Saw a new broadcastify feed for Waterville PD being DMR. Anyone have the info so the database can be updated?
Waterville Police DMR
- Thread starter ME343
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Wish I had an answer but you used to be able to contact a Bcfy feed provider directly to ask questions about a feed. Not sure why that feature was done away with...
I do not know of a Waterville PD DMR frequency. I just repaired a XTL for Waterville PD, so I do not believe they are going DMR.
The ones labeled FB2 are the repeaters. I've tried the monitor them but they must be running some real low power because I'm not hearing anything on them. But this is the best I could come up with.
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.
It may be that at the moment they're running low power? but who knows. The link that I put up on here to the FCC site is what I found for Waterville Police and there are a bunch of new frequencies on there that are DMR emissions. I figured they were running a tier 3 just by the fact that it's DMR and they had so many frequencies which means it's trunked. If you're close enough to that area, check out the frequencies on that license kcb282 and see if you're picking anything up. I tried punching in some of them the other day when I was in Waterville and I didn't pick up anything.
I've been watching ULS for new frequencies, although I hadn't looked in the last week, so perhaps it's changed since then. I work 100 feet away from the state police garage where the equipment including radios are installed and programmed, so I stopped by to ask RCM (the company that manages their radios) if they had any info, they still just had analog at 155.700 listed.
Ive seen a few police agencies go to DMR in Maine. Not sure why they are on the DMR kick. You would think with 98% of agencies in ME being VHF they would go P25 for digital.
I agree, especially given that they could join MSCommNet like Kennebec county sheriff has among a number of other state agencies, and already have the infrastructure in place.
153.515 is licensed as part of a 2 frequency trunk (152.945 the other).
ULS License - Industrial/Business Pool - Commercial, Trunked License - WQVU685 - YANKEE COMMUNICATIONS for those who want to see the license.
ULS License - Industrial/Business Pool - Commercial, Trunked License - WQVU685 - YANKEE COMMUNICATIONS for those who want to see the license.
12dbsinad
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- Mar 15, 2010
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Probably cost. Anything P25 is five times more money.
Not sure how they convince them they CAN'T buy APX radio's tho...
This is likely a Maine based radio shop that has sold them on the goods of DMR being cheaper than P25. I suspect you'd find all those DMR shops use the same vendor.
My understanding is that it went through Yankee Communications, based out of Benton (if I recall correctly), so that makes sense.
I've started monitoring these with a separate RTL-SDR in SDR trunk, there is definitely some traffic, but not a lot. I'm less than a mile from the Colby st location, so I would expect a rather strong signal from at least that one, but even that is barely being picked up. Perhaps those locations haven't actually gone active yet.
It could be due to what Hussey Communications deals with. I know a lot of their LTR systems went DMR. Hussey is who takes care of Waterville's radios. It would make more sense to go with P25 but in the state of Maine, they have the ability to connect multiple departments together in the event of an incident, I would imagine that they can take the DMR system and tie it in with the State Police and other nearby departments. Eventually it will come down to the issue of all of these departments on different modes of communication and they will throw a P25 phase II system up for the state of Maine and put all agencies on it like they have done in other states.
Waterville's license for the frequencies I posted have Hussey communications on the license. Not sure if it is still the same or the changes haven't caught up if they did switch.
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.
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.
Any chance you got word of what the primary frequency is? 153.515 works, but is incredibly weak where I'm at (under a mile from PD) with a J-pole outside. If I can barely get it with that, I imagine the handhelds would be lucky to tx/rx, if at all, inside a home or business. I've been watching the list below for activity, but nothing yet beside 153.515.
The list is based on their emission designator of 7K60FXE
153.51500000 (Not listed for KCB282, licensed to a private company)
155.67750000 (control? 125W at PD)
158.75250000
155.70000000
154.87500000
154.27250000
151.12250000
154.24250000 (secondary control? 125w at Waterville airport)
158.88750000
A darn shame.
