ShawnCowden
Member
I no longer hear the corbin fire dept. on 151.070 MHZ neither do I hear digital hash so I am wondering where they have moved to
Thanks
Thanks
where did Corbin FD go ?
- Thread starter ShawnCowden
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Have you looked up their FCC license stuff to see if they have any new frequencies assigned? Wonder if they may have "narrow banded" and that is throwing your scanner off (though you think you'd hear something).
radioman407
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They are running off a back up ch right now.... they are going to NEXTEDGE soon *UHF* along with PD
Oh Keavy was playing with NXDN the other day..... I think Demoing it.
Oh Keavy was playing with NXDN the other day..... I think Demoing it.
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ShawnCowden
Member
Yeah I know that now since I read the paper. UHF huh wow. I do know LCSO tried to get hold of them during a chase yesterday and had no contact. Interoperability at its greatest 
I would say everyone should be on one digital network. Infact I know their expensive but I would say the Harris radios would be the best for this and could save lives.
I would say everyone should be on one digital network. Infact I know their expensive but I would say the Harris radios would be the best for this and could save lives.radioman407
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yep but if we are all on the same band you will have Interoperability,,,, i would say everyone will be UHF be for it is done.... the same guy works on all the public safety radios for whitley knox and laurel
msradell
Member
Not actually, even if they are on the same frequency unless they're using the same type digital system they cannot talk to each other. For example a P25 system cannot talk to a NEXTEDGE system.
radioman407
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yes you are right i forgot to add NEXEDGE with the UHF lol
A nexedge radio can operate in nexedge(nxdn), analog, or mixed modes, its just all in the programming. The reason Laurel SO couldn't talk to corbin is LSO is on VHF, Corbin is now on UHF. NXDN seems to be a good solution for a cheap price.
Gary
Money
But the most important thing that these agencies need to remember is what the federal and state government is willing to give grant money for. Its not Nexedge it is P25. The Nexedge system may be cheap to put in place today but with the economy and budgets getting smaller by the day it might be bad to have to repair and upgrade the Nexedge system out of pocket when federal or state money may have been available if it had been P25. I know of three or four counties in Kentucky that have spent federal money on Nexedge and old uncle Sam is not to happy about it enough that they are working on a plan to replace the equipment as I type.
But the most important thing that these agencies need to remember is what the federal and state government is willing to give grant money for. Its not Nexedge it is P25. The Nexedge system may be cheap to put in place today but with the economy and budgets getting smaller by the day it might be bad to have to repair and upgrade the Nexedge system out of pocket when federal or state money may have been available if it had been P25. I know of three or four counties in Kentucky that have spent federal money on Nexedge and old uncle Sam is not to happy about it enough that they are working on a plan to replace the equipment as I type.
The Nexedge radios can be upgraded to P25 with a software flash if necessary. I can understand why agencies want to go to NXDX because it is better technology. P25 is old technology. Many people try to use the interop as a reason for P25, but Kentucky's plan does not even include P25. All digital radios will do analog too, so it really does not matter what technology you use. Not to mention that you have three different frequency bands in use throughout the state which are not interoperable no matter what modulation you use. The most effective way to maintain interop is to have consoles and/or interop equipment (such as JPS ACU1000) that can patch multiple radios together as needed. Even with all of these technologies, the biggest thing about interop that always fails is due to training. If the people in the field do not know how to communicate with others, it does not matter what type of radios you have.
The fact that KY will now not allow purchase of digital equipment that is not P25 is only an interpretation of the Federal Homeland Security Admin guidelines. This interpretation is not shared by may people within the state as well as other states who are giving the money out without the P25 requirement.
Kentucky's future plans included a lot of P25 when there was a big work group form 5 or 6 years ago. If you read the current plan it talks in detail about p25, but stops short of saying everyone must go to P25. The beautiful thing about P25 is its theoretically standardized across the board regardless of manufacturer (Motorola, Kenwood, Bendix King, Harris Communications, ect.) until you throw in trunking, encryption, ect. But you can program a common digital frequency w/o the extras it they should all talk to each other.
But with NXDN its only compatible with 1 or 2 other manufacturers, even then only at the 6.25 khz bandwidths.
Also in Kentucky you have some of the largest agencies p25:
Kentucky State Police & Vehicle Enforcement
Kentucky National Guard
Kentucky Emergency Management
Madison County-City of Richmond-City of Berea
City of Covington
Jefferson County-City of Louisville-MetroSafe
City of Elizabethtown
Fort Knox
City of Radcliff
Fort Campbell
McCracken County-City of Paducah
Meade County
Jefferson County account for 17% of Kentucky's population alone.
It would be wise to adopt one standard. There is going to be fewer radios to replace if you make that standard P25 than if you make it NXDN.
Here is the link to the KY interoperability plan (http://kwiec.ky.gov/NR/rdonlyres/CC...reMutualAidCommunicationsInteroperability.doc) and there is discussion on how other states have adopted P25, but no mention that Kentucky has any plans for this.
P25 does not mean interoperability - they are on different frequency bands so even if they all converged on an incident, they could not talk to each other.
Kentucky State Police & Vehicle Enforcement - UHF
Kentucky National Guard - VHF
Kentucky Emergency Management - VHF
Madison County-City of Richmond-City of Berea - 800
City of Covington - UHF
Jefferson County-City of Louisville-MetroSafe - 800
City of Elizabethtown - VHF
Fort Knox - UHF Military band
City of Radcliff - Analog VHF
Fort Campbell - UHF Military Band
McCracken County-City of Paducah - Analog 800 MHz trunked
Meade County - Analog VHF
And
1) Kentucky State Police & Vehicle Enforcement
a. Not allowed to put any local agencies in their UHF P25 radios
b. Are on a different frequency band than every other state agency
2) Madison County
a. Are on a different frequency band than every agency around them except Lexington Fire (who are EDACS)
3)Louisville Metro
a. Are moving to a frequency band that is different from every adjacent county
b.Current suburban system is interoperable with all adjacent counties, which they are moving away from
4) McCracken/Paducah
a. Are on a different frequency band than every agency around them
b. Are operating analog, but some of the infrastructure may be P25 capable, but they can still only talk to themselves because no one else is on 800 MHz
5)Military bases
a. Are on a UHF frequency band that is not compatible with other UHF public safety frequencies.
If you look at the number of agencies already using NXDX or soon to implement
Kentucky Department of Corrections
City of Fulton PD
Christian CO – all agencies
Hopkins CO Sheriff
Logan CO – all agencies
Anderson CO – law enforcement
Woodford CO – law enforcement, EMS
Bourbon CO – law enforcement
Jessamine CO – EMS & Nicholasville PD/FD
Mercer CO – Fire & Harrodsburg FD
Boyle CO – Fire
Garrard CO – Sheriff
Rockcastle CO – Sheriff
Montgomery CO – Law Enforcement
Glasgow – PD/FD
Edmonton – PD/FD
Russell CO – EMA
Maybe with all of these agencies going NXDN, that should become the state standard. Or maybe each agency should be able to evaluate what is the best system for them. Not every Kentucky agency can afford P25 equipment. The most cost effective solution for interop is a bridge. And, you can program a common analog frequency and they will all talk to each other if and only if they are on the same band.
I'll have to see if I can find the work groups plant to become interoperable, it broke the state down into several regions, and then within each region they made plans which included P25. My agency has been part of the work group since it was created and we started purchasing p25 radios in 2005 or 2006 in vhf, uhf, and 800mhz.
KSP and KVE have both VHF and UHF P25 equipment. Most of the programming decisions are made at the post level. I know a some laurel troopers / kve officers that have London PD in there xtl mobiles, and just about everyone of them have the laurel vhf frequencies in there xts hand helds, but I only know of 1 that has nexedge.
KyEM has p25 equipment for VHF, UHF, and 800.
Madison county and Lexfire can program a interop p25 channel into their radios.
Also Rockcastle, Jackson, Laurel, Estill, and Garrard county have/or will have 800mhz P25 equipment in the near future.
The thing about interop systems, console patches, ect. (I've used Laurel County's dozens of times) is it has to be deployed sometime during the response. Someone has to plug it up and configure it within radio range of the incident, and its not likely going to be ready during the initial part of the incident which is when you need interop the most(unless each county is going to by a system along with the associated radios for each system you wont to be interoperable with.
Kenwoods P25 equipment and nexedge equipment is very similar in cost.
But there would be more work to be done moving everyone to nexedge than moving everyone to p25.
Post 1 troopers all have a second UHF radio to communicate with Calloway CO, Ballard CO, Bardwell PD and Clinton PD. They would not allow the Post radios to be programmed with these frequencies because they could not monitor post at the same time.
Lexington FD does not have more than a dozen radios that are capable of P25. Since the PD is going to have to spend lots of bucks to be narrowband capable (replacing lots of Maratracs, etc.) don't see the city putting much money to FD to upgrade since the do not have to.
As the interop system go, I have seen agencies have them installed in dispatch centers and can be activated almost instantly by their dispatchers. Have also seen command vehicles with fixed installations that would be one of the first on the scene providing instant connections. You have to use this type of system to interconnet P25 systems that are not on the same frequency bands.
Kenwood P25 vs. NEXDEGE is not about the same. State price contract for a NEXDEGE portable is $675 vs. $917. For a mobile $630 vs. $1,030. For the repeater $10K vs. $5K. If you were to buy a system with 15 mobiles and 15 portables the P25 system would be about $30K more. That is lots of money to small town KY.
This is for conventional only with P25 and that option cost more along as well as encryption cost more with P25.
The XTL's do priority scan, so they shouldn't miss out on anything unless they are talking on the other frequency. But as I said, from what I've seen, those decisions are made at the post level. But I think if Frankfort where to decide to put a p25 uhf interop channel in the radios it would be done.
I don't know much about Lexington's communications other than what its system can do.
If every county had a mobile interop system that was first on the scene then that would be fine, but thats not the case and probably won't be the case. Its been my experience that most of the interop systems are operated by emergency management which in most counties is not a full time job, so they have to be contacted and dispatched. A lot of times those incidents will be out of communications range with the dispatch center. I recall two incidents large scale, numerous agencies, multiple days incidents in which my uhf portable couldn't get back to dispatch because of the terrain and coverage area, only mobile communications or a vhf portable did any good. If we had a mobile interop at the time it would have been good, but a interop at the dispatch center would have been worthless.
I consider $230 similar in price, however better prices are available. I think the last actual bill I've seen for a NX-200 was about $525, a NX-700 around the same, and a TK-5210(p25) around $700-$800 depending on the options.
I myself favor going to p25 on a common band. The trend in SE Ky has been dropping VHF for UHF as Corbin, Harlan county, part of Laurel, Pulaski, Part of Clay, Part of Jackson Co, likely soon to be whitley county.
As far as encryption cost goes, I could really care less, its nothing this I have ever utilized(other than simple kenwood voice inversion), but encryption wouldn't work through a interop system anyhow. If I using kenwood nexedge encyption then it wouldn't work with a harris radio running aes encryption, unless it decrypts the nexedge before going to the harris, but your getting into stuff that wouldn't be quick to deploy and setup.
But I'll never convince you that the best option, as you will never convince me a mix of systems with a interop system is the way to go.
BTW its not that I don't like any particular system, I use both vhf,uhf conventional, vhf/uhf p25, and vhf nexedge. Its I just think on a large scale, p25 is the best option for interoperability.
Also I just got these word. The CSEPP counties have been approved for a grant to become fully P25 for all agencies funded 100% by CSEPP. That would include Laurel, Jackson, Rockcastle, Estill, Powell, Clark, Fayette, Jessamine. Adding that to existing P25 systems statewide, that would mean about 30-35% of Kentucky's population would be served by county/city P25 systems.
Csepp
Gary
You are correct. The three counties that I was talking about are CSEPP counties. Some of the counties (3) pushed very hard to keep what NEXEDGE systems they had and expand them. However CSEPP said NO we will fund you a P25 radio system and nothing else with federal funds. They went on to state that those CSEPP funds should have never been spent on NEXEDGE to start with. A company has already been contacted and has already evaluated most CSEPP counties current radio situation and is in the process of developing a plan to build each county a system. Funding is coming from current CSEPP funds for BGAD and other now closed CSEPP sites surplus funds.
Im not going to get involved in the argument of which system is better or which one is the solution. I have used both P25 and NEXEDGE overall both have there pros and both have there cons. The largest issue with ether system or any system for that matter is the number and location of tower sites.
Gary
You are correct. The three counties that I was talking about are CSEPP counties. Some of the counties (3) pushed very hard to keep what NEXEDGE systems they had and expand them. However CSEPP said NO we will fund you a P25 radio system and nothing else with federal funds. They went on to state that those CSEPP funds should have never been spent on NEXEDGE to start with. A company has already been contacted and has already evaluated most CSEPP counties current radio situation and is in the process of developing a plan to build each county a system. Funding is coming from current CSEPP funds for BGAD and other now closed CSEPP sites surplus funds.
Im not going to get involved in the argument of which system is better or which one is the solution. I have used both P25 and NEXEDGE overall both have there pros and both have there cons. The largest issue with ether system or any system for that matter is the number and location of tower sites.
I've used both as well. I think nexedge is a cheaper solution, but strictly from a interoperability perspective is not the best solution(P25 has to much of a head start). The thing I like about this plan is that it will bring all emergency services within the target area in compliance with narrow banding, alot of departments are using radios 20 or 30 years old and would have a hard time finding the funds to become compliant, but this looks like its all but a done deal if there a couple of issues that can be worked out to the satisfaction of the group.
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