Why hasn't Berrien County Fire Instituted a PL Tone?

[RyltnVFD]

I've noticed quite a problem after many years of scanning Berrien County, the fact that Berrien Fire North 154.250 is constantly recieving interference from other fire groups, including St. Joseph County Indiana, Ottawa County, and Kenosha County Wisconsin.

All of these other stations use a PL, but I have noticed that Berrien has not. Is there any reason for this? There may be, but I'm not sure.

 

[PJH]

Its typically called:

"We have done this for x amount of years, and its fine"

We just instiutied a PL system for our EMS towers. People just didn't want to do it, and some EMS agencies didn't want to spend money on a new radio. Some places here have been using 30 year old radio's in 2000+ model year ambulances. Just depends on the amount of cash that any agency/dispatcher center has available.

Our whole lowband fire system still runs without pl, and its sucks. We get signals from everywhere.

 

[RyltnVFD]

I could see that as being somewhat of a constraint. However, many of the radios already carried by our fire units are PL capble. PL, but not DCS.

There's a few depts. on MPSCS, but reception for these units still seems to be sub-par.

 

[MacombMonitor]

Maybe they're like us, and like to listen to what's going on around them!

 

[RyltnVFD]

Maybe they're like us, and like to listen to what's going on around them!

Sometimes it's kinda cool listening to calls in Kenosha, but it also gets really annoying when St. Joe county is toning out every 5 minutes and stopping my scan.

 

[garryd451]

I've noticed quite a problem after many years of scanning Berrien County, the fact that Berrien Fire North 154.250 is constantly recieving interference from other fire groups, including St. Joseph County Indiana, Ottawa County, and Kenosha County Wisconsin.

All of these other stations use a PL, but I have noticed that Berrien has not. Is there any reason for this? There may be, but I'm not sure.

I don't know what PL is, so I can't help You on that, sorry! But I do know about the problems the Berrien County Fire Departments being talked over or walked over by the St. Joseph Indiana Departments, it been happening since at least 1969, when I started listening to my first Polce Scanner. I am listing below some solutions that I know have taken place or will take place to correct this problem.

1. The Niles City Fire Department switched from 154.250 to 460-600 about 10 to 12 years ago. No more being talked over or walked on problems for them.

2. The Niles Township Fire Department switched from 154.250 to 151.370 about 14 to 15 months ago, this eliminated the problem for them too!

3. The Berrrien County Fire Cheifs Association and the Berrien County Firemen's Association, the Berrien County Sheriff's Department and the Berrienc County 911 board are working on getting a new Fire Radio system for Berrien County. I understand that is being chaired by Cheif Stover of the Berrien Springs Fire Department. I also understand that Cheif Stover wrote a grant application and the Federal Government has approved this grant.

 

[Thunderbolt]

I have never really been able to hear Berrien County on 154.250 MHz, up here east of Ann Arbor. The county I live in uses the same freq and they never really had any problems with any of the departments in that county, but St. Joseph County, Indiana is a whole different story. They boom in like they are right next door. Thankfully, Washtenaw County implemented a PL (162.2 Hz) on the main fire frequency over a decade ago and it eliminated 96 percent of all the out-of-county radio traffic.

Sounds like Berrien County needs to do the same thing with their new radio system that is being proposed.

73's

Ron

 

[RyltnVFD]

Any word on what type of system this will be?

We already have 11F911 on MPSCS, but there aren't many departments who use it regularly.