Rochester, Monroe County NY police Fire EMS changes

[blong]

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.
In Monroe County NY there seems to be a large project to change frequencies of fire,EMS. I am in search of a plain English description. what is happening, when and current status. I am also looking for what type of digital scanner I will need to listen in


Thanks

 

[k2hz]

Monroe County EMS has switched over to the Monroe/Ontario P25 trunked system.

Fire is still operating on VHF analog conventional and is patched to the P25 system so most Fire dispatch and operations can be heard on the P25 trunked system.

Monroe County Law operates on UHF P25 conventional. Most of the UHF channels are patched to the P25 trunked system but only on an "on demand" basis so you can not expect to consistently hear activity from a particular UHF channel on the trunked system at this time.

The Monroe County side of the Monroe/Ontario system is P25 Phase II capable and EMS talk groups are presently a mix of Phase I and Phase II. The plan is for all EMS/Fire/Law to go Phase II eventually so you should get a scanner capable of P25 Phase II trunking.

The plans for migration of Fire and Law to the trunked system for primary use are uncertain at this time.

Most scanners that are nominally Phase II capable have technical issues that may result in poor reception depending on your location. The Uniden SDS100 has circuitry that minimizes the technical problems with P25 simulcast reception but it is a new product with some bugs and I am hesitant to recommend it.

I have a SDS100 and it does work as advertised to get good reception of the trunked system but it has many other issues, especially with VHF and UHF conventional reception.

 

[Thunderknight]

You could also consider a Unication G5 UHF/700/800.

 

[blong]

Thanks for the information and clarification

 

[stevez97]

Second the Unication, however, if you're interested in monitoring VHF frequencies (state police, trains etc.) then you wouldn't be able to unless you picked up a cheap VHF analog scanner.

I guess you have to determine what you what to monitor.