The Newark PD radio engineers deserve an award

[Danny37]

I had an overnight stay in Tarrytown, NY last night and I could hear all of Newark PD frequencies clear as day (40 miles away) as if I was there. I had to say I'm very impressed with their infrastructure as I monitor them in NYC from time to time but the system has really great coverage.

 

[Thunderknight]

I had an overnight stay in Tarrytown, NY last night and I could hear all of Newark PD frequencies clear as day (40 miles away) as if I was there. I had to say I'm very impressed with their infrastructure as I monitor them in NYC from time to time but the system has really great coverage.

Which is also a total waste of spectrum. That means those frequencies are not available to reuse 40 miles away, instead of just covering the 26 square miles (plus a buffer for mutual aid scenarios).

 

[Ant9270]

Usually in that area you can pick them up clear as day. I had a radio come into the shop that couldn’t understand why they were picking up a random agency. Turns out their programmer put it on Mixed mode/CSQ/F7E On White Plains PD receive only and they were picking up Newark.. If you look in the database:

Newark 5th Precinct: 460.4000
White Plains PD: 460.4000

Definitely a good system.

 

[CqDx]

Not sure if the OP was sarcastic but I 100% agree with Thunderknight

 

[Ant9270]

The frequency 460.4000 was used for years in analog for White Plains/ Newark PD. White Plains is only 35 miles from Newark. Couldn’t have been that big of a problem if White Plains was on analog for a long time before switching to P-25.

 

[wtp]

back in the good old days of power. you never had to say "repeat central you were staticy".
if you are 3 basements down you want to hear what is being said on your portable.
sure the frequency can't be used for some distance, but the FCC has rules about it, like how far away it could be reused. they had no problem then. if i remember correctly the distance was/is 150 miles. but might have been the freq and tone. and they were using that before the 800 band came in. so it opened up some more room.

 

[Danny37]

I didn't really take that into consideration, but all in all I'm impressed. I'm sure they're running the legal wattage etc but I get what you're saying.

 

[owenbricker]

That is what PL, CTCSS, NAC is for. if the users do not use it that is their fault. Had a fire repeater here in the late 70s early 80s, repeat traffic as far away as Chicago fire, Indianapolis fire, Windsor Canada, anybody within 300 miles using the same input. It was a long time before the input PL was added.

 

[Thunderknight]

That is what PL, CTCSS, NAC is for. if the users do not use it that is their fault.

Except it’s not. PL masks the other traffic, but if your desired signal is weak and there is another on-channel carrier, it can block or degrade your desired traffic.
A user with PL may hear their traffic weakly and then the other distant carrier comes up and the radio re-squelches (goes quiet) because the unwanted signal masks the desired.

 

[GTR8000]

Tarrytown is 30 miles from Newark, not 40, and it's a fairly clear shot up the river. Propagation is better over water. It's actually pretty par for the course, not particularly impressive, especially if they're running 100 watt repeaters with 200w ERP as their license suggests.

 

[APX8000]

Newark PD is switching to a P25 trunked and encrypted system so don’t worry, you won’t have to worry about hearing them past the buffer....


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[Danny37]

Well that sucks.

 

[markjrenna]

yeah that does suck!

 

[APX8000]

Newark Fire is supposed to come off NJICS and switch to it as well. Unknown on ENC for them...but all my contacts are telling me PD is flipping the switch when the new system comes online.


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[GTR8000]

Newark PD is switching to a P25 trunked and encrypted system so don’t worry, you won’t have to worry about hearing them past the buffer....

Way to rain on everyone's parade, Debbie Downer!

 

[Danny37]

Any word when this switch will take over?

 

[GTR8000]

Any word when this switch will take over?

Early 2021, assuming everything goes as planned.

 

[wtp]

i remember the 155.55 bergen county nj and westchester ny.
different PL's but the distance was about 1 river apart.
back then it was bergen county narcs and westchester county police.
the narcs were not too active, but fun to listen to. and not many people knew about it.
i just wondered why paramus nj radio shack had way too many 155.55 crystals.
then i bought one and found out why.

 

[edisonfire]

For decades when Newark Fire was using VHF 154.130, their repeater input frequency was the Northampton County Fire/EMS dispatch frequency. Every night between 6-7PM Newark fire would rebroadcast plectron tones. I can't imagine the conversations at FH kitchen tables as some bo-dunk rural Pennsylvania vollie traffic took over their airwaves. Newark was way busier then with fireground radio communications killed by out of state traffic.

 

[902]

i remember the 155.55 bergen county nj and westchester ny.
different PL's but the distance was about 1 river apart.
back then it was bergen county narcs and westchester county police.
the narcs were not too active, but fun to listen to. and not many people knew about it.
i just wondered why paramus nj radio shack had way too many 155.55 crystals.
then i bought one and found out why.

That's what happens in a congested area. The antennas that are on the newer Bergen County simulcast system for 155.55 (I believe this was the old "Channel 11" that originally had a 600 kHz ham-like split before they changed the input) are screen reflectors that sharply limit the signal from going into Westchester. They have a heavy-duty front-to-back ratio. Take a look at the license, too, and check out the power levels. 11 W ERP from the Boy Scouts camp and 25.12 W ERP from the Plaza. That was tweaked downward to limit the power going into Westchester to an acceptable level. It's just enough to put signal into the street in the neighborhood in Bergen County.

Point is, what they've done made the system work in-county, but they have to share the frequency due to it being a severely limited resource in the region. If you're hearing signal out 40 miles, that means the signal is not going into the areas that need it to serve the system users.

Any new 700 MHz system is going to have to contain 80% of their signal to the jurisdictional boundary, plus 5 miles for the mutual aid buffer. If there is more signal than that leaving that specified coverage area, the application is not going to be approved by the Regional Planning Committee. Period. The same goes for any amount of signal hitting the jurisdiction it's planned to be reused in, or a certain lesser percentage for adjacent channels. That means more signal can be directed into the street and less will go out to scannerland. That also means that the channel can be reused somewhere else where that resource is needed - and all this interference can be controlled before it reaches the "nobody wants to buy that crystal" proportions. No one did that with VHF or non-T-band UHF, and all the systems were put in randomly with the first users being able to have astronomical coverage whether they needed it or not. Everyone else has to fit around that. In an area where every little town has channels for police, fire, ambulance, and DPW, that takes up a lot of space.