Somerset County P25 500 - 700 Systems

[DSC45]

I've been wanting to Clean up my Favotiyes List for Somerset County P25 Law Enforcement with the hope of scanning faster.

Can I do any with all the 500 frequency channels and delete them which are programmed automatically when originated the list?

Thank you,
David

 

[APX8000]

I keep all LE on 700, and Fire on UHF. Every so often you'll see a PD talkgroup come over UHF, but its always on 700.

 

[lynchy135]

There is talk at local FD/EMS that the migration is coming, but it’s just talk.

The county services (mutual aid coordinators, etc) all are still using UHF, so it’s going to be a long time before everyone’s over.

 

[mdsxfire]

Im not sure how soon that is gonna happen, i know the county was trying to acquire more radio frequencies for the 700 system in order to add more capacity for that system. The 700 system currently has %60 of the capacity of the 500 system and when there is a big fire incident the 500 system can get overwhelmed, i cant see them adding fire/ems to the 700 system with the current capacity with almost all LE agencies already using it.
The Sheriffs office is still on the 500 side due to the fact they are still waiting to upgrade their radios to dual band and currently only have 500 radios. Watching my two G5 pagers one on the 500 one on the 700 all the PD come over the 700 side but depending on which area they are in ive seen North plainfield and hillsborough units come over both.

 

[FT752]

The SO carries APX 7000 portable radios already, which are dual-band capable. Is RF Band 2 not 700MHz, or are they awaiting enablement from their preferred service provider? They currently have UHF GPS antennas on their radios, which leaned toward the confirmation of them being on UHF still. However, outside of Sheriff Dispatch, they also operate on the county regions, including Police Region 4 and 7, which are 700 only. No patching magic behind the scenes.

Unless they are unprepared for migration to 700 using their existing portables, the only physical drawbacks hindering the move are 1.) The single-band portable antennas and 2.) Mobile radios in one or more cars being single band 500 only, perhaps some XTLs in play. Another thing to consider as well is that almost 80-90% of their radios do not follow the county-municipal code format, which SCC might want them to rectify prior to going 700.