Wichita County Fire P25

[nd5y]

There was a lot of radio testing on the Wichita County Fire dispatch repeaters but didn't pay attention at first. Then I realized it was P25. Of course they quit by the time I got DSD+ running. I got NACs on two repeaters.
155.565 243
155.820 243
Electra did test pages in P25. I don't know if that means they have P25 pagers now or what is going on.

They moved one repeater and added two recently.

Wichita County new tower

Recenly Wichita Country built a tower in the SW corner of the county (33.86256, -98.90603). They modified two existing licenses recently to add repeaters on 155.0475 & 154.1525. https://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/ApplicationSearch/applFreqSum.jsp?applID=14756715...

forums.radioreference.com

I still haven't heard 155.0475 or 154.1525 in use yet. 154.1525 and Burkburnett on 154.160 will interfere with eachother.

 

[rattlerbb01]

The 243 is a dead give away, as many conventional counties use the comptroller county code as the NAC, like 238 for Ward, 002 for Andrews, so on…not in all cases but quite a few

 

[nd5y]

Right now these two P25 repeaters are dual-mode and linked. I'm trying to figure out all the repeaters are still linked in analog or if they broke up the single multicast system into areas or analog/digital.

 

[nd5y]

Iowa Park just paged Iowa Park VFD and Wichita West VFD and announced they are "switching to digital in ten minutes" (08/08/2024 08:30) and "Your analog pagers will no longer work in ten minutes".

 

[nd5y]

Earlier this morning it looked like
151.4975 NAC 243
155.5650 NAC 243
155.8200 NAC 243
are linked. I haven't heard anything this afternoon. At this point I don't know if they are still dual-mode or P25 only.

 

[nd5y]

The 4th repeater is up. 151.3925 NAC 243. Looks like they are all linked.

I have no idea if the fireground/simplex channels for each department also went P25.

 

[nd5y]

I just discovered that the old dead sheriff repeater 155.790 is now P25 and part of the fire dispatch multicast system. NAC 243. unknown input frequency.

They have it on two licenses.

FCC Callsign KXX527 (Wichita County, Texas)

FCC Callsign KXX527 (Wichita County, Texas)

www.radioreference.com

FCC Callsign WQPY828 (Wichita County, Texas)

FCC Callsign WQPY828 (Wichita County, Texas)

www.radioreference.com

 

[nd5y]

They might be using 158.9325 as the input to all five repeaters now.

 

[rattlerbb01]

They might be using 158.9325 as the input to all five repeaters now.

I actually started to ask if they were using a common input a few days ago, but figured since they used different inputs on VHF why would anything change. But are you hearing dispatch only using 158.9325 or all units and are you just listening from one area?

 

[nd5y]

I started scanning all the inputs and unknown/unused county frequencies yesterday. I have heard units in different areas on 158.9325 NAC 243 and nothing yet on the others. I'm not sure yet but I think it's a vote-scan system with one input but it doesn't make data bursts like the federal vote-scan systems.

 

[nd5y]

If they are using one input they could have done that a long time ago. It's been years since I paid any attention to the repeater inputs and I have heard them working on stuff in the past couple years.

 

[Project25_MASTR]

I started scanning all the inputs and unknown/unused county frequencies yesterday. I have heard units in different areas on 158.9325 NAC 243 and nothing yet on the others. I'm not sure yet but I think it's a vote-scan system with one input but it doesn't make data bursts like the federal vote-scan systems.

Voting scan is pretty straight forward to setup in most radios these days (at least EF Johnson and Motorola). Just put the channels in the scan list and the radio performs a SNR or BER based vote. You don't need anything on the system side. As an example, I vote scan Palo Pinto's county's Firenet. The only real question is do you let the vote dictate what channel the mobile transmits on or do you manually steer it via the operator?

 

[nd5y]

But are you hearing dispatch only using 158.9325

I missed this part. There is no centralized county fire dispatch. Burkburnett, Electra and Iowa Park each have their own police/fire dispatch. I don't think I ever tried to listen to them on the analog repeater inputs.

Burkburnett dispatches their FD on their own city frequency and they dispatch Friburg-Cooper, Cameron Gardens and Wichita East VFDs on the county system.
Iowa Park dispatches their VFD, Wichta West and Kamay VFDs on the county system.
Electra dispatches their VFD and Punkin Center VFD on the county system.

That can cause chaos at times and sometimes on the analog system the dispatchers got covered (because they used RF control stations) by fire units that can't shut the hell up and stay off the radio while the dispatcher is paging out somebody. I don't know yet if they were smart enough to replace those with IP consoles on the new system.

 

[rattlerbb01]

I missed this part. There is no centralized county fire dispatch. Burkburnett, Electra and Iowa Park each have their own police/fire dispatch. I don't think I ever tried to listen to them on the analog repeater inputs.

Burkburnett dispatches their FD on their own city frequency and they dispatch Friburg-Cooper, Cameron Gardens and Wichita East VFDs on the county system.
Iowa Park dispatches their VFD, Wichta West and Kamay VFDs on the county system.
Electra dispatches their VFD and Punkin Center VFD on the county system.

That can cause chaos at times and sometimes on the analog system the dispatchers got covered (because they used RF control stations) by fire units that can't shut the hell up and stay off the radio while the dispatcher is paging out somebody. I don't know yet if they were smart enough to replace those with IP consoles on the new system.

Seems like a paging only frequency being added to the system would benefit them tremendously, not to mention centralizing dispatch. In these days of property values pricing people out of their homes via taxes, combining personnel, facilites and infrastructure is a more sound fiscal policy and can lead to a much smoother radio operation as well. I think voters should be educated about this and push for change, however I feel the same way about counties with over a dozen school districts all needing their own admins……that’s another topic

 

[nd5y]

I don't know yet if they were smart enough to replace those with IP consoles on the new system.

I can hear Iowa Park and Electra dispatch on the input. Maybe all they did was replace or reporgram (if they were already P25 capable) the control station radios.

 

[nd5y]

I think its safe to say "The analog is dead. God save the P25."

I added the old analog repeaters to the Wichita County dustbin of history.

Wichita County (TX) Old Frequencies - The RadioReference Wiki

wiki.radioreference.com

I still haven't heard anything on any of the department specific simplex channels recently. I don't know if the database needs to be changed in case they are digital now.

 

[nd5y]

I just heard an ambulance trying to talk on two of the analog inputs. It didn't work. That confirms analog is dead. I guess somebody forgot to tell AMR.

 

[rattlerbb01]

Now that’s true radio detective work!

 

[JTexas539]

I just heard an ambulance trying to talk on two of the analog inputs. It didn't work. That confirms analog is dead. I guess somebody forgot to tell AMR.

Not surprised lol

In Mclennan AMR still sometimes hits the wrong channel on their console and dispatches on analog, at one point they were doing both.

 

[nd5y]

I still haven't heard 155.0475 or 154.1525 in use yet.

155.0475 NAC 243 went on the air this afternoon.
No voice traffic yet. Unknown right now if this is part of the fire system or something else.