New Radio System . . .

[MCIAD]

Time to let the cat out of the bag.

This info is for those of you close enough to monitor the Ventura County Fire Dept.

The Ventura County Fire Dept. is in the process of building a new, 15,000 square foot, Communications Center, due to open in the summer of 2006. As part of that project, we are getting a new CAD (Tri-Tech), new radio system (Zetron), and a new 911 phone system (also Zetron).

We are also revamping our entire channel line-up, to include a new, expanded, Command/Tac structure; going from the 3 Command/Tac pairs we now have to 5, with the breakdown as follows.

Simi Valley/Moorpark
Conejo Valley (Thousand Oaks/Oak Park/Westlake Village)
Camarillo/Santa Clara River Valley, including Santa Paula and Fillmore.
Coastal (Ventura City, North and South coasts)
Ojai (including upper Ojai and Lockwood Valley).

There is also our Channel 1, where all primary dispatching will be done.

Not all the frequencies have been identified as of last week, but they should be soon. Ch. 1 will be simulcast, but not repeated, whereas the 5 Command channels will be repeated simulcast.

As soon as I get confirmed frequency pairs and assignments, I will submit them here for inclusion to the database. How does one do that?

If anybody has any questions, feel free to e-mail me at the address listed in my sig., or leave me a message here.

 

[DPD1]

Sounds interesting... Maybe I'll be able to hear more from the valley now.

Dave
-DPD Productions - Featuring the TrainTenna LP Gain RR Scanner Antenna-
http://eje.railfan.net/dpdp/

 

[Ben96cal]

re: new channel lineup

Will the new channel lineup be instituted before or after the new comm center?

anticipatingly waiting
Ben
www.mattlogic.com

 

[MCIAD]

No . . .

The radio folks are working on the "Radio Improvement Project" now - in conjuction with the building of the new FCC. We should begin testing the Repeated Simulcast technology in the Ojai Battalion (Engines 21, 22, 23, 20, and maybe 25 and 26 - to be determined).

The master plan, which never lasts past the first revision, is to have all the zones up and running prior to opening the new FCC. I do not think that is going to happen, we are already months behind the R.I.P., ad I do no think we are going to get caught up.

 

[mikeh]

are you staying on vhf

are you staying on vhf
and just changing the channel line up//

 

[MCIAD]

Yes, we are staying VHF and analog. We looked at going Digital (spectrum to be decided) but when the initial bids started coming in, it was obvious that it was going to take way more money than we had to do it. We have a very mountianous topography, and it would have taken just too many repeater sites to provide handheld coverage for it all.

 

[Kirk]

I think you made a wise choice. There arn't many reasons to go digital, other than it's new and different. Analog VHF is proven technology, leaves you on VHF (which is the only way to go for mutual aid reasons), and newer radios can do narrow or wide w/o difficulty.

I can remember hearing 154.010 blast in way up here when the conditions were right at night. Ahh, the memories.

I'd just like to say how much I appreciate a comm professional making contributions to this site. We all look forward to the new channel lineup once it becomes available.

 

[selgaran]

As soon as I get confirmed frequency pairs and assignments, I will submit them here for inclusion to the database. How does one do that?

Go the the Ventura County page in the database -
http://www.radioreference.com/modules.php?name=RR&aid=625

Click the "submit changes" button in the top right corner.

 

[HBdigital1]

Although we live in Orange County, and thus cannot receive anything from Ventura County, this is very interesting info, and esp from someone "in the know", who is open to share this with the general scanning community. I only wish our law people in Orange County would be as forthright, or even 25 % as such..... well, you'all know where our tax dollars went, and even our local newspaper, has no access to monitoring our local law people. We are on "encrypted ground" here!

 

[MCIAD]

There are two ways to look at a public service radio system. What does the public need to know, and what does it not need to know. I can understand, having worked the Law Enforcement side of the mic for years, that there is a reason for NOT boradcasting even day-to-day PD activities. However, there is no reason whatsoever to NOT braodcast any FD stuff. There is little-to-nothing that a Fire Department does, ever, that would be considered confidential.

On top of all that, it is all public info anyway. If you know how, you can find the info thru the FCC or other sources - it is all there.

 

[leonzo]

Monitoring Law Enforcement

Reading this thread I just had to comment on the statement about even routine law enforcement functions need to be encrypted. I have 32 years in law enforcement most of them as a command level officer from a large VA County. I wholeheartedly disagree with that statement! In a democracy law enforcement function is performed in the public domain, officers/depities are paid by tax dollars, and the public has oversight through the legislative and judicial branches of government. Whether we are broadcasting a lookout for a lost kid, responding to an accident with injury or marking out for lunch why in anybody's name does that need to be encrypted? It doesn't! Many people listen to law enforcement, officers, depuities, adjoining jurisdiction public safety personnel, dispatchers, husbands and wives of public safety personnnel, the media, neighborhood watch people, interested citizens and criminals. The point is law enforcement traffic should be in the public domain. I have never minded citizens listening to me or my department. Matter of fact by listening citizens should hear the excellence that most officers acheive day in and out. Citizens have many times called in information or spotted people wanted by the police based on listening to their scanners. If a citizen hears something questionable, unprofessional or whatever they can of course complain to the agency and any professional agency will conduct an inquiry and take corrective action if necessary. In a democracy you must have the support of the people in order to perform your law enforcement job. When you lose that support/trust then law enforcement becomes ineffective and just about useless. Citizens who don't trust their law enforcement don't call in complaints, point out wanted persons, testify in court and so on. Are there times that radio traffic should be encrypted? Sure, narcotics cases/investigations, internal affairs investigations, terriosm related issues, swat teams in action, surveillances when it's known or suspected the bad guys are monitoring you. In those situations encrypt as needed. But average day to day stuff, absolutely positively no reason to encrypt. Most law enforcement agencies have a lot of technology available to avoid broadcasting in the clear sensitive information. Along with encryption there is cad/mdt, cellphones, nextel 2 way, text messaging, face to face meetings, satellite phones. I think you get the idea, if its really sensitive we don't broacast it over the radio. If its routine law enforcement functions especially any type of lookout we want as wide a dissemination as possible including scanner montiors! I believe that 32 years of being in law enforcement gives me the right and proper background to express an opinion that most citizens may not routinely hear from a law enforcement professional. Thanks!

 

[brandon]

I find it funny that Orange County spends the money to encrypt everything, yet all police calls are available at http://www.occrimecalls.org/

 

[Mick]

They do put selected calls online to help the news media especially since they were most vocal. It's quite controversial in Or. Co. that dispatch calls are encrypted.

I find it funny that Orange County spends the money to encrypt everything, yet all police calls are available at http://www.occrimecalls.org/

 

[RolnCode3]

. . .

Another beat to death topic. Cool info on a new system. Be interesting to see what other agencies/counties are doing in the next few years. Insiders can provide info that can really make people aware of the "behind the scenes" goings-on. Hope the system works well.

 

[MCIAD]

Yea - it was not my intent to open THAT topic again for discussion. I guess I should have just kept my mouth shut (or fingers off the keyboard).

And now for the latest - we will be taking our Command 4 (154.100) off-line within the next couple of weeks to reprogram and set-up the sites for Repeater/Simulcast operation. We will be using Command 6 [155.835/100.0]in it's place for West County Command Ops, and as a secondary East County Command.

This will last approx. 1 month.

Any questions, you know where to find me.

 

[DPD1]

I think you made a wise choice. There arn't many reasons to go digital, other than it's new and different. Analog VHF is proven technology, leaves you on VHF (which is the only way to go for mutual aid reasons), and newer radios can do narrow or wide w/o difficulty.

I agree... I've not understood the huge push to higher bands and digital. There's people with the department that still complain about the LAPD system.

Dave
-DPD Productions - Custom Scanner, MURS, & Ham Antennas-
http://eje.railfan.net/dpdp/

 

[JoeyC]

Reasons for the "push" to higher bands and digital are simple. Growth and expansion. If you've only only got x number of available frequencies to use in a band, the OBVIOUS solutions when more channels are required for wireless communications are: sharing frequencies (trunking), decreasing the current frequencies bandwidths (narrowbanding), moving to other bands and switching to digital modulations for better performance in a tighter spectrum of bandwidth.

 

[Kirk]

I get the need for more channels/talkgroups/whatever. That makes total and complete sense. But I'm still failing to see how digital is better than narrowbanded analog FM. They're not running any narrower with digital than you can with narrow FM.

I honestly think it was a solution looking for a problem. And an excuse to get new gear on the taxpayer dime.

 

[JoeyC]

I am certainly NO expert on this, there are plenty on this board though that will correct me though, but as you cram more channels within a given spectrum I believe you must also decrease transmitter power to avoid adjacent frequency bleedover especially with analog. And because of the narrower bandwidth and lower power, audio fidelity is also compromised. I don't think this is as much an issue with digital on narrowbanded freqs. I believe you can cram many more digital signals within a range of radio spectrum and not have interference issues that you inevitably have with analog.

Someone will correct me if I am off here.

Another thing. This is the 21st century. Just about everything is headed in the direction of digital and high technology. Telephone communications, TV, music, movies and a hundred other things I can't think of at the moment have gone the way of the future, digital and electronic. There is no reason that ALL public safety communications should remain in the past, utilizing out-dated technology when everything else in the world moves on. Digital radio in public safety is PROVEN effective, efficient and comes with alot more features than analog systems. The stories you hear about digital failing are mostly due to poorly implemented systems where the end-user has attempted to cut costs by limiting hardware (repeater sites, etc). This is not a failure of the digital radio system, but of the poorly educated user who, most likely, is still thinking in an analog mindset, when he/she makes decisions about implementing a new digital system. Of course this new stuff is costly. Eventually it will be cheaper. Remember the first videorecorders? Plasma screens?