Wood County, WV uses VHF primarily. This includes the City of Parkersburg PD. Interesting enough, Parkersburg FD is on VHF and it's P25.
WV SIRN is primarily UHF (460 MHz)
WV SIRN is primarily UHF (460 MHz)
Which state municipality’s actively use VHF low band in 2021?
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Those are VHF high, not VHF low. I had to go look because I've never heard of anyone using P25 on low band, and I still haven't.
I missed the VHF Low part. That is my bad. I can say here in Washington County, Ohio there are some 46.16 EMS and Fire towers still in use. I think they have some 460 MHz links from dispatch to those towers. I hear them every now and then on my scanner.Those are VHF high, not VHF low. I had to go look because I've never heard of anyone using P25 on low band, and I still haven't.
jmp883
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The DPW in the town that I dispatch for in northern NJ is still on 45.480 MHz, which at one time was also the FD frequency. The PD, FD, & EMS have all gone to UHF but we do retain the 45.480 MHz, as well as the 2 Lo-Band PD frequencies as back-ups to the UHF.
FIRE321FIGHTER1985
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3rd district vfd went back to using 33.700 and 33.560 after Katrina as a backup. They still had their license and decided to go back to vhf-lo band as a backup to the LWIN SYSTEM. When Katrina hit, the 350' tower on the west Bank near the 911 building collapsed. This is located in Jefferson Parish, La.
Illinois Department of Corrections still uses 37.36 and Illinois Emergency Management maintains (regular tests) 45.44.
I have a receiver searching the low end of the VHF-Lo allocation (< 40MHz) and haven't heard much recently. Anyone know if there are plans to re-purpose this segment of spectrum?
mmckenna
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No. Military has access to lots of it, and they're not going to give it up.
Plus, not much that could be done with it.
Here in Southern California, 39.480 Mhz is used by Los Angeles County to send out EAS (LA County originated Emergency Alert System) messages. Most of the L.A. area broadcasters have receivers tuned to this. Tests are sent on the last Tuesday of the month alternating between early morning (sent between 4:00am - 5:30am) and mid-morning (10:00am - 11:30am PST) each month.
Not much traffic otherwise.
Fun Fact: about 40 years ago, Los Angeles County Sheriff was on VHF-LO exclusively. This was "Frequency Charlie" - the county-wide car to car channel.
Not much traffic otherwise.
Fun Fact: about 40 years ago, Los Angeles County Sheriff was on VHF-LO exclusively. This was "Frequency Charlie" - the county-wide car to car channel.
Is that what SFPD refers to as "low band" over the air?
mmckenna
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Yes, last time I was in SF they still had old Motorola Maxtrac radios with the base loaded whip on top of the vehicle.
Not sure how often it gets used, I'm not in a good location to hear them. But still, a really good backup plan.
New Mexico game and fish, nmdot in couple areas utilize it on mobile ends though mostly vhf and 700 is the go to now. A few entities including nmsp have valid licenses and base station for it but its a long forgetting thing. Youd be lucky to see a low band radio in a unit minis game fish having one installed, mostly for car to car between another but that will come to end here soon for other reasons.
danesgs
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N. VA DOT supposedly is still using 47 Mhz for snow plow ops during the winter. Loudoun County fire had a simulcast of their TRS system on 46.380 FM but the transmitter I think went down and those older low band systems are hard to find parts for nowadays. Correct me if wrong but unless you live in an area with widely spaced out areas (California state police) and with budget issues, keeping a low band system operational is hard to justify. Also new IP based radios can piggy-back on cell networks and cost a lot less in the long run. I still like to listen to VHF low but hear less and less.
mmckenna
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California Highway Patrol. California State Police was rolled into the CHP a long time ago.
I wouldn't say "budget issues". I'd say that it is ridiculously expensive to build out a VHF, UHF or 7/800MHz system that will provide the same coverage. For a state of that size, and with the extreme terrain, it would be nearly impossible to build out enough sites to provide the coverage that can be achieved with low band.
Low band has some drawbacks:
Higher noise floor
Big antennas
Issues with skip (not really an issue anymore with so few people using it)
Hand held radios don't perform well due to antenna/counterpoise sizes.
But it's hard to beat what it -can- do. It works well in mountains and deep valleys. It'll get coverage in places that VHF or higher frequencies won't work.
But the equipment is out there. CHP just purchased several thousand new low band mobile radios to upgrade their fleet.
A lot of newer radios are coming with LTE capability, but it's only as good as the cellular system coverage. Since the cell systems are designed around population and consumer needs, it can be difficult to get good cellular coverage in a lot of areas of California. It's not hard for me to get into areas with zero cell phone service.
The public safety grade radios that support that are pricey, and you're looking at ~$20/mo per radio for the cellular service. It requires some back end hardware/software to make it integrate with the rest of the radio system, and it can require direct input from the end user.
But it can be a good solution for wide area applications, if the cell carrier is up to it.
danesgs
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So I guess in keeping with the money angle, its actually cheaper to buy a Harris or Batlabs low band radio for an existing TRS system that comes with new bells and whistles? I agree with the low band being the way to go in less populated and mountainous terrain. But as you stated, on the down side is the antenna size and handhelds are sort of out of the question.
mmckenna
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Depends on what the goal is.
CHP went with Kenwood/EFJohnson. One control head, 4 RF decks: Low band, VHF, UHF and 7-800MHz. Stack of radios in the trunk, one control head on the dash, can talk to pretty much anyone they want.
Population doesn't really play into it. Low band just works well if the system is designed correctly. There are absolutely places in California where CHP has coverage issues, but they enjoy better coverage than any other agency.
They use low band in the cars, then just do a mobile extender on 700MHz to the hand held radio. Allows the hand held to access the low band radio. They've been doing this for a few decades now, and it works quite well.
VDOT near me still on it
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