I recently identified talkgroup 15001 as being Searcy County Sheriff's Office -I overheard some geographical data in their traffic that enabled me to identify who they were. There's still a few I have yet to identify - I still can't figure out talkgroup 14801. It is obviously some county sheriff's office, but which precisely I have yet to ascertain.

A question - is there some sort of system for determining future talkgroup ID's? For example, Searcy County SO is 15001, Stone County SO is 15201, Izard County SO is 15401. Izard County is immediately west of Stone County, and Stone County is immediately west of Searcy County. The county to the west of Izard County is Sharp County. Would it be logical, then, to believe that when Sharp County eventually goes to AWIN, that its talkgroup will be 15601? Is there any rhyme or reason as to which organization gets which talk group?

 

[foster_006]

I'm not sure if there is a pattern. If there is, it has yet to evolve to me eyes.

As far as the new TRS, I'm pretty sure it's going to be a new TRS separate from the AWIN system. I'm not sure about that, I didn't get a lot of information, only what was in the article. If it's going to take them a year to implement the new system, then I assume that they are building new towers and such. As it would probably take a lot less time to outfit every county unit with a new radio.


I'll let you know if I hear anything further.

 

[foster_006]

On second thought, they might be piggy-backing off of Fayetteville with the addition of a few towers.

I'm not sure.

 

[Thunderbolt]

On second thought, they might be piggy-backing off of Fayetteville with the addition of a few towers.

I'm not sure.

That is very possible, it could be a simulcast TRS. However, I seem to remember reading that the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, was going to implement a Passport TRS, which would be identical to what Washington County was going to in the future. IMHO, I can't see why they would want to go this route, rather than follow the rest of the state by joining the AWIN TRS. Nonetheless, the bottom line is money, and this maybe the reason why they chose this course of action.

73's

Ron

 

[foster_006]

Wow! Passport? That's surprising really. Come to think of it, the video I saw on KNWA, was of Kenwood radios already in trucks. Since they were talking about getting new radios for everyone, I didn't really think they would already have them in. I'm not sure what radios they use right now. So it could possibly be their old radios too!

I'll dig and snoop around.. and let you know what I find!

 

[foster_006]

From the information i've obtained, sounds like they are going to piggyback off of Fayetteville's system. Will be interesting to see if they need to put up more repeaters, and add a few frequencies. Guess we shall find out!

 

[Thunderbolt]

From the information i've obtained, sounds like they are going to piggyback off of Fayetteville's system. Will be interesting to see if they need to put up more repeaters, and add a few frequencies. Guess we shall find out!

Very interesting, but a step in the right direction. From examining the Fayetteville TRS, I see they are licensed for two transmitter locations:

1. Mount Sequoyah Water Tower.
2. Robinson Mountain, located three kilometers southwest of Robinson.

Moreover, both sites have been upgraded for digital data and voice capabilities. This should make things really interesting from a scanning viewpoint. However, I wonder if they plan on integrating this system into the AWIN in any way?

I believe they would have to add more towers down the road, in order or provide better handheld coverage. Likewise, mobile overage could be spotty in some areas. The terrain in that part of the state is not flat at all, and would need extra coverage not available from the present two licensed tower sites.

73's

Ron

 

[foster_006]

Has anyone heard anything new about this one?

I still hear them on their old frequencies.. so I assume it is "still in progress!"

 

[jonny290]

I haven't heard anything - still normal activity on normal channels for me

btw /wave to all the northwest arkansas folks