SPEN Radio Traffic on the various trunked systems

[edisonfire]

Hi all, since so many NJ counties plus the state have gone to trunked systems, has SPEN 1 been rendered somewhat useless? Or do county dispatchers monitor it, share the pertinent info over their trunked systems to affected units? Or is there a SPEN TG on each system? Are there TG's where Burlington can call Camden County for a task force as an example.

 

[trentbob]

It's very active in Burlington County with alerts all the time.

 

[rr60]

Hi all, since so many NJ counties plus the state have gone to trunked systems, has SPEN 1 been rendered somewhat useless? Or do county dispatchers monitor it, share the pertinent info over their trunked systems to affected units? Or is there a SPEN TG on each system? Are there TG's where Burlington can call Camden County for a task force as an example.

I do not think there is a clean answer for that. I have a full time Maxtrac that pulls in a pretty big portion of the State. Generally speaking I see it as this. Yes it is monitored.

Some TRS’s have an inter-op TG and they get used instead of SPEN for most traffic. SPEN in those Counties will get used for matters of larger interest. Pursuits and so on.
Morris, Somerset, Union are good examples.

There are often SPEN calls from municipalities to State Police or vice versa along the interstates.

Hudson, Essex, Passaic and PAPD and Turnpike all active on SPEN. As Bob said Burlco active.

There remain several Counties that maintain Conventional repeaters that also carry inter-op traffic that never goes on SPEN such as Monmouth Hotline.

Been a while since I have heard “Knock it off North Bergen.🤣 If you have been around a while, you understand.

 

[magic_lantern]

There is without any question that the single best radio communication interoperability is plain old in the clear wide band analog simplex radio to radio communication. Once you co-mingle various protocols, trunk system to trunk system, trunk system to conventional, encrypted to clear, digital to analog or if you have to go through or rely on a dispatcher for IMMEDIATE emergency communications or what ever combination you can think of you are asking for problems. The very last thing that the comms guys wants to hear from any command staff or incident commander at a event of any kind is " hey,,, can you patch our radios to theirs" They all think that that all those magic boxes that were purchased after 9/11 from companies that now employ the retired cops that they used to work with will do everything they were told they will do.
The SPEN radio system or I should say the way the system is utilized( not a trunk system) is the best form of interoperability anywhere in the country, A simplex VHF in the clear radio to radio will only fail if one of your radios is broke. one of the biggest downfalls and shortcomings of SPEN is the politics that I have seen first hand, Any dispatchers or PST's here will probably agree with this but in the cases I'm aware of the dispatchers are so understaffed, dangerously understaffed that they have to pay attention to the personnel in their respective departments that they are responsible for and the volume on SPEN is lowered,

for your question on TG's you run into the above mentioned issues on different system protocols. When a cop has an emergency and he picks up a mic to call out something he wants it instantaneously and with the number of VHF secondary radios in many cars some other close by cop might hear him, If he is using a TG assigned to a certain county/state system the other cop might not have that ability, keep in mind it might not even another cop that hears the call, It could be a fire truck, ambulance or even a scanner listener who can pass the info on.

another factor is cost, a good VHF conventional radio could be had for a few hundred bucks and you NEVER get a busy or out of range bonk.

 

[Steve162]

There is without any question that the single best radio communication interoperability is plain old in the clear wide band analog simplex radio to radio communication. Once you co-mingle various protocols, trunk system to trunk system, trunk system to conventional, encrypted to clear, digital to analog or if you have to go through or rely on a dispatcher for IMMEDIATE emergency communications or what ever combination you can think of you are asking for problems. The very last thing that the comms guys wants to hear from any command staff or incident commander at a event of any kind is " hey,,, can you patch our radios to theirs" They all think that that all those magic boxes that were purchased after 9/11 from companies that now employ the retired cops that they used to work with will do everything they were told they will do.
The SPEN radio system or I should say the way the system is utilized( not a trunk system) is the best form of interoperability anywhere in the country, A simplex VHF in the clear radio to radio will only fail if one of your radios is broke. one of the biggest downfalls and shortcomings of SPEN is the politics that I have seen first hand, Any dispatchers or PST's here will probably agree with this but in the cases I'm aware of the dispatchers are so understaffed, dangerously understaffed that they have to pay attention to the personnel in their respective departments that they are responsible for and the volume on SPEN is lowered,

for your question on TG's you run into the above mentioned issues on different system protocols. When a cop has an emergency and he picks up a mic to call out something he wants it instantaneously and with the number of VHF secondary radios in many cars some other close by cop might hear him, If he is using a TG assigned to a certain county/state system the other cop might not have that ability, keep in mind it might not even another cop that hears the call, It could be a fire truck, ambulance or even a scanner listener who can pass the info on.

another factor is cost, a good VHF conventional radio could be had for a few hundred bucks and you NEVER get a busy or out of range bonk.

That about sums it up. Especially the part about politics.

However there were 2 things that always bothered me about SPEN.

First was the nonsense that resulted in it being referred to as the State Police Entertainment Network and the curious phenomenon of the DTMF IDs disappearing from the base stations.

The other thing was when Monmouth County would broadcase 5-minute bulletins that could be received on the moon; they had to be running some power with a good antenna site.

Here in Burlington County I hear bulletins frequently but the audio is usually so low it's difficult to hear.

 

[APX8000]

SPEN is alive and well in northern NJ.

 

[NParkNJ]

Wayne P25 TRS has a dedicated TG for SPEN. Believe they have a dedicated patch at one of their consoles too. But nonetheless its helpful when I wanted to listed to it on their system.

Not trunked, but Pompton Lakes is a big SPEN user. Especially with BOLO’s. They simultaneously multicast, on their main frequency, SPEN, and Wanaque. All local areas are monitoring one of/all of those in some combination.

 

[EmergencyMoo]

"KNOCK IT OFF NORTH BERGEN" lmao. I still don't know how the handful of random transmissions fly like that.

Morris is very active on SPEN for monitoring and stop and holds, but they obviously still use MIRS religiously for everything over SPEN. I know there is going to a more radio savvy person to correct me, but unfortunately Morris is unable to group and transmit over MIRS/SPEN simultaneously when broadcasting a stop and hold. Morris occasionally uses the hotline, but not really. Only for calls on the border or making notification for an erratic driver.

My PST's here know about OP 41 lmao.

Any dispatchers or PST's here will probably agree with this but in the cases I'm aware of the dispatchers are so understaffed, dangerously understaffed that they have to pay attention to the personnel in their respective departments that they are responsible for and the volume on SPEN is lowered

Fortunately we have a desk dedicated for anything county agency related which also covers monitoring out of county situations for stop and holds.

 

[902]

"KNOCK IT OFF NORTH BERGEN"

That gag has been going on since I moved and is STILL happening. I'm amazed, really.

 

[Alarmguy]

Random Keyups, DTMF tones and QC II tones!

 

[APX8000]

EmergencyMoo...They can't group and transmit over an analog conventional freq and a trunked talkgroup with a MCC7500? Confused?

 

[902]

I was up in the Bergen County area last week and heard maybe 3 transmissions on SPEN-1. It used to be super busy, but I guess not anymore. Did all that migrate to NJICS?

 

[K2NEC]

I was up in the Bergen County area last week and heard maybe 3 transmissions on SPEN-1. It used to be super busy, but I guess not anymore. Did all that migrate to NJICS?

It still isn't super busy. Every now and then you will get a BOLO or a backup request where agencies don't have any way to interop besides SPEN. Otherwise, relatively quiet.

 

[HavenBTS]

This looks like this was added to the database today. DRPA P25 Phase 2 system NJSP SPEN TG 21

 

[RadioDitch]

SPEN is alive and well in northern NJ.

Now if only North Bergen would knock if off... (Yes, I'm getting as old as that joke.)

 

[trauma74]

I monitor SPEN from my console in Rockland County and it is alive and well. I have been around long enough to hear the famous line of "Knock it off North Bergen"

 

[JustLou]

Been a while since I have heard “Knock it off North Bergen.🤣 If you have been around a while, you understand.

Being originally from North Bergen, this will never not be funny.

 

[HavenBTS]

Being originally from North Bergen, this will never not be funny.

I don't understand. Please explain.

 

[JustLou]

I don't understand. Please explain.

When SPEN was at its peak, there would be a lot of fooling around and unauthorized transmissions mostly after midnight. No matter who was doing it the response was always "knock it off North Bergen". I've heard two different stories how it started. First I heard it started when NB and Hoboken shared a frequency many years ago. Hoboken would screw around on the frequency and always blame NB. Second, I heard that NB was always screwing around on SPEN, so whenever there was any interference on it they just blamed NB. There are probably other explanations too.

 

[HavenBTS]

Thanks, I didn't know that being from South Jersey.