New statewide public safety radio system?

[n5bew1]

This was in todays "Oklahoman".
You might need to login to see article.

Maybe Elk City can get on the 800 system now. Hope it works out.
Ken

www.newsok.com/article/1799341

 

[mam1081]

$56 million, huh. That's a pretty good start, but I wouldn't count on covering what's left of the whole state with that. I don't know exactly what it would cost, but you see some cities spending half that (read: OKC - ~$30 million) on a digital system. If they decide to stay 800 Moto SmartZone analog trunked, that will save a lot though. Then they wouldn't have to re-do all the existing radios in OHP cars and Tulsa.


A 9600 baud P-25 system would be nice though. There seems to be quite a few of those going in. Colorado, Kansas, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Georia all seem to be getting one of those. If those were all tied together - WHOA. That would be awesome. Just imagine!

 

[KK5FM]

Interesting wording in the newspaper article. One of the criteria was to be able to "monitor" other agencies. Gee, I wonder what agency has an "unmonitorable" system that the OHP would have to spend state money to monitor?

 

[woodyrr]

In response to an interoperability question that I asked in another thread in this forum. A member identified as mule-tail posted the following reply:

Quote

Well, OHP will be adding talkgroups to their radio template that correspond to OKC's primary dispatch talkgroups. So for example a trooper will have OKC Hefner on their radio which will be tied to OKC's Hefner talkgroup. They can scan it, or switch to it and key up.

More difficult for jurisdictions with conventional systems. There is, however, a group of individuals representing many of the metro area jurisdictions and the State who are working on ways to address this.

Endquote

Although, most unfortunately IMHO, Oklahoma City will not be fully integrated with the Statewide system, hopefully, the Statewide users and OKC officers will at least be able to follow mutual pursuits and calls for assistance through these patches as originally intended when the idea for a new system was conceived.

 

[Gilligan]

This does raise one idea in my mind. If we can't monitor the OCPD dispatch channels because they are Provoice, will we be able to monitor the patches on the state DPS system, like OHP is supposed to be able to do? Or will they encrypt those talkgroups? Just a thought...

 

[woodyrr]

This does raise one idea in my mind. If we can't monitor the OCPD dispatch channels because they are Provoice, will we be able to monitor the patches on the state DPS system, like OHP is supposed to be able to do? Or will they encrypt those talkgroups? Just a thought...

First, although the individual that I quoted appeared to be knowledgeable, the patches do not yet exist. If, the purpose of ProVoice digital was not secrecy as advertised, then there is absolutely no reason why any audio patched to the DPS system should be encrypted. After all, they are just talking about the dispatch channels. We're not chasing terrorists here!

If the idea really is to keep officers from getting tangled up in pursuits, firefighters from being injured or killed in a huge wildfire, and to improve communications with interdependent agencies, then there will have to be some informative audio floating around out there or we, the taxpayers, citizens, and Public Servants are simply worse off than we were before.

 

[dstew67]

...Or will they encrypt those talkgroups? Just a thought...

We should be careful to make sure we differentiate between encrypted and digital transmissions. The OKC dispatch channels are NOT encrypted. They are only digital.

A couple of us had discussed the possibility of monitoring the new OHP talkgroups which will be dedicated to OKC's dispatch channels. We'll just have to wait and find out

 

[mule_tail]

This does raise one idea in my mind. If we can't monitor the OCPD dispatch channels because they are Provoice, will we be able to monitor the patches on the state DPS system, like OHP is supposed to be able to do? Or will they encrypt those talkgroups? Just a thought...

All radio traffic going through OKC's audio switch that is linked to other external systems utilize compatible radios and maintain the characteristics of the radio channel / talkgroup of the external system. Therefore, unless DPS encrypts a talkgroup, OCPD traffic repeated on their system will be clear. Since (as previously stated) OKC did not go Provoice in order to frustrate the scanner world, there are no plans to do so.

Those links to OHP will not be activated until additional DPS channels are added. DPS projects are underway to do so, however until capacity is added in the metro area, the State's system could not handle the additional OCPD traffic.

 

[KK5FM]

If this happens, then:
We will be able to hear police dispatch (on the OHP system, via a link,)
But NOT fire dispatch or operations!
OHP has no plans to link OCFD.

 

[woodyrr]

I am beginning to wonder (hoping actually) if Oklahoma City plans to keep the fire alerting in analog. If the stations have their new radios, I would have thought that they would be transmitting station audio in digital like the PD. For interoperability purposes, analog station audio would seem to make sense to me so adjacent agencies can at least have a heads up to nearby incidents. In another thread, Mark (mam1081) described how the stations are icalled for fire alarms, and I have my BCD396T programmed to alert whenever stations 23, 13, or 28 are icalled and for some inexplicable reason, I am amazed every time it happens. Right now, there is nothing to stop the Village or Nichols Hills or Choctaw for that matter, from doing the same thing with regard to stations in their vicinity.

Yikes! I just recognized that this post is off topic. Please excuse my transgression, I must have lost track of where I was, like that's never happened before!

 

[WX5JCH]

We can hope for the poor troopers stationed out here in rural troop H. The low band base has seen better days. I don't think they could communicate at all without county radios and cell phones.

Our 2nd tier state grant at work is on hold I hear, we were going to be getting all new 128 ch. motorola's from the state, (I have a 16 ch cp200 that I carry now), but it sounds like they are making initial plans for putting in a talk group or two for Hazmat/Fire on the new system and issuing everyone 800 mhz radios. We'll see....

We have recently received a new satellite phone from the state at work, and it's quite nice, and I didn't believe we would ever get that, you never know.

Also, our new state 2mtr. ham radio is up and running for storm season, I'll be on 146.760 if anyone comes out this way, give me a call.

Jim
KE5FEK/KE5AZY

 

[CommShrek]

Also, our new state 2mtr. ham radio is up and running for storm season, I'll be on 146.760 if anyone comes out this way, give me a call.

Jim
KE5FEK/KE5AZY

Do tell more about this. Who do you work for that the state gave you a 2m radio for weather related functions?

 

[WX5JCH]

Ok, here's my life story

I work for Great Plains Med Center, been there 14 yrs. I'm the senior biomedical person there. I'm also the only certified Hazmat Technician level in the area and I run our local hazmat team. We have 11 "awareness" level hazmat techs on the team as well.

I was the the training officer for Burns Flat Fire Volunteers for many years, and hold a fire instructor's certificate from OSU in Stillwater. Before that I was a EMS instructor for Amcare in OKC for 11 years.

We got the 2-mtr kenwood under phase 1 of the state homeland security grants, along with a ton of Hazmat equipment. The radio is hooked up to our 100' tower on the roof. I run the callsign KE5AZY during storm season or emergencies on 146.760 which is our local skywarn repeater channel. My normal call is KE5FEK. I monitor some 200 channels from my office and run our radar hookup from my computer that is on the generator system.

We also normally run on our 154.515 system that has about 20 or more portables that do everything from hazmat to housekeeping to maintenance.

Hope that helps.
Jim

154.51500 WNCS709 BM 123.0 PL Great Plains Regional Medical Center
http://www.radioreference.com/modules.php?name=RR&ctid=2132

 

[CommShrek]

That explains it. Thanks for the info Skywatch.

 

[WX5JCH]

Any time my friend.

btw, Air Evac in Elk is back on 158.400 sounds like for good, it needs updating in the db.

Jim

 

[mam1081]

I couldn't raise 146.76 on my way through this evening. Is there a tone or something?