OPP Plane and the 400 Series Highways?

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MetalCarnage

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I pasted the story below... so originally i heard it would be concentrating on Highway 400, however in the story it seems to imply all 400 series highways. Couple questions, first obviously being, will the plane be running off a talkgroup on fleetnet? (from my knowledge, i think the answer was a no to this one due to the plane being too high above the antennas radiation pattern to get good enough reception) and if not, does anyone know if it will be getting its own new analog channel and what that possibly could be? Second is has anyone read if it would be patrolling the 401 out in the Durham area as well?


Story from Citynews.ca

Starting Tuesday, the OPP will be on the lookout for speeders, drunk and agressive drivers from the sky.

Officers will be able to keep an eye on hundreds of vehicles at a time from a Cessna 206 that will hover over the 400-series highways. If anything suspicious is spotted from the sky, officers will contact their colleagues on the ground who will pullover the vehicle.

"You're going have to be watching all the time what you're doing," PC Dave Woodward said.

New lines painted every 500 metres on roads allow police in the plane to detect speeders. Drivers caught speeding 50 km/hr or more will lose their licence for a week and their car will be impounded immediately.

More than 4,500 drivers have received one-week suspensions since the Highway Traffic Act was amended to include stiffer penalties for street racers last fall.

"The plane will also help us monitor commercial vehicle drivers to make sure they're not passing unsafely, following too close, or driving carelessly. Everyone must obey the law," OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino said.

It's been 27 years since the OPP patrolled highways from the sky. The provincial force used planes between 1965 and 1981. This year's campaign will cost $1.4 million.

Woodward said the OPP actually owns this plane - the force has leased them in the past.
 

MetalCarnage

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kind of a second point..

"If anything suspicious is spotted from the sky, officers will contact their colleagues on the ground who will pullover the vehicle."

So i guess this is more specific to my question, will the plane be somehow patched to the regular talk groups that are already in use so they can communicate?
 

Forts

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This topic has come up a few times... I believe the plane usually hangs out on SIM11 was the general consensus.
 

Jammin_Jay

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I have heard this plane on sim11 (148.765 mhz), 100's of km's away from my vicinity, i remember one time, listen to the area it was in, and then going to a map to check the distance out. The altitude of the plane, gives in that RF effect where it will be kind of spread out, but strong. Same thing if you heard the Med Helicopter on PCOMM (150.100), MOH channel, when landing on a helipad or going to the scene of an accident, the signal is quite remarkable, in how far it travels. Someone can correct me if i am wrong, but i believe that Sim11 is a simplex channel, so the input and output would be the same. As for if the transmission is rerouted through different towers, i have no idea.
 
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FastEddie

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If I understand you correctly, if I enter both frequencies only in one of my lesser used scanners, non trunkable, I should be able to monitor them??
 

EJB

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FastEddie said:
If I understand you correctly, if I enter both frequencies only in one of my lesser used scanners, non trunkable, I should be able to monitor them??

Yup, with a good antenna the singal carries far.
 

slicerwizard

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MetalCarnage said:
from my knowledge, i think the answer was a no to this one due to the plane being too high above the antennas radiation pattern to get good enough reception
More like because the plane will hit every site within 300 km (at least). They reuse frequencies a fair bit, so forget that idea.


Officers will be able to keep an eye on hundreds of vehicles at a time from a Cessna 206 that will hover over the 400-series highways.
I wonder how much the hover option cost them?


If anything suspicious is spotted from the sky, officers will contact their colleagues on the ground who will pullover the vehicle.
They make sweaters for cars now?
 

MetalCarnage

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slicerwizard said:
More like because the plane will hit every site within 300 km (at least). They reuse frequencies a fair bit, so forget that idea.



I wonder how much the hover option cost them?



They make sweaters for cars now?

First point i forgot about, and agree with

Second point was funny

Third point took it a tad to far :)

Thanks for the info guys, SIM11 shall now be permanantly fixed in the car, lol
 

mchart13

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FYI Folks
Friday morning I was running around taking care of the "honey do list" and would have my 396 on and off. At some point I heard couple OPP officers asking dispatch if the plane was setup yet and which TAC they would be on. I did not get the reply at that time but 15 - 20 min later I heard another officer asking same question and this time I heard dispatch reply TAC 8.
Sunday morning I got paged to work and during my drive in to Markham; OPP plane and the ground officers were setup on 1TAC06.
This said you can listen to them on sim11 as previously mentioned or look for them on the Orillia TAC channels for folks with digital scanners listening to Fleet.
 

maxtracs

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opp plane

i drive a towtruck for a living and i also was hearing the opp plane on tac 6 on sunday we have to listen to all the channels at all times because today its tac 6 tomorrow its sim 11 opp is hard to keep up with on week ends caledon patches with mto 2800,3904 etc.
 

MetalCarnage

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so sorry, sim11 ISNT the only channel the plane sits on....or is Sim11 always a go and sometimes its broadcast over tac 6 as well?
 

IdleMonitor

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So when does Eastern Ontario get use of a plane? It seems that what, as usual they forget about Hwy 17/417, it may not be a 4 lane 400 series Hwy, but the 17 between Pembroke and City of Ottawa Limit is still considered a killer hwy.

OPP Launch Operation Ottawa Valley
Fatalities along the 417 and 17 highways have more than doubled between 2005 and 2007, prompting the OPP to say something has to be done. The police force is launching a new initiative today aimed at lower the number of deaths. Operation Ottawa Valley Highway starts this morning at 10. OPP say fatalities along the two highways has gone from 7 in 2005 to 17 last year. The launch also coincides with Canada Road Safety Week.

http://myfmradio.ca/961/display_news.php?headline_id=2895
 

exkalibur

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To answer a previous question, there are no PL tones on the SIM channels.

The cars TX a 107.2Hz tone, but the comm center does not.
 
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