POCSAG - Hamilton

[MattCPRail]

Hi all, I have purchased a RTL-SDR dongle and have it all working and setup.

What frequencies does Hamilton Fire use for their VHF pagers?
So far I know that 154.2500 is in use (was listening on my scanner as a test), but I'm noticing that it's going very slow and that there's probably more frequencies. I also heard a page a few days back, turns out it was a Station 7 call. I'm confused as to what station, uses what frequency.
Thanks!

 

[mciupa]

Maybe check out 154.8300 to see if that one is still used.

 

[EJB]

I don't ever hear any pager call outs in Hamilton.

It was helpful when Hamilton Fire had its CAD, but it's been down for 7 weeks because of the city being hacked.

 

[MattCPRail]

I got the idea to listen to the pagers because HFD's Twitter went down. I heard a handful a few days ago but not too much, and absolutely nothing since I've been home this afternoon. I tried to listen to the ones in the 800 MHz for a bit but I can't tell If they're dead silent or I'm not running the program correctly. I'll keep trying, I guess.

 

[mikewazowski]

I think the old pageouts were on 154.250MHz.

 

[MattCPRail]

Looks like station 15 got paged on 154.250, and I believe it was also on 407.0625.

 

[mikewazowski]

Looks like 407.0625MHz would be the link frequency to the VHF transmitters.

 

[gary123]

I agree with Mike. Many FD have a "hub" frequency that is used to send the pages to the local fire halls. The local fire hall receives that frequency and retransmits it on the local fire paging channel. The reason for this is that the local signal in town is nice and strong and penetrates buildings and such. As many departments are volunteer the Firefighters are often all over the place working their day jobs.

It is interesting to note that some other services also use such links to 'relay' transmissions over longer distances. This has faded over the last 10 years as microwave and landline, wireless networks are used instead.

 

[MattCPRail]

I am receiving calls forvolunteer stations now on 154.250. I have yet to see anything on the 800 MHz frequencies. I wonder if I'll get anything for Chief/s/Safety Officers?

 

[MattCPRail]

154.8300 - Received very random noises with weak signal (Stoney creek area) on my 125

Nothing played or got decoded on 154.2500

 

[MattCPRail]

Just an update:
I have been monitoring over the past week & it's mostly going smoothly. I got the settings figured out, I'll get some gibberish here and there. Only issue is that I don't see what units are dispatched. I get the event, location, sideroads, Mapgrid, comments, TAC, and sometimes it'll say DISP but nothing after. I remember a thread where someone put an example and after DISP it would say the units attached.

 

[MattCPRail]

So after some listening to the frequencies licensed to Hamilton Fire & Hamilton City Works in the 800 MHz frequencies, I've been getting these weird electronic noises I have no idea how to describe. What could they be?
Watch noises | Streamable (Expires in 2 days)
A lot of these frequencies were found on TAFL, I was specifically on 867.78750
812.06250
812.31250
815.31250
816.81250
817.06250
821.01250
821.03750
821.28750
821.41250
821.51250
821.66250
821.78750
822.01250
822.03750
822.28750
822.51250
822.53750
822.78750
823.01250
823.03750
857.06250
857.31250
860.31250
861.81250
862.06250
866.01250
866.03750
866.28750
866.41250
866.51250
866.66250
866.78750
867.01250
867.03750
867.28750
867.53750
867.78750
868.01250
868.03750
868.45000

 

[EJB]

154.8300 - Received very random noises with weak signal (Stoney creek area) on my 125

Nothing played or got decoded on 154.2500

I'm hearing plenty of pages on 154.250. Those have got to be the fire pages. Who knows maybe within a year Hamilton will put its fire Twitter dispatch up. But don't hold your breath, the city has still refused to pay more than 2 months in.

 

[MattCPRail]

I'm hearing plenty of pages on 154.250. Those have got to be the fire pages. Who knows maybe within a year Hamilton will put its fire Twitter dispatch up. But don't hold your breath, the city has still refused to pay more than 2 months in.

Yes, 154.250 is a working frequency, everything decodes very clearly - It gives me calls for all Volunteer trucks and any vehicles with firefighters that get paged to calls.

I've heard news they're planning to bring back the Twitter but they have not announced anything publicly & after a few phone calls most of the workers are clueless what's going on with it.

 

[EJB]

Yes, 154.250 is a working frequency, everything decodes very clearly - It gives me calls for all Volunteer trucks and any vehicles with firefighters that get paged to calls.

I've heard news they're planning to bring back the Twitter but they have not announced anything publicly & after a few phone calls most of the workers are clueless what's going on with it.

The cities services have been held hostage by this hacking. Can't call for HSR, no social services, if and when they pay they might bring back the CAD on Twitter.

 

[EJB]

So after some listening to the frequencies licensed to Hamilton Fire & Hamilton City Works in the 800 MHz frequencies, I've been getting these weird electronic noises I have no idea how to describe. What could they be?
Watch noises | Streamable (Expires in 2 days)
A lot of these frequencies were found on TAFL, I was specifically on 867.78750
812.06250
812.31250
815.31250
816.81250
817.06250
821.01250
821.03750
821.28750
821.41250
821.51250
821.66250
821.78750
822.01250
822.03750
822.28750
822.51250
822.53750
822.78750
823.01250
823.03750
857.06250
857.31250
860.31250
861.81250
862.06250
866.01250
866.03750
866.28750
866.41250
866.51250
866.66250
866.78750
867.01250
867.03750
867.28750
867.53750
867.78750
868.01250
868.03750
868.45000

Last fall when there was an actual fire I'm my building I heard ITC comms just 1x on one of these frequencies you listed here.

Just the 1 comm on scene, anytime there is a call that close to me I switch on to close call on a scanner.

E

 

[MattCPRail]

Last fall when there was an actual fire I'm my building I heard ITC comms just 1x on one of these frequencies you listed here.

Just the 1 comm on scene, anytime there is a call that close to me I switch on to close call on a scanner.

E

Very interesting! Could you explain more about these "ITC comms"? what does it exactly mean? thanks!

 

[EJB]

In the clear.

 

[MattCPRail]

Event on the pager a few minutes ago: "NGAS/PRO-MAJ" C73, C74, and DC2 got paged for it. Station 12 responded. It's definitely Natural Gas but I don't know what PRO-MAJ could be. Propane-(???) ?

 

[MattCPRail]

A shame that HFD doesn't have pageouts for full time trucks. I was monitoring Mississauga's and there's pages for every truck, full time or not. And all the constant updates.
Do Mississauga firefighters carry pagers? Or does the CAD info get sent to one pager frequency that relays the messages, maybe?