Waterville Police DMR

[WRQI583]

153.51500000 (Not listed for KCB282, licensed to a private company)

Licensed to a private company? I guess they let anything go in Maine when it comes to licensing. It's really odd that frequencies not licensed to them are active with police activity but the ones licensed to them have no activity?

 

[12dbsinad]

So first I will apologize. I did fix a radio for them and programmed it for their analog. My previous post was based on that information at that time. That radio I repaired was a P25 capable radio.

That being said, Waterville PD went to DMR. The fire department is currently testing DMR as well. This was led by their radio shop (I have been asked not to share which one as a professional courtesy).

The big push for DMR in Maine is being coming from a certain radio shop (their salesman and consultant) who is selling them on a bag of goods, including "easy encryption". DMR is not and will not ever be compatible with the state's system. MSCOMMNET is P25 and is looking at upgrading to phase II in the next several years.

Several law agencies (Lincoln County SO being the most notable) has swapped to DMR and then swapped back after experiencing audio quality and interoperability issues. One dept that I can not divulge, is going to P25 after initially going to DMR.

Each and every one of my public safety customers that have discussed DMR have decided against it after I showed them the differences between analog, P25 and DMR. Unfortunately, most departments here cannot afford P25 without grant funding, and many departments are struggling to work through grants.

Over the last few years, there has been a huge conversation about interoperability in Maine and the fact that many departments would still rather be islands instead of cooperating. Until certain companies stop looking at making sales and focus on safe public safety communications, this will continue to be in an issue.

DMR has its place, public safety communications is not it.

Well they ain't stupid, if the company is not a M dealer, then DMR keeps the infamous APX series off the table for any of the said debt's.

Also pushes the multi-mode radios that do P25 AND DMR. Something that M has not wondered into....yet.

 

[rdarkness]

Licensed to a private company? I guess they let anything go in Maine when it comes to licensing. It's really odd that frequencies not licensed to them are active with police activity but the ones licensed to them have no activity?

Until last night, they were only using one talkgroup (I’ve provided the info to RadioRefence so it’s now listed). Things started getting a bit different this morning, a few more talk groups, appears to be higher power, and also started hearing fire/rescue. By mid day, expanded even more. They do have a number sites licensed with the FCC for digital emissions that are currently dead, showing completion 01/25/25 (if I recall correctly). The license holder of the frequency they are using is a local dealer, so it’s almost as if the dealer is hosting while the PD sites are being upgraded. It also seems like they flipped the switch before it was ready, or finished being configured while also shutting down analog. In speaking with the guys that handle the radios for the state police (I work next to the state police garage in Augusta), they said they had no idea the switch was coming and had been stuck using phones to talk to local PD dispatch.

 

[Havoc23]

I'm the one running the feed, although it's running part time while testing, I don't feel that it's reliable. I've tracked down the location of the tower that the feed is coming from in Fairfield by exit 132 according to Yankee communications. According to the FCC listed contact at Waterville PD, the new frequency is 153.515, sitting directly next to state police on Cook Hill at 153.530. My house is just under a mile from the PD, and I can barely pick up the 153.515 signal compared to state police coming in so strong that it will drown out WPD. I have confirmed that WPD is running DMR Tier 3, Moto Connect+. Given that I'm barely getting the signal with a j-pole at 15 feet up, outside, I can't accept that 153.515 is the primary. If I barely get it with that, then HTs that the officers carry shouldn't work at all, even with a small repeater in the cruiser.

I'm slowly working through the potential bands that they may be operating on using DSDPlus (Fastlane), but unfortunately, it's been slow progress trying to find a spike in a signal, wait for it to try and decode, then move on.

153.515 is the primary...i was able receive that signal on my scanner once it was programmed. the information i gave the scanner programmer was 153.515 CC1 slot 2 group 1998. it is a DMR signal.