Just curious, is there someone local in the Pittsylvania / Danville area that can explain what the deal is about all the Fire Dispatch talk groups that were added to the Database yesterday? I know that some Harris P25 systems can have some quirks with patches, is that what’s going on here?
Pittsylvania County
- Thread starter KG4KHQ
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Each agency has it own paging talkgroup, apparently someone has submitted those talkgroups and labeled them all as "DISPATCH' which is not completely accurate. When 911 pages a call it goes over the system "DISPATCH" talkgroup (201), the individual departments paging talkgroup (which is receive only and the ones recently posted) and the VHF pager freq (155.775). You only need talkgroup 201.
I was also curious about this. I'm assuming its pretty much the same way rockbridge county, va is set up (each station having an alert channel):
Correct. Not sure who the admin for Pitt County is but that should not of been distributed. As said it appears to be department talkgroups.
Nope. Each department has a talk group for their use. IE: Hey joe I'm heading to station , or single station operations. It is not an alert talk group. When we get a call I go to my department talk group and let the chief know I'm heading to station or scene.
The data base admin should remove them until they are defined as its going to cause alot of mess. The department talkgroups were already in the data base. Maybe it was an error.
If the department talkgroups are already in the database, then why would there be a second batch with separate TG ID's?
Thats kinda what we are wondering. I out the new stuff in the scanner and have not heard boo....
Could these be permanent I-Calls being used for station alerting?
I might be interpreting it wrong, but it sounded to me like kind of a departmental chit-chat channel that the dispatch TG is also patched to when there is an incident. If so, that could be beneficial to the scanner listener but they would need to be broken down to department.
Each agency has 2 talkgroups, one for department operations and one (those recently listed and causing the confusion) for radio paging or alerts. The alert talkgroup is RECEIVE ONLY, its a paging talkgroup for the trunking radios and in position 16 on the portable radios, basically allowing the trunking portable radio to function as a pager if you do not have a pager.
Each agency radio is set up like this in Bank A:
Position 1-DISPATCH (to monitor all alerts countywide and receive only),
#2-each departments talkgroup and is also used for single company response,
#3-CeCOM the channel we actually call into to the 911 center and advise we are responding,
#4 thru #8 are countywide tac channels assigned for multiple company response, Tac 7 and 8 are set asside for helo operations as needed),
#9 is a simplex NON Trunked simplex channel for fireground ops,
#10 thru 15 vary by department needs, but are usually an adjoining departments talkgroup (their channel 2) so we can switch quickly to assist them as necessary, and lastly...
#16 is PAGE/ALERT. When you only want to receive your departments calls, you simply put your portable on 16, its receive only, like a pager. If you want or need to monitor all county calls, you can monitor channel 1 and any other talkgroup the user needs to or wants to scan. Each portable has 2 banks, A and B, each departments bank A is set up like I just described . CeCom can call us on our company talkgroups if needed, but we always switch to #3-CeCom to directly communicate with the dispatcher so they do not need to monitor each agency individually, as that at times can be alot of traffic to keep up with between 3 or 4 dispatchers who monitor radios and answer all the 911 calls. This set up allows the dispatchers to only need to monitor like 5 talkgroups total (between fire and rescue, Sheriff, emergency management, and such) instead every talkgroup on the system.
Each agency radio is set up like this in Bank A:
Position 1-DISPATCH (to monitor all alerts countywide and receive only),
#2-each departments talkgroup and is also used for single company response,
#3-CeCOM the channel we actually call into to the 911 center and advise we are responding,
#4 thru #8 are countywide tac channels assigned for multiple company response, Tac 7 and 8 are set asside for helo operations as needed),
#9 is a simplex NON Trunked simplex channel for fireground ops,
#10 thru 15 vary by department needs, but are usually an adjoining departments talkgroup (their channel 2) so we can switch quickly to assist them as necessary, and lastly...
#16 is PAGE/ALERT. When you only want to receive your departments calls, you simply put your portable on 16, its receive only, like a pager. If you want or need to monitor all county calls, you can monitor channel 1 and any other talkgroup the user needs to or wants to scan. Each portable has 2 banks, A and B, each departments bank A is set up like I just described . CeCom can call us on our company talkgroups if needed, but we always switch to #3-CeCom to directly communicate with the dispatcher so they do not need to monitor each agency individually, as that at times can be alot of traffic to keep up with between 3 or 4 dispatchers who monitor radios and answer all the 911 calls. This set up allows the dispatchers to only need to monitor like 5 talkgroups total (between fire and rescue, Sheriff, emergency management, and such) instead every talkgroup on the system.
Looking at it I would say someone submitted the patch talk groups. In Rockbridge they are 65000 numbers while here in Alleghany they are 64000.
What 10-42 is talking about sounds like "Private" talk groups for each station and then alert talk groups for dispatching. Rockbridge encrypted their Private channels while its still in the clear here in Alleghany. The alert talk groups are nice because at a glance I can see who is getting the call. I.E. Clifton Rescue 1 or Sharon Company 8.
When dispatch simuselects talk groups to form a patch for dispatching it comes up sequentially as the super patch group 640001, 64002, 64003 etc through the assigned ending number then starts over again. I'd say this county uses 11000 numbers for their patch talk groups.
What 10-42 is talking about sounds like "Private" talk groups for each station and then alert talk groups for dispatching. Rockbridge encrypted their Private channels while its still in the clear here in Alleghany. The alert talk groups are nice because at a glance I can see who is getting the call. I.E. Clifton Rescue 1 or Sharon Company 8.
When dispatch simuselects talk groups to form a patch for dispatching it comes up sequentially as the super patch group 640001, 64002, 64003 etc through the assigned ending number then starts over again. I'd say this county uses 11000 numbers for their patch talk groups.
My Channel 16 is not page/alert so I guess YMMV
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