Somerset County Multicasting

[rr60]

Look for consolidation of paging on various frequencies between now and June.

As of June the transmitting of tones Fire/EMS on 470.1375 simultaneously on other frequencies will end.

 

[W2SJW]

So this is basically the death-knell of 154.310/155.310/155.235?

Most of those agencies are already operating on the TRS. They've given them more than enough time to buy UHF pagers (my niece is on 39 EMS & I know she still has a VHF pager).

 

[rr60]

It sounds that way. No reason stated though. I suspect the phone lines are an issue as it has been said copper RTNA’s are at or nearing EOL. The elephant in the room is 2021 giveback. So folks must buy 470 pagers that have a potentially short lifespan. I have not heard nor seen anything on what the plan is should that giveback occur. P25 paging on the 700 system perhaps? A new conventional frequency(good luck w that)?

I think there are more than the 3 frequencies mentioned. Quite a few more.

 

[Murenovich]

Would that include Station 50? They are dont always come across County but a lot of times they do and its simulcast onto their frequency. Will they have to move over to the county system just for dispatch and still operate on their own? My brother in law is on NPFD and he said they are all finally getting trunking radios, the old ones from NPPD, but they wont be operating primarily on the trunking at least not anytime soon.

 

[npd155]

The county has said they are hoping the give back doesn't happen based on the fact that most metro areas operate heavily on T band. It will be interesting to see what happens.

 

[rr60]

Would that include Station 50? They are dont always come across County but a lot of times they do and its simulcast onto their frequency. Will they have to move over to the county system just for dispatch and still operate on their own? My brother in law is on NPFD and he said they are all finally getting trunking radios, the old ones from NPPD, but they wont be operating primarily on the trunking at least not anytime soon.

Yes 50 is still multicast. The vast majority of multicast sites are not microwave links, they are phone lines. The .625 repeater uses MW to County, not copper. Weather this matters or not in the final decision I do not know. Redundancy brings reliability. I have seen the entire site fail several times, yet the 460.625 repeater remained on the air as it is independent to the core. The proposed changes affect paging only. Yes 50 has MTS hand me downs. Used primarily when M/A to 33. I hear a regional grant was submitted for an entire fleet of APX’s. Status unknown.