Orange County NY 911

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CqDx

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I think there is a overall push to use the standard VTAC and UTAC for neighboring mutual aid in lower Hudson Valley. It is used on occasional basis in Westchester County though not on every mutual aid call.
 

MFR230

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SP Middletown is already equipped with a 700 radio for communicating with the SP Haverstraw cars on the Rockland system


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trauma74

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sc8,

Do you know how many agencies are going to be maintaining their own radio systems? I am curious to find out.
I was told by a head of one volunteer EMS agency that they are planning to stay with what they have now, since they are dispatched by their local PD and not the County.
 

GTR8000

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Any idea what radios the NYSP cars have? Harris? Motorola?

SP Middletown and SP Haverstraw have APX consolettes for Rockland's system.

The SP Haverstraw 7/800 MHz mobiles are APX 6500. The troopers normally assigned to SP Haverstraw are issued dual band VHF/7/800 MHz APX 7000 portables. The rest of Troop F are issued Harris Unity portables, also capable of VHF/7/800 MHz operation.

Park Police Palisades region also have 7/800 MHz APX 6500 mobiles, and are also issued dual band VHF/7/800 APX 7000 portables (including the Park Forest Rangers).

All Troop F and Park Police 7/800 MHz mobiles and portables are capable of operating on both the Rockland and Metro-25 (NYC) systems.
 

APX8000

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A few weeks ago Tuxedo Town PD received their allotment of nine APX 6500 mobiles from the county, which are currently programmed on the Rockland system. They can monitor Countywide as well as Ramapo, Suffern and Park Police.

I wonder why the County is holding the radios hostage for so long to neighboring towns that border Rockland...I mean, isn't the purpose INTEROP ?

So m


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GTR8000

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A few weeks ago Tuxedo Town PD received their allotment of nine APX 6500 mobiles from the county, which are currently programmed on the Rockland system. They can monitor Countywide as well as Ramapo, Suffern and Park Police.

And they can thank the Rockland system admin for the idea to get Tuxedo's allotment issued to them.

In fairness, Orange were on board with the idea...they just didn't come up with it on their own. ;)
 
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trauma74

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GTR & Signal-Zero,

Thank you both for the information. I know that I can always rely on the both of you to get me good information.

GTR, you said that SP/Middletown has a consolette that picks up the Rockland system? That is some pretty good coverage!!!

I am glad that Tuxedo got those new mobile radios, they work with Ramapo PD all the time, so it is good that they will now have direct communications.
 
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trauma74

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I also heard that there are more Harris radios, along with EF Johnson radios going onto the Rockland system very soon. I believe the EF Johnson radios are going to be for New Square Public Safety?
 

GTR8000

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GTR, you said that SP/Middletown has a consolette that picks up the Rockland system? That is some pretty good coverage!!!

They have a 10 dBd Yagi mounted on the roof on the building aimed at the Jackie Jones site.

I am glad that Tuxedo got those new mobile radios, they work with Ramapo PD all the time, so it is good that they will now have direct communications.

Only on County, they don't have transmit ability on Ramapo's talkgroup.

I also heard that there are more Harris radios, along with EF Johnson radios going onto the Rockland system very soon. I believe the EF Johnson radios are going to be for New Square Public Safety?

New Square ESU currently has a Kenwood portable on the system. The county has recently purchased a couple of Kenwood portables for county facilities security as well. (Note: Kenwood acquired EF Johnson in 2014)

There are multiple brands of radios on the Rockland system. While the initial allocation from the county consisted of Motorola APX series (and many agencies have chosen to continue to stick with APX radios), there were never any prohibitions on using other manufacturer's equipment. As long as they meet the specs, have at it. There's really nothing special or noteworthy about non-Motorola subscribers on the system at this point.
 

Mbk127k

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I also would like to let some know that there is a county coordinator on the fire side who is telling or i may say advising fire agencies not to purchase dual band radios for the fact that you have to switch back and forth to get to channels ( which is normal ) but such as a uhf channel being used and then switching to 7/800 system and that there is a long delay in registering radio back with the 7/800 system when switching from uhf?. Is this true or not because I mean I am familiar with Mototrbo and switching from an analog channel to a trunked system takes less then a second. So is he correct on telling them not to purchase dual band radios because of a delay between channels and talkgroups or is he just making it up?.

Also GTR8000 are the Harris Unity able to scan multiple systems or a system along with analog channels on same scan zone.
 
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GTR8000

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Bluntly put: Scanning between two or more trunked systems, or between trunked and analog, is highly inadvisable.

I'm not familiar with the operation of the Harris radios, so I can only speak with certainty about the Motorola radios.

The APX series will allow you to scan across multiple trunked systems, as well as mixed trunked/analog scan. This is known as Multi-System Talkgroup scan, and while the name implies that it's only for trunked systems, you can in fact mix trunking and analog in the same scan list. Note that with this type of scan, you cannot set any type of priority channel.

However...just because you can doesn't mean you should!

The advice the Orange County coordinator is giving is valid and sound, not BS.

In order for the radio to scan between trunked and analog, it must be aware of the control channel. Scanning involves switching between decoding the trunked system control channel for X amount of time (looking for talkgroup grants), then leaving the control channel to scan the analog frequencies, and so on. This results in what amounts to a very inefficient scan operation that will inherently have some delay when switching between trunked and analog scan list members. The same is true if you're scanning two trunked systems even without any analog channels mixed in; the radio must still bounce between each system's control channel to look for talkgroup grants.

And once again, remember that there is no priority available with this type of scan, so whatever active talkgroup or analog frequency the radio lands on, that's what you're going to listen to until the transmission ends and it resumes scanning...regardless of what else is going on.

So aside from the technical reasons why it's a lousy idea to scan across systems and/or with a mix or trunking and analog, it's also bad from an operational standpoint. There is no way you can effectively monitor communications on two different resources using a single radio...at some point, something critical is going to be missed.
 

Mbk127k

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Thanks GTR8000 for the feedback and information with the scanning.

The coordinator was not talking about scan feature as a way to make agencies not lean towards a dual radio but as where he said switching from analog to the 7/800 system would have some delay and was not advisable. Is that true as where there is a delay for the radio to have a delay for registering and acquiring a control channel?, not scan just switching from a channel to a system talkgroup is what the issue was.

As before operating a mototrbo connectplus system switching from analog channel to get a hold of dutchess 911 and then switching back to our main companies talk group only took less than second so I am curious to know if it's any different with a p25 phase 2 trunked system.
 

GTR8000

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The coordinator was not talking about scan feature as a way to make agencies not lean towards a dual radio but as where he said switching from analog to the 7/800 system would have some delay and was not advisable. Is that true as where there is a delay for the radio to have a delay for registering and acquiring a control channel?, not scan just switching from a channel to a system talkgroup is what the issue was.

It takes an average of 3 to 4 seconds for the radio to register and affiliate when switching from an analog channel to a trunked talkgroup, so yes, there is a noticeable delay.
 

APX8000

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MBK127K...I'm assuming you work for one of the paid EMS agencies like MLSS that use the One-Voice DMR system.

MLSS could have their own talkgroup on Orange County's new system. Then they would scan two talkgroups, theirs and County when responding ALS mutual aid. It's called interop ! Rockland Medics are in the respective EMS talkgroup and dispatched by the PD with the BLS ambulance. NYSP Haverstraw is dispatched by Rockland County...are we seeing a "this makes sense" reasoning.


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DaveNF2G

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It seems like that would cause exactly the kinds of problems GTR8000 was describing.

OneVoice is MotoTRBO ConnectPlus on UHF. IIRC, Orange County is going from 800 MHz EDACS to 800 MHz P25. So in the use case for MLSS, they would have to use a radio that can scan between multiple incompatible trunked systems on multiple bands, with the aforementioned delay and missed traffic issues.
 

GTR8000

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IIRC, Orange County is going from 800 MHz EDACS to 800 MHz P25.

The EDACS system is just one part of the RF landscape in Orange County.

No EMS agencies operate on EDACS in Orange County. Most operate on the county's VHF channels, in addition to their own channels/systems.

Only one fire department operates on EDACS (Middle Hope). Everyone else operates on a mixture of low band, VHF, and UHF.

Law Enforcement is the largest user of the EDACS system, with about a dozen police departments plus the Orange County Sheriff's Office operating on the system. The remainder operate on VHF, with a few oddballs on UHF.
 

Septa3371CSX1

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It seems like that would cause exactly the kinds of problems GTR8000 was describing.

OneVoice is MotoTRBO ConnectPlus on UHF. IIRC, Orange County is going from 800 MHz EDACS to 800 MHz P25. So in the use case for MLSS, they would have to use a radio that can scan between multiple incompatible trunked systems on multiple bands, with the aforementioned delay and missed traffic issues.

Also last I checked there are no radios out there that do both DMR and P25 - most digital radios only do one digital mode (whether it be P25, DMR, NXDN, etc) plus analog conventional (or trunked depending on the radio). So those EMS agencies operating on the One Voice network would need multiple radios for P25 and DMR operations.
 
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