United Counties of Prescott and Russell

[plaws]

Preliminary findings (escaped my buffer prematurely!):

• EMS is provided by UCPR and is dispatched by the City of Ottawa's CACC on the "Bell FleetNet Ontario Provincial Government Zone 2" VHF Motorola Type II Smartzone system.
• Fire services are provided by the fire departments of the 8 lower-tier municipalities within UCPR and are "all" dispatched by the Town of Hawkesbury FD on the "BearCom Canada - United Counties of Prescott, Russell" VHF DMR Tier 3 system.
• Police services are provided by the Ontario Provincial Police on the above-mentioned FleetNet system.

I have a question about the fire services, too, because I'm less certain of the middle bullet point up there than the others ....

are "all" dispatched by the Town of Hawkesbury FD

Is this true? Does the Town of Hawkesbury really dispatch the other 7 FDs in the county? All on the Bearcom system? It's pretty quiet given that there are 8 FDs and, like, 21 fire stations. Of course, there are not many of us in the county ... (~90k ...)

 

[gary123]

It is quite possible. It is way cheaper to have one 24 HR dispatch for the whole county rather than several independent ones. In places like Hawkesbury, many calls may require additional manpower. The single dispatcher would be aware of the overall situation and be able to notify the extras and be ready with additional details.

Sometimes asking a local firefighter may provide the answer too. " Yea, we are all dispatched out of xxxxx".

 

[Noseybody]

It is quite possible. It is way cheaper to have one 24 HR dispatch for the whole county rather than several independent ones. In places like Hawkesbury, many calls may require additional manpower. The single dispatcher would be aware of the overall situation and be able to notify the extras and be ready with additional details.

Sometimes asking a local firefighter may provide the answer too. " Yea, we are all dispatched out of xxxxx".

I believe there is certain criteria also required to be a dispatch which is my understanding why Brockville Fire Dispatch does it for themselves also for Leeds and Grenville stations, South Dundas stations and I believe Renfrew in the near future. Possibly others.
North Dundas stations are dispatched by Ottawa Fire Services.

 

[mmisk]

This is interesting as I have not observed any traffic on the Bearcom site, only constant data scrolling.
Have it running now

UPDATE: So far nothing, just keeps on scrolling away.

 

[plaws]

It is way cheaper to have one 24 HR dispatch for the whole county rather than several independent ones.

My question is "is that what is happening?" as opposed to "can dispatches be combined?" I've lived in places where centralized dispatch was the culture (DU-COMM) and places where it wasn't (Norfolk Co, Mass - at least until much more recently - ask me about "blue to red" on 33.5 MHz BITD!).

So far nothing, just keeps on scrolling away............

Yeah, not busy at all. I have seen only TG 1 light up. Definitely fire traffic but French is my 2nd language (and it's been lapped a few times by English) so I'm not catching unit designators.

For those that don't know, Franco-Ontario is pretty bilingual and the radio traffic reflects that (CACC out of Ottawa, too). If they'd talk more, my ear would get better tuned. I just can't help but thinking I am "missing stuff" by only listening to the Bearcom system (and the few conventional channels listed).

 

[Aviator747]

@ plaws What frequency are you monitoring?

 

[plaws]

@ plaws What frequency are you monitoring?

One system in my 436 set up per the DB as a DMR T3 with the "fixes" noted there (don't ask - I don't know enough about DMR Trunking …). It's on ID Search. The others are in a conventional system.

I hear stuff — in fact earlier this evening I caught a little on TG 3 — but it's pretty quiet.

I gather that most of the FDs in the co. are Volley or PoC so don't run on calls EMS much …

 

[rneals]

From Public Council Records, Town of Hawkesbury.
Recommendation to Council N° : 2023_REC_07 File N°:
Date of meeting: February 13, 2023
Subject: Extension of the existing fire dispatching contract with the United Counties of Prescott and Russell

Recommendation Whereas Town of Hawkesbury has an agreement with the United Counties of Prescott and Russell (UCPR) for the provision of fire dispatch services with all the UCPR Fire departments, with the exception of Clarence Rockland Fire department; Whereas it is in the best interest of both parties to extend the current agreement for the provision of fire dispatching services for a period of two (2) years.
Be it resolved to renew the current agreement for a period of two (2) years, and;
Be it resolved to authorise the Mayor and the Chief Administrative Officer to sign an agreement to extend the fire dispatching services with the United Counties of Prescott and Russell.

Explanation, history, context
The Town of Hawkesbury has been operating a fire dispatching center for nearly two decades. The dispatch center provides fire dispatch services to all UCPR Fire departments, with the exception of the Clarence Rockland Fire department. The fire dispatching contract expires on February 28, 2023.

In the current contract, there is no clause relating to the automatic renewal of the contract. We started the renewal process of negotiating another contract on April 2021. Because of uncontrolled reasons, we were unable to renew the contract.
It is in the best interests of both parties to extend the contract, in order to give themselves enough time to negotiate a new contract. The ultimate objective is to negotiate a long-term agreement with the UCPR. The current agreement will expire on February 28, 2023. We would like to extend the current agreement by two (2) years.
Options/alternatives 1. Extend the current fire dispatching agreement. 2. Do not extend the current fire dispatching agreement. Impact on budget According to the current agreement, which would be extended, almost all of the costs are assumed by the UCPR. There are some costs that are not assumed by the United Counties such as:
The salary of the Captain and the Chief to manage the operation of the dispatching center.
IT management costs.
Costs associated with human resource management.
These unassumed costs represent approximately 9%.
Relevant studies There are no relevant studies associated with the receipt of this report for information.
Supporting document Draft agreement to extend the current agreement
Communication plan The communications officer must publicize this agreement to the public and to municipal employees.
Department(s) involved Fire, Clerk
Submitted and recommended by Normand Beauchamp, Director of Public Safety and Fire Chief
Comments of the Chief Administrative Officer Samuel Cardarelli, Acting Chief Administrative Officer

 

[rneals]

Bearcom VHF Licenses in area.

Mapped Results > Canadian Radio Spectrum Licence Search

 

[plaws]

Blue letters on the "dark mode" background ... woof. No matter, gave me the clues I needed to look it up on the Town website. Thanks for the tip!

I've not heard a peep on the C-R Fire channel listed in the DB, nor the UHF channel, for that matter. I'll keep listening. So if C-R isn't playing with the rest of the UCPR municipal FDs, who dispatches them?

 

[rneals]

Blue letters on the "dark mode" background ... woof. No matter, gave me the clues I needed to look it up on the Town website. Thanks for the tip!

I've not heard a peep on the C-R Fire channel listed in the DB, nor the UHF channel, for that matter. I'll keep listening. So if C-R isn't playing with the rest of the UCPR municipal FDs, who dispatches them?

City of Ottawa.

Vision_2017_06_29

This interactive publication is created with FlippingBook, a service for streaming PDFs online. No download, no waiting. Open and start reading right away!

online.flippingbook.com

 

[plaws]

Thanks for that. These are 8 lower-tier municipalities in UCPR. Any other town/village names are historic ...

This is what I think I know:

Lower-tier Municipality	Dispatched by	Radio
Alfred and Plantagenet, Township of	Town of Hawkesbury	Bearcom/UCPR
Casselman, Municipality of	Town of Hawkesbury	Bearcom/UCPR
Champlain, Township of	Town of Hawkesbury	Bearcom/UCPR?? 151.235??
Clarence-Rockland, City of	City of Ottawa	152.960??
East Hawkesbury, Township of	Town of Hawkesbury	Bearcom/UCPR
Hawkesbury, Town of	Town of Hawkesbury	Bearcom/UCPR???
Russell Township	Town of Hawkesbury	Bearcom/UCPR
The Nation Municipality	Town of Hawkesbury	Bearcom/UCPR

 

[plaws]

Champlain, Township of

Town of Hawkesbury

Bearcom/UCPR?? 151.235??

Third column here should have gone next to Town of Hawkesbury, not Champlain ... If I could edit the post, I would. but don't see that button.

 

[rneals]

Thanks for that. These are 8 lower-tier municipalities in UCPR. Any other town/village names are historic ...

This is what I think I know:

Lower-tier Municipality	Dispatched by	Radio
Alfred and Plantagenet, Township of	Town of Hawkesbury	Bearcom/UCPR
Casselman, Municipality of	Town of Hawkesbury	Bearcom/UCPR
Champlain, Township of	Town of Hawkesbury	Bearcom/UCPR?? 151.235??
Clarence-Rockland, City of	City of Ottawa	152.960??
East Hawkesbury, Township of	Town of Hawkesbury	Bearcom/UCPR
Hawkesbury, Town of	Town of Hawkesbury	Bearcom/UCPR???
Russell Township	Town of Hawkesbury	Bearcom/UCPR
The Nation Municipality	Town of Hawkesbury	Bearcom/UCPR

Here's a guess about Clarence-Rockland Paging....
C-R have 139.800 licensed at the Clarence Creek Water Tower (Paging Site #2), and at a tower on St Jean St (Paging Site #1)
The radio license has a 2020 date so that's not long ago. It's licensed as LMR-Digital, so may be POCSAG/Alpha
(The site names #1 and #2 are from the TAFL license)

They have 414.1125 / 419.1125 licensed for some purpose. And 420.875 licensed.
The lat/long in their license are not very accurate, and the licensing doesn't seem to be complete because I cant see how the UHF links match up. There is probably a link for driving the paging transmitters, and possibly a link for voice comms.

There are a number of VHF radio frequencies for Radio Comm.
152.960, 154.010, 154.070, 154.725, 158.535

 

[rneals]

This is a good read for background on the Clarence-Rockland Fire radios.
The new UCPR / Bearcom system was not performing properly, so C-R upgraded their own radio system, and will have Bearcom and their own as a backup. Described as a radio repeater installed at the Bouvier Water Tower, along with two “voter” sites which work to relay radio messages from either Rockland or Bourget.

https://cr-pub.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=4940

 

[rneals]

Clarence-Rockland Radio Comms (Local system)
Repeater Receive: 158.535 (Water Tower, Rockland, and Bourget)
Voter Link 420.725

Here's a guess about Clarence-Rockland Paging....
C-R have 139.800 licensed at the Clarence Creek Water Tower (Paging Site #2), and at a tower on St Jean St (Paging Site #1)
The radio license has a 2020 date so that's not long ago. It's licensed as LMR-Digital, so may be POCSAG/Alpha
(The site names #1 and #2 are from the TAFL license)

They have 414.1125 / 419.1125 licensed for some purpose. And 420.875 licensed.
The lat/long in their license are not very accurate, and the licensing doesn't seem to be complete because I cant see how the UHF links match up. There is probably a link for driving the paging transmitters, and possibly a link for voice comms.

There are a number of VHF radio frequencies for Radio Comm.
152.960, 154.010, 154.070, 154.725, 158.535

C-R Radio Comms:
Clarence Creek Water Tower Repeater
Repeater TX: 152.960
Repeater RX: 158.535
The repeater has 3 VHF receivers with a voter to pick the best receive signal which is then repeated.
1. Clarence Creek Water Tower Receiver - wired to voter.
2. Rockland Receiver - Linked to water tower on 414.1125
3. Bourget Receiver - Linked to water tower on 420.725

There is a base station at the Rockland Water Tower which has several simplex frequencies.
This is probably wireline controlled, and may exist from pre-amalgamation.
154.010 UCPR County, 154.070 OFM, and 154.725 C-R Simplex

Turning my attention to the Bearcom system...

UCPR Paging:
Hawkebury Fire, 780 Spence. TX 419.0875
Ottawa Fire, Cheney Water Tower, TX 419.0875 (Probably for Rockland-Clarence, and as back-up dispatch for UCPR)

Paging Hub Repeaters: RX 419.0875 TX 414.0875
St Isidore Water Tower, Vankleek Hill (Uncertain if they are primary/backup, or if they work simultaneously)
These receive the paging signal from Hawesbury or Ottawa-Cheney and repeat the signal to the VHF Paging drop stations.

Paging Drop Stations RX 414.0875 -> TX 143.550
These receive the UHF link signal from St Isidore or Vankleek Hill and retransit on VHF (Simulcast)
Rockland Tower
Cheney Water Tower
Embrum Water Tank
Wendover Water Tank
Cassleman Water Tank
Alfred Water Tank
St Isidore Water Tank
Hawesbury Fire
Vankleek Hill Tower
Alexandria Water Tank

 

[rneals]

Older Hawkesbury Paging and Dispatch System, licensed in 2002.

This was described in a consultants report as:
The paging and radio communications system used to dispatch the majority of the Municipal Fire Departments, is a single channel, shared system that serves twenty three (23) fire stations, spread across eight (8) Municipalities.

Hawkesbury Water Tower, UHF duplex link to remote VHF base stations.
probably wireline control to fire dispatch console.
TX: 419.2875
RX: 414.2875

Alfred Water Tower, Cross-band UHF to simplex VHF base station
TX: 414.2875
RX: 419.2875
TX/RX: 154.010

Wendover Water Tower, Cross-band UHF to simplex VHF base station
TX: 414.2875
RX: 419.2875
TX/RX: 154.010

Cassleman Water Tower, Cross-band UHF to simplex VHF base station
TX: 414.2875
RX: 419.2875
TX/RX: 154.010

From dispatch to the VHF mobile or pager, it was either simulcast on all base stations, or they used tone signaling to activate the base station of interest.
The VHF mobiles likely had multiple channels that were the same frequency, but encoded different CTCSS tones to select which base station they activated when calling into dispatch.

 

[plaws]

Embrun and Russell Fire Departments Unite as One

www.russell.ca

Russell Twp has officially merged their fire departments (years after the towns were abolished by the province!).

Note the Station numbers ... which stations are 1-10 and 13-up.