Somerset County TRS Site Changes

[FT752]

Yeah, Warren pushed over to PD Region 11 around August 22. They're going to be there for a bit- new mobiles were installed in the cars, and the four portables that they have, along with some loaners from the county during the testing, were rolled out. I know there have been lingering coverage concerns, which were clear in basements of certain buildings during the test period. However, they don't have to keep flip-flopping frequencies every time a nice wave runs through. The only noticeable issue is the audio from their portables, 1820000-1820004.

It's just EMS10 and a couple of incidental PD transmissions remaining on the PD frequency. The local Warren entities remain on their respective repeaters.

 

[richee2000]

So the county provides transmitter receiver sites from three or four locations looking into Warren? Do you anticipate similar portable coverage throughout the town, and inside buildings, comparable to the UHF repeater system on 500.4125 with the satellite receivers throughout the town on that system?

 

[APX8000]

FT752 is correct. PD Region 11. Portables I saw are County Caches. I talked to one of their guys yesterday and he said the coverage was great.

Cmon Watchung !

 

[richee2000]

And Bernardsville ,(when the infrastructure is in place) to complete The county.

 

[rr60]

I have been waiting. Somerset has proven to be excellent stewards of the Site 4 700 MHZ.

EOL Quantars retired. Antenna sweeps and repairs, no problem. Keep the core updated done. Obtain licenses for channel expansion done. Add a rack of GTR’s at all sites, done. Limit FDMA TG’s, smart. Add several sub-sites since inception check that box too.

This system is on solid footing from its caretakers. I am waiting to see more advanced features which are common on other systems. If the above is any indication, I am sure it is happening.Things do move slow in government time.

Warren is lucky, Somerset has (4) Simulcast subsites that extend coverage throughout. They are Miller Lane, Stage Coach, Collyer Lane and Johnston Drive. These sites are offset to the ridges, so no little or no RF shadows exist.Warren has been fortunate to obtain incredible support from Somerset Communications, so I am told.

In the two weeks since appearing on Region 11 I note 4,347 PTT Channel grants.
Most perfectly intelligible. A bit of audio tailoring remains. I suspect they will get that worked out.

Last night their old 500.4125 repeater would have never worked, DTV jamming on TV19 with 1 million watts ERP, not good.

Watchung not so lucky, only one site on top of the first ridge, this leaves long RF shadows on both first and second ridge. Greenbrook (additional) Site 3 was added years ago to backfill RT22 shadows. There is no Site 4 backfilling into Route 22. This makes for poor in building coverage in the many commercial buildings along the highway.

 

[rr60]

I believe I am seeing the transition of traffic on Site 3 (500 MHZ) over to Site 4 (700 MHZ.

This will provide much needed relief from TV19 issues for Fire and EMS that have been stuck on Site 3.

Kudo’s Somerset.

 

[robbinsj2]

To those who closely watch this system -- do you mind submitting updates for the frequencies used? I think (but am not sure) I have caught 770.83125 & 851.4625 in use. Or maybe I'm wrong and the database is already current. Thanks.

 

[FT752]

To those who closely watch this system -- do you mind submitting updates for the frequencies used? I think (but am not sure) I have caught 770.83125 & 851.4625 in use. Or maybe I'm wrong and the database is already current. Thanks.

I have not seen any 800 frequencies, but I do see that 770.83125 has appeared and not in the DB. That makes for 20 TDMA slots now, wonderful.

 

[robbinsj2]

851.4625R/$993 is the county jail, I've now submitted it.

 

[FT752]

Good to know. It makes sense now since they also switched off UHF with the patrol division and are running APX 4000 7/800 units. Finally, the YE licenses are going to use.

 

[mdsxfire]

Yes the county jail (whats left of it) and Court security repeaters are all on 800MHZ freq, its probably been at least 4 years

 

[FT752]

2 years I can believe- that's when the patrol side of the Sheriff's office switched over to 700 and ditched their APX 7000s. They would have been forced to switch to a frequency in the 7/8 band because of the loss of UHF capabilities. The court security operations are not done by a bunch of lackeys- normal officers have been taken off the road to facilitate positions during staffing constraints. Thus, their assigned APX 7000 UHF radios programmed with the security channel on top of their normal resources at the time, were being utilized through 2021 and the interim of 2022, which does not align with a 4-year timeline.
I would even call the Jail operations into question because it again doesn't match the agency's capabilities until all else was streamlined- why would corrections with a stable repeater and flaky business operations get better radios and band access before road who had T-Band working against them? Who knows, you pay for what you get and it is county government.

 

[mdsxfire]

2 years I can believe- that's when the patrol side of the Sheriff's office switched over to 700 and ditched their APX 7000s. They would have been forced to switch to a frequency in the 7/8 band because of the loss of UHF capabilities. The court security operations are not done by a bunch of lackeys- normal officers have been taken off the road to facilitate positions during staffing constraints. Thus, their assigned APX 7000 UHF radios programmed with the security channel on top of their normal resources at the time, were being utilized through 2021 and the interim of 2022, which does not align with a 4-year timeline.
I would even call the Jail operations into question because it again doesn't match the agency's capabilities until all else was streamlined- why would corrections with a stable repeater and flaky business operations get better radios and band access before road who had T-Band working against them? Who knows, you pay for what you get and it is county government.

First what are normal officers? Second no one is really on the road there is no patrol side, court is the primary function along with transports. Every radio assigned is programmed identically.
Lastly I can tell you %100 the jail has been on 800 for almost exactly 3.5 years

 

[mdsxfire]

2 years I can believe- that's when the patrol side of the Sheriff's office switched over to 700 and ditched their APX 7000s. They would have been forced to switch to a frequency in the 7/8 band because of the loss of UHF capabilities. The court security operations are not done by a bunch of lackeys- normal officers have been taken off the road to facilitate positions during staffing constraints. Thus, their assigned APX 7000 UHF radios programmed with the security channel on top of their normal resources at the time, were being utilized through 2021 and the interim of 2022, which does not align with a 4-year timeline.
I would even call the Jail operations into question because it again doesn't match the agency's capabilities until all else was streamlined- why would corrections with a stable repeater and flaky business operations get better radios and band access before road who had T-Band working against them? Who knows, you pay for what you get and it is county government.

Jail got better/new radios first because they had the money planned to buy all new portables therefore when they got new radios county moved them to 800 first

 

[FT752]

Second no one is really on the road there is no patrol side

On this present day, no. Politics shunted that. Go back three years, yes there was. It was like a small-town police department, making traffic stops as they came up across the county, on 78, some even on 287 if the time was right. You asked them to back up another town with something, they'd come running.

Jail got better/new radios first because they had the money planned to buy all new portables therefore when they got new radios county moved them to 800 first

Lead with that, tried and true to your mark. Jail paid for good radios, and got good radios then. With that said though, were the Jail transporters the first ones in the Sheriff's office with access to Site 4, or were they going back to APX 7000s for trunk system access until the total changeover?

 

[mdsxfire]

On this present day, no. Politics shunted that. Go back three years, yes there was. It was like a small-town police department, making traffic stops as they came up across the county, on 78, some even on 287 if the time was right. You asked them to back up another town with something, they'd come running.


Lead with that, tried and true to your mark. Jail paid for good radios, and got good radios then. With that said though, were the Jail transporters the first ones in the Sheriff's office with access to Site 4, or were they going back to APX 7000s for trunk system access until the total changeover?

Everyone in the jail got the same radios at the same time so just happened to get access to the system, also much different things were planned then for them so it was thought they would all need access to the TRS, now as we all know that’s has changed drastically
Your other point yes there are still random units on the road doing stops backing up etc, but again big changes so

 

[rr60]

Car stops 🤔. They most certainly are not what they once were. The days of the Wild West are gone. Those Zebra’s have been penned in.🤣.

 

[rr60]

Back to the stewards of Site 4. Somerset’s radio division and vendor(s).

This is a side by side plot of Somerset CC and NJICS control channels.
On the left Somerset CC on the right NJICS CC.

These are captured from a single site, Johnston Drive.

That is a very big difference, like -12 dBm. Big signal Somerset.

Site 4 is really dialed in. Decisions are made on these differences, so I am told.

 

[APX8000]

Those Zebra’s have been penned in.🤣.

I see what you did there. 👏👏👏

 

[richee2000]

Reference sheriff's units