What will become of OCPD conventional freqs?

[Gilligan]

Well, now that the VHF links are soon to be gone, I've been wondering about the old OCPD freqs. Of course, the generic answer is that they will be recycled back into the list of available freqs, but in reality, there are just too many radios out there for me to believe that. I know that there were some Santa Fe units using 156.21 as a car/car tactical channel even just a few short weeks ago. So I've been thinking that some of the radios will remain in use (until licenses expire?) for simplex OCPD use. I am really saying that I doubt OCPD conventional will end totally when the links disappear.

 

[BCFD25]

I checked into that hoping my fd could snag a couple and was informed they would be keeping the licenses and most of the equipment as backups, so much for that idea. oh well

 

[Chaos703]

I think they'll just hang on to the licenses. As far as I know, the City of Tulsa still holds all the old UHF freqs they quit using 20+(?) years ago.

 

[Gilligan]

I think if I were them, I'd keep all the old equipment around (licenses intact, as well) so that if the EDACS went down, they'd still have simplex capabilities on high-band. Of course, before long those batteries would be bad due to no use. But I'm kind of surprised that they're leaving no backup radios in the cars.

Now I remember when OCPD was still on the VHF repeaters, if one repeater went down, it was like there was a chaotic situation for a pretty long time, then they would use another district's channel or something. I think there should be a well organized plan for them to use 800 simplex channels if the EDACS goes down, something that everybody knows to switch to if there's a problem. I wonder if there is such a plan in the works...

 

[freqscout]

There is...NPSPAC. There is no VHF in their cars. Most don't have their VHF radios with them anymore. They are usually parked at their houses. That is about all of the redundancy that you need anyway.

 

[freqscout]

I think they'll just hang on to the licenses. As far as I know, the City of Tulsa still holds all the old UHF freqs they quit using 20+(?) years ago.

OCPD still has licenses for the old 37MHz stuff even.

 

[Gilligan]

OCPD still has licenses for the old 37MHz stuff even.

Did they use them as primary frequencies years ago?

 

[Gilligan]

There is...NPSPAC.

But will they know how to use it? Ever heard anything on it? Training / testing?

 

[freqscout]

Did they use them as primary frequencies years ago?

Yeah, the city dispatched through the OCSO Dispatch. There was far fewer officers back then.

but will they know how to use it? Ever heard anything on it? Training / testing?

It is pretty easy: Change banks and talk. Yes they were trained, however if they retained that might be a different story. The repeaters are fully tested and all five NPSPAC repeaters work great.
They received plenty of training on using the radio...about 8 hours for the HH alone. The training to use it is not lacking. As the mutual aid stuff comes along there will be more usage of the other banks (systems) to reinforce the training. There are also plenty of train the trainer officers that have info to share with other officers in the event of one forgetting.

 

[N5TWB]

freqscout

Re: NPSPAC usage by OCPD --

My concept of NPSPAC channels is for interoperability usage but when I have that bank turned on in my scanner I hear digital operations (Pro-Voice??) which are not "interoperable" outside of that system. Can you provide some insight?

Also, thanks for sharing your expertise in this forum!!!

 

[Gilligan]

when I have that bank turned on in my scanner I hear digital operations (Pro-Voice??)

I think it's bleedover from the EDACS system. I can't listen to the OKC DIRECT (simplex) channels either because of it. You can actually hear the city EDACS up around 935 if you scan it -- at least on my scanner -- because it's too strong for my 246T.

 

[Gilligan]

There is no VHF in their cars. Most don't have their VHF radios with them anymore. They are usually parked at their houses. That is about all of the redundancy that you need anyway.

So with this information, that brings two questions to mind:

If all the VHF equipment is stripped from the cruisers, then the repeaters are pretty much useless, and being used to let other agencies hear them as far as I know. So what happened to most of the VHF equipment? eBay?

Now that the equipment has been pulled, has anyone had the opportunity to see what their old channel lineup was? The last reliable piece of information on this was as follows:

CH  FREQ      INPUT     TONE    TP  DESCRIPTION
--------------------------------------------------------------
 1  159.090  -------  127.3 PL  MO  Springlake talkaround
 2  159.090  156.030  127.3 PL  RM  Springlake dispatch
 3  158.970  -------  127.3 PL  MO  Hefner talkaround
 4  158.970  155.970  127.3 PL  RM  Hefner dispatch
 5  158.730  155.730  127.3 PL  RM  Car/car & special events
 6  159.030  -------  127.3 PL  MO  Santa Fe talkaround
 7  159.030  156.090  127.3 PL  RM  Santa Fe dispatch
 8  158.790  -------  127.3 PL  MO  Will Rogers talkaround
 9  158.790  155.790  127.3 PL  RM  Will Rogers dispatch
10  158.895  [B]???.???[/B]  127.3 PL  RM  Airport police
11  156.210  -------  127.3 PL  MO  Car/car & tactical
12  155.490  -------  127.3 PL  BM  Traffic/RAAID cars & SMA
13  151.310  159.405  127.3 PL  RM  Records "800" (NCIC)
[B] ... (channels 14 to 20 are unknown)[/B]
21  155.190  -------  [B]????????[/B]  BM  Special projects car/car
22  158.760  154.025  103.5 PL  RM  Special projects repeater
[B] ?[/B]  159.060  150.995  [B]????????[/B]  RM  Schools

So can anyone fill in the gaps?

 

[freqscout]

12 was actually like schools or something. 14 was state aid. 15 and 16 were the NOAA wx channels. There was no 17-20. Couldn't tell you the actual frequencies. The radios are gone.