Washington Co radio system needs more work

[EPHWIS]

I posted a reply in 'Scan-Wis@yahoogroups.com' about when Washington Co is coming online. I thought would post it here for those who don't subscribe.

There was an article in The Daily News on 04/14/2010 with the headline “Contractor offers county radio fix”. 35 of 144 buildings tested for coverage failed [including county court house & West Bend and Hartford hospitals]. The system needed 95% coverage in all buildings. Harris’s solution is to add another antenna in Kewaskum [including shelter and UPS], upgrade the antenna in town of Farmington to transmit and receive, redirect the antenna in West Bend [Jefferson Street] toward West Bend [currently pointed northwest – that change would explain new antenna in Kewaskum] and adjust antenna in Slinger [Lovers Lane]. Once work is done the system will have to be retested. No date was given, but I would expect it would a couple of months to do everything done and tested. It also sounded like there would be some frequency changes as it was mentioned that the county would have to pay for “frequency licensing clearance”.

 

[washradiotech]

Wash Co Radio Project

The frequencies will not change..FCC licensing is just to add the 2 new transmit sites. Testing should be done after Kewaskum tower/shelter is complete and some antenna movement on the a few of the other towers...sometimes before the leaves fall off with installs to follow. New paging system going live May 24th.

Take care.

 

[EPHWIS]

Washington Count P25 is up and running

I heard snowplowing operations on talkgroup 57822 today. Not sure if it was a patch or if user was actually using new radio as I only heard one side of the conversation even though I was wildcard scanning the system.

In last weeks local paper the headline was "Washington County flips switch on its new radio system" The county radio communciations committee accepted the system after the vendor demostrated 98.75% coverage during the October driveby testing. It sounds like local repeaters were used at some of the county buildings and the Aurora hospital in Hartford. The article also stated that a loca; repeater will be installed at the West Bend hospital which is in the town of Polk. There was no detail of when we would start hearing users, just that 1400 radios need to be installed in vehicles and there needs to be training. That process could take up to 12 months according to the article..

 

[EPHWIS]

Information from Washington County Website

I checked on the Washington County official website and found more information about what is happening, which sort of explains what I was hearing this morning.

"The system is running well and users may begin to be added.
Next Phase: Terminal Equipment Rollout. There will be a transition while users are transferred from the Legacy system to the P25 system. There will be some constraints, one being logistics associated with deployment of the new system to the different areas. There will be a 10-channel trunked P25 simulcast system; 4 channels currently in service; 6 channels currently in service on Legacy conventional system. There are patches in place to “bridge” the audio between 6 Legacy channels and P25 system. Expectations are that audio quality issues will arise while both Legacy and P25 radios are both on the system. Characteristics of P25 digital voice vs. conventional analog system will be that you need to wait for the beep before speaking; there may be feedback if one user is on P25 and the other user is still on Legacy; some static may also be heard and there may be a short delay when communicating. The whole transition is anticipated to take from 7-8 months."

"On the schedule, installation on the DPW vehicles should be completed the first week of January, but in actuality may begin in late December."

"Review of building failures were addressed:
Jail/Courthouse will replace current conventional repeaters with P25 repeater and use existing BD, antenna,etc.
Hospitals will replace current conventional repeater with conventional P25 repeater and use existing BDA
St. Joseph’s), install new BDA (Aurora). The hospitals won’t be able to change over until at least 50% of users are converted, otherwise they will have no coverage."

 

[R8000]

I posted a reply in 'Scan-Wis@yahoogroups.com' about when Washington Co is coming online. I thought would post it here for those who don't subscribe.

Thanks for posting. There's a good bit of us out there who "can't" subscribe based on who we know or work for sadly.

 

[radio50]

I heard some chatter on TG 57630 this afternoon -- I couldn't tell who it was. This is my first experience with programming and listening to a P25 system, on a Uniden 996T. The radio seems to be working, but the sound of the audio is something otherworldly -- strange compared to analog.

 

[sfd119]

I heard some chatter on TG 57630 this afternoon -- I couldn't tell who it was. This is my first experience with programming and listening to a P25 system, on a Uniden 996T. The radio seems to be working, but the sound of the audio is something otherworldly -- strange compared to analog.

You get used to it. I know I have.

 

[JGP]

Tgid 57630

My PSR-600 was stopping on this talk group of 57630. I held on it for a while. It sounded like the Sheriff's dispatch, but it was one sided. I could not hear the person dispatch was talking to.

There is testing being done on id 57510 this morning.

 

[washradiotech]

Sys info

There is a muni dpw on the system right now. They have been on for a few months. Highway is being installed now. Sheriff will be in January. The law enforcement you are are hearing is the hard patch for WBPD that is going out on old system and the P25 system from the consoles in preparation for cutover. You will hear more of this in the future....