Ottawa County Simulcast Talkgroups

[BSchaner]

A little update on the Ottawa county system. North Ottawa is now dispatched on fire north again along with telling central they are enroute/onscene. They are still VHF. Within the last few days I have learned that the Georgetown Township tower is now online. Georgetown twp fire switched to using digital a few weeks ago and this week I have heard digital from Blendon, Coopersville, Marne and Allendale fire departments. In regards to the last post yes the VHF system is still active however it is patched with the digital talkgroups so both sides can still hear each other.

At this point fire departments are still using VHF fire ground it appears but I can not confirm. I don't know why they would encrypt Fire ground talkgroups if that is whats going on.

Does someone remember/know if the fire departments will be switching to 800 paging or not? I can't remember if that was part of the plan. As always if anyone has information please post!

 

[tdegeus]

I'm new to the digital scanning world so I sent out my Whistler WS1065 for programing and just got it back. I'm a bit confused about simulcasting. Does that mean all active towers broadcast the same signal at the same time and that can cause problems with the scanner deciding which signal to process? I live between the Allendale tower and what I would call the Ravenna tower. Using the telescopic antenna half extended, I receive some transmissions from Ottawa that are pretty useable but most are dropping out and garbled even with squelch open. I receive the MSP just fine on their system so I'm thinking I'm fighting simulcast issues? Any thoughts? Thanks.

 

[BSchaner]

Yeah simulcast is tricky with some older scanners. I can't really compare because I have a Unication g4 which works really good. If you hear MSP though i'm not sure what tower you scanner is connected to for that if it is a different tower than that of Ottawa Simulcast.

 

[Thunderbolt]

We currently have four duplicate talkgroups on the MPSCS TRS. They are from the Ottawa County area. They are: 13797, 13928, 13933, and 13934. Also, 13932 has been reported as MDOT Osceola County. Can we lock-down and confirm what these talkgroups are being used for?

73s

Ron

 

[BSchaner]

I can try and work on this. Im not sure if maybe they should be 13833 and 13834?

 

[tdegeus]

Yeah simulcast is tricky with some older scanners. I can't really compare because I have a Unication g4 which works really good. If you hear MSP though i'm not sure what tower you scanner is connected to for that if it is a different tower than that of Ottawa Simulcast.

Thanks for the reply. Do you know which towers are active at this point?

 

[jack3726]

Is this a 12 site simulcast?? The DB mapping shows 12 towers in Ottawa County. In the DB it shows 4 Licenses, does this cover all 12 then.

 

[BSchaner]

I'm not sure, I thought it was initially a 10 site simulcast which I think included the Georgetown tower that went live recently.

 

[tdegeus]

To all that gave advice.. thank you. Simulcast is the issue for Ottawa County. Contacted zipscanner on 1/24 (a Friday at 2pm) and ordered SDS200. Unit arrived 9am on Monday the 3rd and scanner was working perfectly by 9:15. Great customer service and a great solution for anyone looking in Ottawa County.

 

[BSchaner]

A small update for the Simulcast system, it appears they are actively taking down VHF antennas and repeaters as the vhf signal for police 1, 2 and tac are very weak for me and a few other people I know. Fire vhf is still normal power, probably for the purpose of mutual aid with neighboring counties. It does appear that fire ground operations are more like an 800mhz simplex style as I have searched multiple times on my scanner during fires and have not been able to pick up anything on the vhf or on higher 800mhz channels.

No additional information on the situation for EMS or 800 fire paging.

 

[krokus]

It does appear that fire ground operations are more like an 800mhz simplex style as I have searched multiple times on my scanner during fires and have not been able to pick up anything on the vhf or on higher 800mhz channels.

Have you check 8Tac91 through 8Tac94? Are you close enough to the scenes to pick up 3 Watt signal?

 

[BSchaner]

Good point, I haven't checked 8Tacs yet but they say switch to fireground 7 or 9 etc but I will put those in and see. I probably haven't been close enough to a scene yet either to pick up a 3W signal.

 

[EVT_Jeff182]

Ottawa Co recently replaced all of the VHF repeaters with the plans of keeping it all for fire paging as well as activating the tornado sirens countywide.

 

[kasparek]

Are the VHF Police Frequencies dead now (All switched to simulcast)?

 

[BSchaner]

As far as I can tell the police vhf seems to be no longer active. Ottawa County Central Dispatch had a press release that was on WZZM that the new radio system is complete as of February. At this point I have not heard anything from EMS departments so I'm not sure if they are actually switching or if they added talkgroups for future use.

 

[kasparek]

I’m thinking when Kent gets their new system up, all EMS for both counties will finally be on MPSCS.

 

[jack3726]

With COVID, it will be interesting to see how far that pushes Kent out from going live. Maybe it will be pushed to 2021. I think the only holdout will be the city of GR.

 

[EVT_Jeff182]

I’m thinking when Kent gets their new system up, all EMS for both counties will finally be on MPSCS.

AMR isn’t switching to 800MHz. They’re going to continue to use the UHF radios they have and they’re goingto have 800MHz for interoperability in their dispatch

 

[whitman]

Talkgroup 3324 having some what sounds like just mic noise coming through tonight?

 

[BSchaner]

That may have been due to a fiber line being cut. The skipping ended after about two hours. This morning the system is running in site trunking for some reason as well as a few other systems in Michigan, not sure if it is a tower upgrade or not. Ottawa central is also using portables right now and not consoles based on radio IDs.