Ottawa EMS >> Fleetnet

[DaveH]

This is the moment everyone's been waiting for. Ottawa EMS
is now in cutover mode to Fleetnet. So far I've heard or "seen"
11 TGs active this morning. Primary activity seems to be on
35440 and 35648.

Dave

 

[ocscan]

Are they patching in the EDACS system? or still just using EDACS for portable coverage?

 

[IdleMonitor]

I wouldn't think they would have to seeing as EMS already has portable VR's to work with already tied into Fleetnet.

So the answer I think would be no.

Are they patching in the EDACS system? or still just using EDACS for portable coverage?

 

[akroeze]

Cool! I'll be up there starting the end of this weekend, it'll be nice to have an organised system to listen to! I found listening to the old system... confusing

 

[IdleMonitor]

There's already been some discussion about some of the talkgroups and proper names an such on the Eastern Ontario Scanning Yahoo Group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EasternOntarioScanning/

Before making the trip, why not get a preview of it all too http://ottscanlive.no-ip.org/

Cool! I'll be up there starting the end of this weekend, it'll be nice to have an organised system to listen to! I found listening to the old system... confusing

 

[bpsmicro]

I want to spend today trying to pin down a couple more TG names, but I have the important ones and I'll be submitting an update to the database here either later today or early tomorrow.

Brad.

 

[DaveH]

I want to spend today trying to pin down a couple more TG names, but I have the important ones and I'll be submitting an update to the database here either later today or early tomorrow.

Brad.

Good, I hope people hold off a bit and don't submit too many bits and pieces.
I heard nothing on PTAC last evening, and nothing so far on the 800MHz TGs
although until hearing otherwise I'd assume they will hold onto that capability
at least for interoperability.

Trunker showed about 50 new Fleetnet radios yesterday.

 

[bpsmicro]

After two good days of listening, logging with UniTracker and lots of note-taking, I did a major RR submission this afternoon. I still have three TGs to get names for and TGs for the remaining area hospitals (not that they're useful for much, but whatever).
But all the most-used TGs are up to date now.

Brad.

 

[bpsmicro]

It looks like they just added two channels to the Ottawa tower. Added this afternoon is 142.515 and 142.890. That makes a total of 11 channels on the Ottawa tower, and I'm getting activity on all of them. Yes, one of them is the old OTTC frequency.

I'm not surprised. On the first day of the switchover I was monitoring with UniTrunker and I saw quite a few occasions where they were down to one available channel on that tower. It got real busy, real fast.

I'm going to wait until tomorrow before submitting a database update, just in case they tweak something else in the meantime.

Brad.

 

[DaveH]

It looks like they just added two channels to the Ottawa tower. Added this afternoon is 142.515 and 142.890. Brad.

Yep, knew about 142.890, it was enabled by accident once for about a day.
Digital noise was clobbering the analog activity at the time. 142.515 was dropped
on the last round but looks like it's back.

Dave

 

[Jammin_Jay]

I believe 142.515 was the old Carelton Place Police Frequency, before they went to O.P.P. Seems though fleetnet tries to occupy frequencies in the area that were abandoned. I don't know Industry Canada's regulations regarding what frequency can be used. But it seems as though there is a pattern of using old frequencies that were once active in the same area, or within a certain proximity of the city or town.

 

[mikewazowski]

That would save them the cost of doing a cochannel interference problem. If the frequency was clear for use in the area before, then likely it's still clear.

 

[Wreckmaster]

fyi,the old conventional, and then when they went to edacs, frequency of 141.6050 "ambulance dispatch",, is now "delta" TG on fleetnet,but they have added "charlie" for extreme south ottawa,and Bravo(extreme east) and Alpha,but A/B are pretty quiet,Delta is the busiest and charlie is moderately active,the rest of the "TAC" channels are sporadic, as mentioned earlier the hospitals are still active on fleetnet,and yes,they are still using edacs for far out of territory paging,like Rockland,Navan,Vanier is still active with paging on edacs...

 

[Wreckmaster]

Fire is expected to make the move to fleetnet sometime this summer,but as of now,are still in the 866mgz.. zone on Edacs analog.,as you guy's know O.P.D.,is still EDACS/PROVOICE encrypted,but with the new city switchover,they have been heard on a few analog "tactical" channels,not sure how long that may last,............also O.P.P. have been steadily monitored in Carleton Place/extreme west end Kanata(corel center area), ,along with 3Kilo(Kanata and west end) via conventional channel 413.5375 for the last 3-4 weeks,this is dispatch thru Smith Falls comm. center,so anybody w/out a digital scanner can listen to regular traffic on this freq.,which is mostly a duplicate repeater of TG 8800 on P25 fleetnet.(3kilo)...(makes me wish I'd bought a $25 Pro95 instead of a 396T............lol),but who know's how much longer this freq. will stay active,I actually bumped into it by accident,while sitting in a tim horton's drive thru,in Carleton Place,with about 5 cruiser's in the lot,with my pro97 on signal stalker mode,)

 

[Jammin_Jay]

413.5375 is the beat repeater for Carleton Place. It has been up an active for a long time

 

[DaveH]

Fire is expected to make the move to fleetnet sometime this summer,but as of now,are still in the 866mgz..

So Ottawa Fire is going to ditch all their 850MHz EDACS radios and move to
Fleetnet in the next few months? That is highly unlikely for a number of reasons
which combined with your terminology makes it look like a large piece of
mis-information. Don't believe everything you hear....

Dave

 

[mikewazowski]

frequency of 141.6050 "ambulance dispatch",, is now "delta" TG on fleetnet

This frequency is most likely part of one of the Fleetnet sites in the area. It is not "delta" TG.

The Delta tg would use any and most probably all the frequencies on the site.

As for Ottawa fire switching, unless Fleetnet was built out to give portable coverage in Ottawa (and there's been no mention of it), it's unlikely they will be switching.

Why would they switch when they have a perfectly good system already in use and paid for?

 

[DaveH]

As for Ottawa fire switching, unless Fleetnet was built out to give portable coverage in Ottawa (and there's been no mention of it), it's unlikely they will be switching.

Why would they switch when they have a perfectly good system already in use and paid for?

I'm not saying I think "Wreckmaster" you are deliberately trying to fool
us, but looks like somebody's factual wires have been crossed somewhere.
You might in future want to float this a question before making it sound
like fact.

We have heard nothing of this from the Fleetnet end nor the OFS end.
That would be most strange. Guelph is the only FD on Fleetnet so far,
and it was part of a pilot. The publicity folks would be on top of this one
bigtime.

I see no indication that the current system is not working well. To
duplicate handheld/indoor coverage on Fleetnet would require extra
towers (unlikely) and vehicle repeaters. The current EDACS system
uses many (17?) sites and VRs which are not cheap, for this coverage.
Fleetnet would have to add extra channels to each site; five channels
were added to the main EDACS site just before OFS went on.

All taxpayers in Ottawa are paying for this system and if City Council
mysteriously decided to pull OFS out, and managed to slip the costs by,
right now I would be marching on City Hall demanding that part of my
taxes be returned.

Even if this switch were going to happen, most people who can hear
OFS on EDACS could also hear them on Fleetnet (except to PRO-93/95s
and the like) , if they were analog; or at worst, a digital scanner if not
encrypted. Encryption costs the users extra money. I'd be more
concerned about them switching to ProVoice on the current system (but
why would they do that?).

Another point....you say OPS is Provoice/encrypted. How would the
average person know if it's encrypted or clear? Etrunk S/W can't tell
because it can't. Just curious. And what do you mean by the "new city
switchover"?

Dave

 

[DaveH]

It looks like they just added two channels to the Ottawa tower. Added this afternoon is 142.515 and 142.890.
Brad.

Interesting, 142.8900 was active but seems to have dropped out of the "rotation".
I have not seen activity for at least a couple of weeks. There seems to be no
1s carrier once per minute, typical of voice channels. Perhaps that frequency is
causing problems when combined with the other ones. This is of no particular
consequence to any scanner with or without CC-only capability, just an observation.

Dave