St. Clair County to switch to 800-megahertz radios Tuesday

[bigbluemsp]

St. Clair County to switch to 800-megahertz radios Tuesday

http://www.thetimesherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080113/NEWS05/80113015

Police and fire agencies throughout St. Clair County are hoping to be able to better communicate with each other starting Tuesday.

St. Clair County will switch its dispatch and users of the county’s central dispatch to the 800-megahertz radio system at 6 a.m. Tuesday, according to Central Dispatch Director Cheri Bartram.

Port Huron and Clay Township, which operate their own dispatch centers, will not switch to the new radio system Tuesday. However, each plans to do so later this year.

Bartram said many local agencies — including Marysville Police Department and Tri-Hospital EMS — have been operating on the new radio system for several months.

With the switch, local agencies will be able to better communicate with each other and with dispatch. The old VHF system, which officials said didn’t allow other agencies to communicate with each other and had numerous dead zones, still will be available if there are problems with the new system.




Central has been simulcasting for over a week now with their patch at the consoles. Clay is also patching into the system (see database).

They are already on it and all cars have their mobiles installed as of Thursday and all Preps have been signed out to all officers as of Friday morning 0800.


Port Huron- No Date Given
Clay Twp- No Date Given (for complete switch)
CN Rail- Still Pending what their command is doing.

 

[bigbluemsp]

Switch went well for the most part.

Some of the Deps didn't know how to change talkgroups nor what talkgroup was what because the text tagging is rediculasly horrible on their radios.

Whomever did the txt in the template realy made it hard for the officers to know what the heck they were switching too.

Like County Event 02 is labeled OPS2A and well that caused major confusion when they were told to go to county event 02.

They had their 1st test in interoperability 25 mins after making the final change over (See news thread for Mich).




Now they need to work on paging/tone outs with the simulcast patch becuase now they hear the tones but no voice on their pagers.

 

[garyyy]

st.clair co. 800 system

I to am following the new st.clair co. 800 system , have you noticed that the modulation coming from the dispatch center is lower than incoming tx .

 

[radiod]

SCC operations

The state has Event and of the there are not enough space to put in county event. Also all the statewide talk groups are called event channel that wouldn't cause any confussion now would it. Have you been in any of the training classes on the radio or just looked at the radio?
The test of the system came 5 minutes after fire switch over. The Police had switch 1 week and 1 day before that. Ems 1 year ago. It all comes down to the training and operator looking over the radio. Last night when PD were searching for people that bailed out of a car no one had a problem finding LAW1. The radio text tagging shouldn't be a problem. Dispatch is telling them what talkgroup all they have to do is find that label that doesn't sound hard to me. My 8 year old can find them in my radio.

 

[bigbluemsp]

I know all about the tagging, the state event groups and such but that morning when they were told Ops 2 A not one of the 8 Deputies knew what the heck they were talking about.

Heck even the SRT guys were like Huh?

Which training class did they receive the 40 hour, 8 hour or the expedited 2 hour class?


Ops 2 A What kind of tag is that? Most of the guys didn't even know what ZONE it was in they had to be told ZONE B.

On the fly in a sitauation of that nature is a horrible thing.

Either they weren't trained, didn't pay attention or whom ever trained them didn't do their job well enough to make sure they understood what was in that radio.


BTW Fire tone outs still going over but the halls still aren't hearing any voice just a lot of squawk and buzzing.

 

[hazard78]

text tags

Big blue,

Have you even touched one of these? The talkgroups are very easy to find and was covered very extensively in the class. So you figure it out>>>>>>>>>>>>

Later

 

[N1ASS]

800mhz switch?????

Where can i get the frequencies for st.clair county to put in my bct-15??????
Thanks,Bill/N8NQU

 

[KB8UYC]

Where can i get the frequencies for st.clair county to put in my bct-15??????
Thanks,Bill/N8NQU

The BCT-15 wont be able to decode the system. It is a APCO 25 MPSCS Sub System that is digital. You will have to upgrade to a digital scanner!

 

[N1ASS]

The BCT-15 wont be able to decode the system. It is a APCO 25 MPSCS Sub System that is digital. You will have to upgrade to a digital scanner!

Thank you for the reply.I guess if any others in Sanilac,Tuscola and Huron County go digital I will have to go digitalBill