Red Willow County to get new Tower

[NeFire242]

http://www.mccookgazette.com/story/1148050.html

* Sheriff Gene Mahon told commissioners that an additional radio tower in Red Willow County would improve communications with neighboring counties. Funding for such a tower has been allocated in a Homeland Security grant through the sheriff's office.


Mahon said the state is working to implement a frequency for statewide access, which, Mahon said, would be invaluable to his officers in the event of an emergency as they transport prisoners across the state.


In his 19 years in the department, there has been no problem, Mahon said, "but that's not saying it can't happen."


Mahon said that communications within the county are very good, with the exception of the far southeast corner. "Overall, with the new repeater, we're getting good coverage," Mahon said.


Commissioners pulled from their agenda discussion of the county's contract with the city for dispatching services for the sheriff's office. McNutt said the city withdrew their request to discuss the issue because a new contract could not be accomplished before the May 1 deadline.


Red Willow County on RR
http://www.radioreference.com/modules.php?name=RR&ctid=1723

 

[SCPD]

Mahon said the state is working to implement a frequency for statewide access, which, Mahon said, would be invaluable to his officers in the event of an emergency as they transport prisoners across the state.

There is 39.9:roll:
The state was suppose to get 5 statwewide mutaul Aid frequencies, I was told 800Mhz, in every patrol car in the state, or atleast have access to them.
The state was suppose to do this after the Grand Island tornados in 1980.
The Hall County Sheriff ,at the time, Chuck Fairbanks told me in class that he was teaching it was a nitemare trying to communicate. He has complained about this ever since the tornados and he tells every class that he teaches about this.

The state does need to get off the low band. They need mutual aid frequencies that most departments around the country have (155.475, 155.370, and the 800Mhz). The state does have a license for 155.475 but I don't think anybody uses it. Douglas County and maybe Sarpy County has the abillity to use it.

 

[scannernut59]

From the article
"Mahon said that communications within the county are very good, with the exception of the far southeast corner. "Overall, with the new repeater, we're getting good coverage,"

Low band repeater would be interesting to see in Public Service. Lots of space between antennas or large duplexor. Plus Red Willow is on UHF, they are part of CNRI.

These are the people with 155.475 licensed

Counties-Hall, Dawson, Chase, Region 26 Communications, Richardson, Cass
Cities-Cozad, South Sioux City

And the State also has one.

SN 59

 

[SCPD]

My point is that the state should get off low band, since most agencies are getting frequencies in differnt bands. They should have more than one frequency for statewide mutual for law enforcement(39.9), Fire(39.98), and EMS(39.82). That every public safety agency in the state can use.
What Nebraska could do is get a license for a couple of frequencies in the state's name and let other agencies use them.

I still say there should be a statewide mutual aid radio system. It does not have to be trunked. It could be conventional, anolog, FMN, and have the ability to "cross band repeat". This way agencies using 800mhz can talk to another agency using UHF, VHF-High Band, or VHF-Low Band(39.9, NSP, and more) and vise versa.

But I'm just a college student. What do I know?

 

[scannernut59]

I didn't mean anything against you, I was just showing who is on National Law and I agree the state should have done somehting years ago. Iowa has a great plan compared to ours in this state.

I also agree that an interop type system should be in place. It can be done if counties would work together more or the state didn't waste money on the SCAN thing from a couple years ago. Thanks for the new governor to get rid of the wasting of money. Look at Region 26. They have a common freqs and plan for the large area. They cover a lot more ground than Sarpy, Washington and Douglas combined and more livestock but they only get loose out there.

So don't take offense. I am just a kid myself, so take if from another young person. Relax, and don't take people reponse as an attack. This is a hobby to me.

Have a great day.

SN 59

 

[SCPD]

I wasn't taking your comments as a personnel attack. I put that last comment in there because I'm a smart ass. Thank you for the other counties that have or use 155.475.

What was SCAN? I never heard of it. I have only been in Nebraska for a year.

Yes Iowa does have a much better system than Nebraska does. Iowa mutual aid "networks" are like Wisconsin. In Wisconsin they have
WISPERN, Wisconsin State Police Emergency Radio Network (155.475), Point to Point (155.370), and MARC, Mutual Aid Radio Channel, (151.280). All public safety agencies are required by the state of Wisconsin to have these frequencies programmed into their radios or have the ability to patch them into the radio system.

I used Wisconsin as an example because that is where I am from. The state has a license for all of the above mentioned frequencies and any public agency in the state can use their call-sign, with permission from the state of course.

Wisconsin also have about eight fire mutual aid channels and three EMS statewide channels.

 

[NeFire242]

Who would get rights to use the mutual aid freq then if more than one district, zone, agency, etc are using it?

The issue then is, that's one more radio I have to put into my trucks, patrol cars, consoles at 911, etc. Then of course I'd have to maintain this system, and not to mention they'd all want HTs, and I'd have to get licenses for the new freqs. Sounds like a lot of work to me to just work with another department I might help only four or five times a year. Why do you think NSP has scanners in their cars, to address this very issue. Imagine how many channels and radios they'd have to have? Yikes that would be a nightmare!

Interoperability? There are literally many agencies out there that cannot talk to the guy next to them at an incident even if they are from the same county! It's nice to know that in Nebraska I could turn the radio to 39.98 or in Iowa to 154.2800 and talk to the other truck with no problems. I agree Nebraska could have done a much better job designing their little freq plans and mutual aid stuff, but let's not try to fix something that's not broke either. Remember a lot of these departments are volunteer or agencies have small budgets for communications. Homeland Security grants are nice, but how high do want to raise your taxes?

Keep the low band. It works, and it's paid for. The licenses are all there, and most departments rely on this as their primary backup in the event of loss of communications. Nothing beats 100w low band radio.

 

[SCPD]

Nothing beats 100w low band radio.

110w VHF High band into a 150w Repeater:wink:

 

[NeFire242]

What for ham radio? Why not go to the legal limit and run at least a kW? =)

Plus you must keep in mind that it doesn't matter how much power you run, won't do you any good if you cannot hear the other guy who is only running 10 watts.

There are some repeaters around that run 2-10 watts, and some running around 200. A lot of the time you cannot tell which one is which because it is dependant upon many factors, such as antenna, quality coax, terrain, band conditions, etc.

This is what makes the "hobby" *fun*.

Last night band conditions must have been some what good and up because a buddy of mine who lives hear Greenwood could hear the 155.055 repeater almost non-stop last night and it's input is 39.9, so it would appear in the early night would be a recommended time to scan.

He was also pretty excited because of some chase in Cass County, 92017 tried to stop three vehicles at once in Elmwood, a car, a farm pickup and an SUV. Two of them had 44 county plates, the other one had 20 county. They were driving wrecklessly through Elmwood when he spotted them and tried to stop them all at once. Didn't work, two of the vehicles fled North, while the other one took him on a chase across fields and dirt roads, eventually ending up near 226th Street and Adams. The driver got away, the passenger they took into custody.

The really sad part was 92018 reported over the air (the other deputy's backup coming from Plattsmouth) that he couldn't even use his radio because he had too many lights running on the car! Wow, that's not good.

Eh, rural life.

 

[Thunderbolt]

The state does need to get off the low band.

Part of the problem nowadays, is a lack of good replacement radios for VHF-Low band. Motorola, MA-COM, and EFJohnson have really trimmed their product line down for this band, which is a shame. Likewise, very few agencies (The Missouri State Highway Patrol excluded) have spent any money on upgrading their low-band infrastructure, instead migrating up to VHF-High band and UHF. Sadly, the days of VHF-Low band are numbered.

73's

Ron

 

[W0JJK]

The last low band base station was the Micor and the last real 100 watt mobile was the X9000.

From what i hear, NDOR is using the Maratrac and buying new Kenwoods or the CDM. They never got the X9000's, only the NSP has those.

I am not sure of the other makers, I deal with the Motorola product line mainly.

I use a X9000 for six meters and government stuff here in Nebraska.

KC0LOD