Park Cities Dallas New Radio System News

[blantonl]

Fix For HP, UP Radio Troubles Forthcoming
Emergency radios are a lifeline for first responders.

That being the case, authorities with the town of Highland Park and the city of University Park will soon get a big assist in the form of replacing their outdated public safety radio systems.

“It was a partnership with University Park and a big part of that was interoperability,” Highland Park Department of Public Safety public information officer Lance Koppa said of the project. “We share borders, we very frequently work together, train together, so having a radio system that allows us to talk back and forth seamlessly is important.”

The joint public safety radio system project will replace both the city’s and town’s outdated systems and will comply with current P25 standards. Meeting P25 digital communications standards allow interoperable communications with surrounding public safety agencies during large-scale disasters and mutual aid response. The city council and town council approved the necessary interlocal agreements and contracts necessary for the project last summer.

Fix For HP, UP Radio Troubles Forthcoming | People Newspapers

www.prestonhollowpeople.com

 

[hiegtx]

Fix For HP, UP Radio Troubles Forthcoming
Emergency radios are a lifeline for first responders.

That being the case, authorities with the town of Highland Park and the city of University Park will soon get a big assist in the form of replacing their outdated public safety radio systems.

“It was a partnership with University Park and a big part of that was interoperability,” Highland Park Department of Public Safety public information officer Lance Koppa said of the project. “We share borders, we very frequently work together, train together, so having a radio system that allows us to talk back and forth seamlessly is important.”

The joint public safety radio system project will replace both the city’s and town’s outdated systems and will comply with current P25 standards. Meeting P25 digital communications standards allow interoperable communications with surrounding public safety agencies during large-scale disasters and mutual aid response. The city council and town council approved the necessary interlocal agreements and contracts necessary for the project last summer.

Fix For HP, UP Radio Troubles Forthcoming | People Newspapers

www.prestonhollowpeople.com

Lindsay,
There have been several threads on this, including this one where new licenses were obtained:

Highland Park & University Park new 700 MHz P25 systems

https://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/ApplicationSearch/applMain.jsp?applID=11835185 https://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/ApplicationSearch/applMain.jsp?applID=11835184

forums.radioreference.com

And in this one, a timeline was posted:

University Park radio upgrade

I can confim that University park is moving to a P25 trunked system in approximately 14 months. Unfortunately, I am unable to name the source of ths info for security purposes.

forums.radioreference.com

There were council meeting minutes from June 2019 where the interlocal agreements between the two Park Cities, Garland, and Mesquite were approved.

https://www.hptx.org/Archive.aspx?ADID=968

But the odd thing is noted in the first thread above is that while the licenses have been issued, they only have the emission codes for DMR, not P25. So far, that has not changed.

FCC Callsign WREW366 (HIGHLAND PARK, TOWN OF)

FCC Callsign WREW366 (HIGHLAND PARK, TOWN OF)

www.radioreference.com

And in none of these discussions have I seen anything noting that SMU will participate in the switch. SMU & University Park work together quite a bit, both using conventional 800MHz licenses. Logical, I would think that SMU would desire access to the Park Cities system for incidents where UP & SMU police both respond.

I have already set up a 'dummy' system for the frequencies issued to Highland & University Park and periodically scan it to see if anything shows up. So far, nothing. But I should be in range for these, since I'm in central Oak Cliff.

 

[IAmSixNine]

Steve if or when you need help monitoring that let me know. I live in old east dallas not far from Baylor hospital.
I can pick them up now however i dont monitor them on a regular basis.

 

[hiegtx]

I should be able to hear them. I can hear their current DMR system without problems. (I’m not far from Kiest Park.) if I can’t get a good enough signal I’ll shoot you a message.

If you have time, take a whack at the Seagoville site for GMRS. I see occasional transmissions logged in ProScsn from the new site. The site is not in the database right now, but I created the site in Sentinel using the frequencies on the FCC license.

I suspect it’s mostly testing, but at times I do get a control channel indication, though not strong enough to analyze. No idea if they have put up their planned new antenna, or they have the transmissions focused sharply on their city.

 

[IAmSixNine]

about 6 months ago i did have 1-2 on the GMRS site in my G4 and it worked. Then they made a system change and it showed out of range. I also tested with my KNG2-P800 and same thing. But things could have changed again since then.
Ill be visiting my parents in Mesquite this weekend so ill throw in the 1-2 site in both my devices and test again.

Ill message you direct since this isnt part of the current discussion.

 

[riverradio68]

I had always heard they were just "band-aiding" the current system until Dallas came online with the BIG system. Guess they're tired of waiting?

 

[BenScan]

I'm getting a control channel for Highland Park/University Park on 771.36875 NAC 893h, WACN BEE00h, Sys ID: 899h, RFSS ID: 1, Site ID: 3

771.956250
773.481250
774.631250
771.368750 control
772.518750
774.181250

I haven't heard any voice traffic yet, and not sure I'll be close enough to decode, but I thought I'd pass it along.

Ben

 

[mwjones]

I picked it up today as well. Loaded it into DSDPlus to receive and got enough data for submission to the RRDB (which I just finished doing). Also picked up the Seagoville site on the GMRS system, and added it to RRDB as well.

Site: 1.2 NAC=892 BSI=9K80D7W

Neighbor: BEE00.899-1.1 ; GMRS Simulcast

Channel 1-1502: 771.39375 BSI
Channel 1-1646: 772.29375 SCC DATA
Channel 3-1646: 772.29375-1 VOICE
Channel 1-1758: 772.99375 CC


Site: 1.3 NAC=893 BSI=CHANGEME

Channel 1-1498: 771.36875 CC
Channel 1-1592: 771.95625 SCC
Channel 1-1682: 772.51875 SCC
Channel 1-1836: 773.48125 SCC
Channel 1-2020: 774.63125 BSI

Kinda made me chuckle when Seagoville broadcast a BSI of their Emission designator and University Park has a BSI of "ChangeMe"

 

[hiegtx]

They may not have all the licensed channels online. There are six total, 3 licensed to Highland Park on WREW366. The other three licensed to University Park on WREW494.

What's odd is that both licenses are still indicate using the DMR emission codes, not P25. (See my post #2 above as well).


Either I'm in a "dead zone" for Seagoville, or they have a really focused antenna transmit pattern. I'm less than 20 miles from Seagoville, but my reception on their site is extremely poor. No hills of any size between where I am and their city.

 

[mwjones]

They may not have all the licensed channels online. There are six total, 3 licensed to Highland Park on WREW366. The other three licensed to University Park on WREW494.

What's odd is that both licenses are still indicate using the DMR emission codes, not P25. (See my post #2 above as well).
View attachment 95652

Either I'm in a "dead zone" for Seagoville, or they have a really focused antenna transmit pattern. I'm less than 20 miles from Seagoville, but my reception on their site is extremely poor. No hills of any size between where I am and their city.

I saw the DMR codes on both licenses too, suspect they're an error on the License admin since University Park and Highland Park are using DMR today.

As far as Seagoville, I was leaving the Rowlett area (Hwy 66 and Dalrock Road), and tried dialing it up in DSDPlus (based on the neighbor list from GMRS). It didn't lock in until I got down to I-30, and I lost it soon after I crossed the West Lake Ray Hubbard bridge (Roughly 16 miles Line of Sight, with the benefit of the lake for a portion of that). Being that the license says the antenna is only 60 meters off the ground, that might be part of the limiting factor (its on top of a Water Tower from the looks of it)

 

[hiegtx]

I saw the DMR codes on both licenses too, suspect they're an error on the License admin since University Park and Highland Park are using DMR today.

As far as Seagoville, I was leaving the Rowlett area (Hwy 66 and Dalrock Road), and tried dialing it up in DSDPlus (based on the neighbor list from GMRS). It didn't lock in until I got down to I-30, and I lost it soon after I crossed the West Lake Ray Hubbard bridge (Roughly 16 miles Line of Sight, with the benefit of the lake for a portion of that). Being that the license says the antenna is only 60 meters off the ground, that might be part of the limiting factor (its on top of a Water Tower from the looks of it)

Yeah, that was what I saw looking at the location when the license was issued. May be the combination of a low-mounted antenna & antenna pattern is much of why I'm not having much luck.

During the brief time that you had Seagoville in range, did you see any talkgroups using it? Looks like I need to figure out something on an antenna aimed that direction. I'd like to improve reception on the Kaufman system as well.

If you've peeked at the Waxahachie thread, I'm running Discovery on that system to see how many new TGIDs have shown up since that city joined the party. Nothing yet that I can attribute to Ellis County.

 

[mwjones]

During the brief time that you had Seagoville in range, did you see any talkgroups using it? Looks like I need to figure out something on an antenna aimed that direction. I'd like to improve reception on the Kaufman system as well.

I had to go grab the logs off the laptop, but I did log a call on Talkgroup 411 (Seagoville PD Dispatch), and a radio affiliated with Talkgroup 2081 (Sunnyvale FD Dispatch) on that site in the short time I was receiving. Don't know why DSDPlus didn't capture the audio of the call though unless the signal on the frequency was too weak.

 

[BenScan]

Seems like a lot of encryption on talk groups so far, but here are some of the hits from discovery mode. It may be that I'm too far away, but I suspect it's encryption that's keeping me from hearing anything.

423

437

439

443

445

461

465

 

[hiegtx]

Seems like a lot of encryption on talk groups so far, but here are some of the hits from discovery mode. It may be that I'm too far away, but I suspect it's encryption that's keeping me from hearing anything.

423

437

439

443

445

461

465

Thanks Ben

I’ll run a session and what I get. I’m much closer & can get a strong signal.

 

[blantonl]

Any updates on talkgroups in use for the Park Cities on their site?

Is it all encrypted?

 

[hiegtx]

Any updates on talkgroups in use for the Park Cities on their site?

Is it all encrypted?

Lindsay,
I've had the Park Cities site programmed for quite a while. I've only seen a few hits (less than six) pop up on my ProScan log. So far, HP seems to be using just their existing DMR system, & University Park their conventional frequencies.
When I start to see usage, I'll focus a scanner on the new site and see which talkgroups are being used & whether or not encrypted.

I would also note that they have not amended the licenses to the correct emission codes. They were issued as licensed for DMR, but are being used as P25 Phase II.

 

[BenScan]

Discovery mode had found several encrypted channels, and only one in the clear thus far. 449 had some dispatcher training on it. That's a good indicator that they are getting ready to switch over pretty soon.

 

[hiegtx]

Discovery mode had found several encrypted channels, and only one in the clear thus far. 449 had some dispatcher training on it. That's a good indicator that they are getting ready to switch over pretty soon.

Ben, you're seeing these on the Park Cities site, right?

 

[BenScan]

Ben, you're seeing these on the Park Cities site, right?

Yes

 

[hiegtx]

Thanks
I will up my SDS200 to run a Discovery session next week. Probably not much testing would be done on a weekend