S.P.E.N.

[bigray246]

What channel does Ocean County use for interdepartmental radio alerts? Up north SPEN is very active with car chases and BOLOs. Have heard nothing in Toms River area?

 

[markjrenna]

Can we move Newark to Ocean County... You will be very happy

 

[w2xq]

If SPEN is used in your area, I would think SPEN 1 would be the channel of choice. I am near the junction of US 206 and NJ 70, and I hear a modest amount of Burlco calls on stolen vehicles, missing persons and requests for a K9 unit to search a suspect vehicle. Most of the comms are after dark.

I just use the stubby antenna shipped with the Jianpai 8800 ht. VFO 1 talks to my Allstar Node and VFO 2 is set to SPEN 1. The 8800 is the first radio I have owned that has an FM Narrow setting. My vintage 1999 scanner only has FM Wide; the audio level is too low to be understood.

HTH.

 

[trentbob]

So I am on the Delaware River across from Burlington County and monitor only.. SPEN 1 with a Radio Shack Sputnik ground plane. I get all of Burlington counties alerts.. it is interesting they had a retirement announcement of a transmission from an officer in Burlington to make his retirement transmission, they announced it on SPEN 1 but it only went over the Burlington County encrypted system. I guess they don't want a repeat of that female sergeant in Florida LOL. Secret squirrels.

Early in the morning on a cool crisp day I do hear those pursuits and crime alerts up north.. Mercer County has their own emergency broadcast frequency so I don't hear them on SPEN 1.. I'm right in Bristol right across from the Burlington Bristol bridge and once in awhile I will hear an alert for something that happened in Bucks, we also, as Burlington is, encrypted on our police.

 

[RadioChief55]

I'm in Toms River, I think I hear BOLO on SPEN 1 from the County dispatch from time to time.
Besides that, I never hear any municipalities on it like up north.
In Bergen County you will start to hear less and less chatter on SPEN 1. The County is installing radios in every police desk that are on the County TRS and are an encrypted TG. It's an all in one unit with an APX4500 and built in power supply.

 

[rr60]

Copy that Chief. SPEN is used less and less for interoperability. The “new“ norm is BOLO on the various TRS systems.

The oddity is I live near border of 4 Countries and two interstates. A significant effort has been made to use technologies to help notify of NCIC wants.

The head scratcher is that when traffic is limited to a single county TRS adjacent towns may have no idea that a “want” is a mile or two away as they are in a different County. I hear this time and again.

SPEN did not have and still does not have that problem.

Bad guys with guns nearby and LEO’s beyond borders don’t know.

 

[RadioChief55]

Hopefully North Jersey PDs continue to use SPEN. I live in southern Bergen County. You can be in Passaic, Essex or Hudson Counties within a 5 minute ride. The supper secret county TRS just won't work as well or as fast as SPEN does for quick notifications.

 

[jaymatt1978]

The only time I hear it in Cape May is when they test it at the end of every month

 

[trentbob]

Every single morning West Trenton headquarters and Hamilton do signal 21s to all the barracks in Burlington and Mercer.

I still think it is a critical part of communication, at least in the central and south end of the state.

When the SHTF, I don't care how many tens of millions of dollars they're spending on all these new systems when the time comes, good old VHF High simplex will get the job done. SPEN 2 which of course is the Old National VHF High police frequency csq 155.475 will get some use throughout the country also.😉

 

[Tech792]

SPEN 2 was used in my town to communicate with the Michigan State Police (and others in for mutual aid) during Super Storm Sandy.

 

[howie38]

Just reinstalled those SPEN freq the other day but still haven't heard anything.

SPEN 1 154.68000
SPEN 2 155.47500
SPEN 3 154.72500
SPEN 4 153.78500

Are there new ones?

 

[Skypilot007]

Just reinstalled those SPEN freq the other day but still haven't heard anything.

SPEN 1 154.68000
SPEN 2 155.47500
SPEN 3 154.72500
SPEN 4 153.78500

Are there new ones?

Spen 1 is the only one in use around Burlington County. I never hear anything on SPEN 2-4. Most broadcasts for GRM and Flashes that go out over P-5 on the Burlco system get simulcast on SPEN 1. Occasionally they forget to enable the patch. Same for Camden County.

 

[Tech792]

Another side note on SPEN usage. A lot of the northern Monmouth and mid-Monmouth towns' fire police use SPEN 4 between traffic posts on large incidents.

 

[Alarmguy]

Every single morning West Trenton headquarters and Hamilton do signal 21s to all the barracks in Burlington and Mercer.

I still think it is a critical part of communication, at least in the central and south end of the state.

When the SHTF, I don't care how many tens of millions of dollars they're spending on all these new systems when the time comes, good old VHF High simplex will get the job done. SPEN 2 which of course is the Old National VHF High police frequency csq 155.475 will get some use throughout the country also.😉

Probably an APX4500 Consollette.

 

[Dispatrick]

We also use "Alert" in Bergen County. It's an encrypted talkgroup on the P25 system that every jurisdiction in the county was issued a radio to in their dispatch center. I mostly use SPEN to call the next town over, but depending on the bulletin or message can broadcast it over both.

Alert is great for sensitive info like names, giving phone numbers over the air to another town or alerting an agency to an incident you're trying to keep confidential and out of sight from the listening public. Also comes in handy if your phone lines are down and being routed to another dispatch center, they can call you over Alert for incidents so you can still dispatch.

All Alert radios transmit an Id number corresponding with the agencies ORI number so you can't use it like SPEN for entertainment purposes!

 

[Alarmguy]

All Alert radios transmit an Id number corresponding with the agencies ORI number so you can't use it like SPEN for entertainment purposes!

DTMF IDs kinda took the joy out of that on SPEN.

 

[Steve162]

DTMF IDs kinda took the joy out of that on SPEN.

I heard that the DTMF IDs "disappeared" as quickly as they were installed.

They also created problems where the receiving station would try to talk over the transmitting station's DTMF ID and therefore the message was not received in its entirety.

 

[Scannerfreak6743]

For Ocean County, I'd imagine them using their Countywide Broadcast Messages channel more often than SPEN. RR lists 506.6375 for this, but I am not sure if this is now just a backup channel since they also have it listed as TG 5006 on their P25 system.

 

[howie38]

With all of Burlington Co police encrypted now, does that also mean the BOLO's on P5 & P6 are also encrypted?
I've had a few times where I've heard the standby announcement on the analog, but never received the actual BOLO.

 

[trentbob]

With all of Burlington Co police encrypted now, does that also mean the BOLO's on P5 & P6 are also encrypted?
I've had a few times where I've heard the standby announcement on the analog, but never received the actual BOLO.

I'm in PA across from Burlington. I listen to SPEN 1 continuously. When they make the announcement on SPEN 1, the bolo usually comes over shortly after, maybe they encrypt some of them but then I would think they would not make the announcement on SPEN 1 which is for agencies in PA and New Jersey that may not have access to Burlington's encrypted system.

I don't think I've ever heard Burlington make the announcement to stand by for an alert and then never had it come over. Reception is very good from Burlington for me.

P5 and 6 are encrypted.