Orange County CCCS P25 Update

[marcotor]

You would be quite surprised at the amount of knowledge dispatchers have. They can even walk and chew gum at the same time!

Do you know any Dispatchers, or is this just speculation?

 

[Mikek]

Do you know any Dispatchers, or is this just speculation?

I know several. My comment wasn't directed at any one person or agency specifically as I know some dispatchers are intrigued by the technical operation of their agencies systems. Some, probably most, are not. The technical complexity of systems vary widely also., and I would think that aged policy manuals or SOP's that don't contemplate patching or linking or whatnot also don't help.

 

[marcotor]

I guess they don't share much information with you. On a Gold Elite Console for example, it's only a few clicks to initiate a patch. At something they train on regularly. And re-train. And drill. I understand your dislike of encryption, but these things have been sort of well thought out by professionals. Not hobbyists who "think" they know, or "have heard" things about encryption and interoperability, and the capabilities or skills of the professionals who take calls (and sometimes also) dispatch those calls, and the field personnel who respond to calls every day.

 

[monitor142]

But when a unit crosses the county border, how soon does their portable radio stop working? 5 feet? 10 feet? Does LA County have any receiver sites in Orange County? Does Orange County have any receiver sites in Los Angeles County? If not - how useful are the patches really?

The answer is "well it depends". If an incident requires mutual aid at a County border line let's say, the patch can be established and everyone can talk. LASD could use OC VHF,UHF, or 800 access on their APX8000 and OC agencies could stay on Countywide Red tg or even move to an Orange law tac tg. OC Control 1 has the ability to do what ever they need to do. No need for the link patch to be used by OC Control 1 and LASD SCC.

Now if we are talking about a rolling pursuit, that's where "fingertip roaming" occurs. OC units would switch to an 8Call, 8Tac, or CA LAW 8 conventional channel to converse with LA agencies. Their 800 infrastructure is limited but LA RICS is moving towards a multi band mutual aid overlay of the County similar to LARTCS but next gen and will incorporate extensive coverage improvements.

A lot of LA agencies will have, if they do not already, multi band radios in their vehicles. Either standalone RF decks or APX7500/8500 units. They will have all kinds of channels to access. San Diego, Riverside, and San Berdo are already 700 or 800 for their systems and should have a decent amount of 800 (and 700) mutual aid infrastructure in place.

Eventually the So Cal region could become a "System of Systems" using ISSI links and go as far as having coordinated roaming talkgroups among the various P25 systems. The technology is there to make it happen. I wouldn't touch the political aspect with a 50 foot stick though...time will tell.

 

[tkenny53]

from what I have heard, LACOFD can talk to OCFD in the clear. I would think most agencies have a way of doing so. with such modern finger touch consoles, OC can single touch LACO channels and talk, and also listen, as those around it, like SD, RVC and so on

 

[monitor142]

from what I have heard, LACOFD can talk to OCFD in the clear. I would think most agencies have a way of doing so. with such modern finger touch consoles, OC can single touch LACO channels and talk, and also listen, as those around it, like SD, RVC and so on

LA County Fire either has OCFA provided portables, or in the case of La Habra those radios (APX8000's) were bought by the City and were programmed by LA County with their VHF and UHF, OCSD Communications programmed the OC trunked system in them. They are not in the clear. All OC encryption is programmed as strapped so no operator can "select" it. It's hard programmed.

Other cities like Brea have VHF and UHF radios in their rigs for mutual aid. In the mutual threat zones, OCFA can patch Fire OC and OC Access (VHF) to the trunked system for the comm plan, usually command channels for the incident. VFIRE channels are used for division tacs.

 

[techman210]

I often hear LACOFD call adjacent counties on VFIRE21 the old “White” and then later “White 1” 154.28 MHz, analog of course.

 

[tzuanich]

There is live feed here on Radio Reference where you can listen to Orange County Fire Dispatch, how are they Decrypting that.

 

[PrivatelyJeff]

There is live feed here on Radio Reference where you can listen to Orange County Fire Dispatch, how are they Decrypting that.

Either direct from the dispatch board or they (the radio people) just grabbed a radio and hooked it up online.

 

[Engine104]

Either direct from the dispatch board or they (the radio people) just grabbed a radio and hooked it up online.

Yep. Apparently what the Chief meant when he said he would decrypt OCFA comms....

 

[monitor142]

It should be fairly simple to have the online feed. With the transition to P25, every dispatch center is directly connect to the P25 Core. Before OCFA, MetroNet, Costa Mesa, and Laguna Beach would dispatch Fire via consolettes or base radios dedicated to each talkgroup. As a back up, all consolettes were replaced with P25 capable units. Mainly the APX7500's at the time. They have a recording output so with the necessary wiring and computer resources, it can be done.

 

[tzuanich]

Yep. Apparently what the Chief meant when he said he would decrypt OCFA comms....

The Fire Chief connected Broadcastify to a feed it the dispatch center??

 

[Engine104]

The Fire Chief connected Broadcastify to a feed it the dispatch center??

Well, not personally... But it's been a couple of years now since he said he would decrypt comms and all we still have is Broadcastify. Granted, it's better than nothing.

 

[ScanFanEd]

Just curios if we are still hopeful that OCFA will follow through with turning off/removing encryption, or is that not looking so good?

 

[LA-OC_SCANNER]

Just curios if we are still hopeful that OCFA will follow through with turning off/removing encryption, or is that not looking so good?

I think it will happen....slowly and eventually. They have no more pressure at the moment. When they first went encrypted everyone was furious, time has passed and people aren't as vocal about it anymore. Due to that lack of pressure, I think unencryption is on the back-burner for them. Since unencryption involves the sheriffs (they run the CCCS), they definitely will take FOREVER to get it done because they just don't care lol.

 

[Engine104]

I'll believe it when I hear it..

 

[ed3750]

I have also listened to OCFA, Huntington Beach and Newport Beach on the Pulse Point audio link.

 

[es93546]

The answer is "well it depends". If an incident requires mutual aid at a County border line let's say, the patch can be established and everyone can talk. LASD could use OC VHF,UHF, or 800 access on their APX8000 and OC agencies could stay on Countywide Red tg or even move to an Orange law tac tg. OC Control 1 has the ability to do what ever they need to do. No need for the link patch to be used by OC Control 1 and LASD SCC.

Now if we are talking about a rolling pursuit, that's where "fingertip roaming" occurs. OC units would switch to an 8Call, 8Tac, or CA LAW 8 conventional channel to converse with LA agencies. Their 800 infrastructure is limited but LA RICS is moving towards a multi band mutual aid overlay of the County similar to LARTCS but next gen and will incorporate extensive coverage improvements.

A lot of LA agencies will have, if they do not already, multi band radios in their vehicles. Either standalone RF decks or APX7500/8500 units. They will have all kinds of channels to access. San Diego, Riverside, and San Berdo are already 700 or 800 for their systems and should have a decent amount of 800 (and 700) mutual aid infrastructure in place.

Eventually the So Cal region could become a "System of Systems" using ISSI links and go as far as having coordinated roaming talkgroups among the various P25 systems. The technology is there to make it happen. I wouldn't touch the political aspect with a 50 foot stick though...time will tell.

I know the need, given we are talking about the area being the second largest "megalopolis" in the U.S. It's about 18 million people in size.and a continuously developed urban area of 5-6 counties. You could add San Diego County as well if Camp Pendleton and some land east of I-15 near the Riverside County line. If San Diego County is added the whole thing is about 22 million people. The largest is the Washington D.C., to Boston megalopolis. Now, it's beginning to appear that the northern terminus is about to reach Portland, Maine. It gets complex there as multiple states are involved.

The only reservation I have about highly engineered communications systems is the ability of the troops on the ground being able to use all the features. Municipal law enforcement officers are notorious for not understanding their radios and not knowing what channel to switch to. They are still used to calling their own dispatcher, expecting to have them call the other agencies dispatchers to pass along information to another agency's unit located a block away. This occurs all over the country, mostly in urban areas. Rural area agencies have to get on other agency radio systems frequently and the systems aren't as complex. Some incredible training is going to be needed, surpassing anything that has been done before. A good handbook is needed as well, something tech type people aren't good at writing. They aren't the first choice when it comes to presenting training, come to think of it. I don't mean to offend, this has been my observation over many years working for a large agency. They have strengths no one else has.

As for fire personnel, they are miles ahead law enforcement in their understanding of radio systems. This, in part, because they work more mutual aid incidents and travel greater distances on such incidents than law enforcement officers. Practice helps!

 

[shinkley]

Wildland fires in the OC will continue to shift to VHF systems immediately following dispatch. This includes the SOLAR plan for most of the County and the PROS plan for the very South County. The intent here is to establish common interagency communications for multi-agency response. Those plans can both be found in RR files if you do a search.

Looks like the SOLAR plan was updated in 2018, but I can find anything on the South OC PROS plan. I read where they use SOLAR as primary and assign South OC Freqs as needed. I can't find the plans in the radio reference database. Could you provide where they located?

 

[kearthfan101]

Looks like the SOLAR plan was updated in 2018, but I can find anything on the South OC PROS plan. I read where they use SOLAR as primary and assign South OC Freqs as needed. I can't find the plans in the radio reference database. Could you provide where they located?

They aren't in the database together because it's a mosh posh of interop frequencies found in other parts of the db. Both the SOLAR and PROS plans are located in the wiki.

Orange County (CA) - The RadioReference Wiki

wiki.radioreference.com