Tri-Cities

[tpredmore]

Is there any public safety radio traffic (non-E) that can be monitored in the Tri-Cities area? Looks like quite a bit of it is encrypted.

 

[jtwalker]

TN Hwy Patrol dispatch is in the clear. I listen to Hawkins Co fire/ems/sheriff when in the area also.

 

[jtwalker]

Looks like Hawkins just made the switch to DMRE within the past 2 weeks, so even less available to monitor than there was before. Maybe fire is still analog…?

 

[KN4EHX]

Looks like Hawkins just made the switch to DMRE within the past 2 weeks, so even less available to monitor than there was before. Maybe fire is still analog…?

Everything other than HCSO and RPD are clear analog for now. Hawkins County is rather large, but public service consists mainly of volunteers. Funding for the VFDs is particularly challenging so I don’t foresee them going DMR - there is many firefighters with Baofengs.

Rescue perhaps owns their own frequency pair and would also be burdened by costs of changing to DMR. I seem to remember there was some resistance from them when it came to going DMR.

Hopefully the volunteers got the hand me downs from law enforcement, but it is highly possible they were traded in to reduce costs.

The DMR radios in use are XPR 5550 and 7550. It has been suggested to me the system is Mototrbo Capacity Plus, but that is kind of an old school way of doing things. Not sure what encryption algo they are using rather if it is basic or advanced. M acknowledges a degradation in performance if using advanced, but I would doubt the majority of users would notice.

Only took them like 3 or 4 years after a complete failure of their old analog repeater. When it decided to fail, Murphy’s Law was in full effect. The multiple serious situations went from 0 to 100 and beyond - active pursuits and officers on foot in areas where they didn’t know the address to get additional help.

Ultimately Hawkins County reached a point where the additional time slot is needed. Many times officers were talking over each other and the lack of an emergency channel has hampered them in the process of their duties. I’m not surprised it went E although I think e would have been more appropriate. If other players do make the switch to DMR I hope they remain in the clear. Out of everyone to benefit from an extra time slot would be VFD since they all share one channel for dispatch and response so if they have multiple incidents it can get very hectic unless they change over to a VTAC channel.