Otsego County Road Commission

[jack3726]

Additional, here is an old pdf document, do a search on otsego, you will see a hit on otsego road commission on mpscs.

http://www.michigan.gov/documents/MPSCSBulletin1-2_74572_7.pdf

 

[rdale]

If they aren't on MPSCS

Nobody has said they aren't on it - just that nobody has bothered to listen and see.

and they are on NEXTEL how do they get away with that in these budget lean times(wouldn't they have to pay for NEXTEL services).

Yes, but many communities have cell phones already, so adding direct connect is a minimal difference.

wouldn't Otsego County be paying the state to use MPSCS

No. They pay a mic fee (user fee) based on how many microphones are active. Not any sort of "generic" fee.

Are they still licensed to 159.120 and are they paying fees for it still.

As mentioned many times in this very thread - they still use it, for what we assume is GPS positioning reports.

 

[jbas]

Yes I have had the wildcard on the MPSCS going since I bought the scanner last february. I have not heard anything on that about the road commission. I do have some new TGRPs for Crawford that I need to listen to some more to see exactly what they are. I know they are EMS but unsure what township.
The answer is yes MPSCS has been listened to and they are not there. Central dispatch does not have the ability to talk directly to the trucks anymore other than our weighmasters which is three trucks. The link above is from when EMS/Fire received some of the radios they use. I scrolled down on that link and I do see that the road commission is listed as having radios but that is only in the weighmaster pickups as our weighmasters are basically deputies of the county. The reason I thought it might be MotoTRBO is because when I read up on it stated that GPS and voice could be sent over the same freq with TDMA. It also said that Motorola was really pushing this system for public service agencies. As I said I could be wrong I was just guessing and asking a question about it. I have been using signal stalker at one of the places I plow snow at. It is about a half mile away from their shop. Is that close enough for sig stalker to get the signal or do I have to be closer. I have the stalker set up for VHF High, UHF, 700, and 800 all bands. I have also done limit searches in the VHF high band since I have not seen any new antennaes on the trucks. I now they are using radios because I have seen the radios when I was hauling salt to the county. If I would have known I was going to have this much trouble finding the freq I would have asked more questions then. As far as the county wasting money I think by adding GPS to the radios they have already proven that they don't mind spending tax dollars. This county is not that big. If the forman doesn't know where the trucks are at maybe we should have just got a new forman.

 

[jbas]

Everybody have a Merry Christmas.

 

[jack3726]

I wrote the road commission, here is a snippet of the reply.

Yes, we are at the same frequency. We are now digital however. It is called Motorola mototrbo.

 

[rdale]

Ouch - nice catch! I'm shocked they spent that kind of money just to have the latest and greatest technology, when they are cutting every other area of the county's budget. Who knows a good media outlet

 

[mkoronka]

This reminds me so much of the Dems passing the National Health Reform. They are going to get what they want thru any means like back room deals or robbing Peter to pay Paul. You know the story. And there is people like that here in Otsego County-they get what they want. Mess with employee benefits, threaten to not have the secondary roads plowed on weekends but get this new GPS/radio system in. Like this county really needs that. Heads should roll is all I can say.

 

[jack3726]

Well I don't live in the area but it does make one wonder, I am back to my budet items in my other posts etc. It would be nice to know what they spent on it and what is that cost 'VS' MPSCS and the yearly maintenance costs. Why would they worry that much about all of this for the road commission(not knocking them). I did a google on this radio, no scanner can track it and it is becoming popular, up til yesterday I had not heard of it. Does MDOT have GPS?? Couldn't they have just bought some garmin devices.

 

[jack3726]

JBAS, I forgot to ask you this, how many vehicles are we talking here and now that they have the motorola system I wonder how many other folks have one to talk to them.

 

[jbas]

Probably about 25-30 radios when you figure in all the pickups, loaders, graders, and the rest of the equipment with radios. As far as I know the only people that can talk to them is their own radios. Central dispatch uses 69 LEIN or P911 to talk with the weighmasters or forman. That is the only link they have for now. I would think they would have a radio set up at Central so they would be able to talk directly to the trucks eventually. Even the fire chief in town can't even listen to them anymore. I know they had to do something different for narrowbanding but you would think they would have tried to keep interoperability in mind. Unless the OCRC is the guinea pig for the county before they have to worry about the EMS and fire radios for narrowbanding. However since they already have many of the 800 Mhz radios on the MPSCS that would be completely idiotic for them not to do Fire/EMS on the MPSCS. Let's hope they think it through before they act and waste a lot of tax money and not have any agencies able to talk to each other

 

[rdale]

This has nothing to do with narrowbanding... A new narrowband Motorola radio costs at most $600 with all the bells and whistles, and for fire/EMS radios there is a government grant that pays for 75% of the cost. MotoTRBO radios are much more expensive.

 

[SCPD]

Maybe I'm being anal here but ,,,

... I've been following this thread for a while. Has anyone took the time to look for antennas on the trucks?
Especially the pickups. If I missed a posting describing the antennas on the vehicles, I apologize.
Someone get pix of the antennas. It's the first thing I would do, if someone "disappeared" from my scanner. If they are like any other DPW, the first thing they are doing every morning is eating breakfast on the clock at the diner nearest the yard. Get pix of the antennas while they are feeding their faces, and post them here. We'll figure out what band the antennas are for.

 

[rdale]

... I've been following this thread for a while.

Don't think you followed it close enough

Yes, we are at the same frequency. We are now digital however. It is called Motorola mototrbo.