sfd119
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They're still on WISCOM as of tonight. I heard them on their normal TGs.
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They're still on WISCOM as of tonight. I heard them on their normal TGs.
n9upc
Member
Sawyer Co & WISCOM
Sawyer County is NOT, I say again NOT, leaving WISCOM like the numerous rumors that are floating around. In order to help increase coverage in the county an upgrade to the legacy Sheriff channel is being made.
The county still has a fair amount of analog users and this will help not only increase coverage for those users but also as a back-up to WISCOM system for areas where WISCOM coverage for portables is lacking.
Sawyer County is NOT, I say again NOT, leaving WISCOM like the numerous rumors that are floating around. In order to help increase coverage in the county an upgrade to the legacy Sheriff channel is being made.
The county still has a fair amount of analog users and this will help not only increase coverage for those users but also as a back-up to WISCOM system for areas where WISCOM coverage for portables is lacking.
n9upc
Member
No WISCOM towers or enhancements just expansion of the legacy system.
The crossover from legacy to WISCOM will still remain in place also.
The crossover from legacy to WISCOM will still remain in place also.
As they say on Reddit - "username checks out."
The comments in that article by the sheriff are a bit stark, but perhaps that's the rhetoric needed to get things done sometimes.
sfd119
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The article was also written by someone that takes no notes and just "remembers" the details for his story. There is a reason he doesn't work in my neck of the woods anymore.
Located this in the Sawyer County Board minutes from November (http://www.sawyercountygov.org/Meet.../378/itemId/2154/County-Board-11102015.aspx):
The Board discussed that contracted communications specialist John Kruk presented the Public Safety Committee and the Administration Committee with a report indicating that there are still problems with the WISCOM communications equipment used by the Sheriff’s Department and several other County departments (confirming the same conclusions resulting from a study done by the consulting firm of L.R. Kimball in 2011), and that he had met with WISCOM representatives to address those problems. Mr. Kruk recommends a solution to the problem which does not utilize the WISCOM system as the primary communications system and would require an estimated expenditure of $300,000 (an amount the Sheriff’s Department confirms is available in the 2015 Sheriff’s Department budget). The solution involves modifications or replacement of equipment at communication towers with equipment purchased from a sole source provider (Cellex Communications). The Public Safety Committee and Administration Committee recommend approval of Mr. Kruk’s recommendation. Motion by Schleeter, 2nd by Pearson, to approve Mr. Kruk’s recommendation. [Motion by Johnson, 2nd by McCoy, to amend the motion to provide that the first $150,000 of the expenditure’s recommended by Mr. Kruk come from the Sawyer County Resource Development Fund. Mr. Johnson’s motion to amend the motion carried by unanimous voice vote.] Mr. Schleeter’s original motion, as amended by Mr. Johnson’s motion, carried.
This would imply that they are going to be moving off of WISCOM but I don't have any firsthand knowledge of that.
The Board discussed that contracted communications specialist John Kruk presented the Public Safety Committee and the Administration Committee with a report indicating that there are still problems with the WISCOM communications equipment used by the Sheriff’s Department and several other County departments (confirming the same conclusions resulting from a study done by the consulting firm of L.R. Kimball in 2011), and that he had met with WISCOM representatives to address those problems. Mr. Kruk recommends a solution to the problem which does not utilize the WISCOM system as the primary communications system and would require an estimated expenditure of $300,000 (an amount the Sheriff’s Department confirms is available in the 2015 Sheriff’s Department budget). The solution involves modifications or replacement of equipment at communication towers with equipment purchased from a sole source provider (Cellex Communications). The Public Safety Committee and Administration Committee recommend approval of Mr. Kruk’s recommendation. Motion by Schleeter, 2nd by Pearson, to approve Mr. Kruk’s recommendation. [Motion by Johnson, 2nd by McCoy, to amend the motion to provide that the first $150,000 of the expenditure’s recommended by Mr. Kruk come from the Sawyer County Resource Development Fund. Mr. Johnson’s motion to amend the motion carried by unanimous voice vote.] Mr. Schleeter’s original motion, as amended by Mr. Johnson’s motion, carried.
This would imply that they are going to be moving off of WISCOM but I don't have any firsthand knowledge of that.
n9upc
Member
WRONG - Sawyer County is staying with WISCOM but expanding the analog system in areas that WISCOM does not offer portable coverage. This allows for two systems to run in parallel with each system being able to communicate with the other system.
The analog system is working right now and always has been it is just now getting a face lift, per sey, in order to provide coverage in areas that WISCOM does not have right now.
Sawyer County is a buffer county between counties that are WISCOM (or currently migrating to it) and non-WISCOM counties that are between analog and digital. Therefore, both systems are active and will remain so this is just the views or reading between the lines of things that are not there.
Once again SAWYER COUNTY IS NOT LEAVING WISCOM, if you don't believe me check out the Sawyer Co Sheriff's Dept. Facebook page.
Well, this will be interesting. The County didn't do what should have been done in the first place.
n9upc
Member
Sadly it's not that cut and dry for doing a radio system like WISCOM. To do a correct 5 channel WISCOM site it would be more for one WISCOM site than for these 6 sites in total.
To obtain the coverage which will be obtained via this route would require the addition of three more WISCOM towers at approx $500,000 × 3 = 1.5 million.
It is not a step backwards if the officers can communicate now when they could not before. In addition the WISCOM System works for mobile coverage, portable coverage is the name of the game now!
To obtain the coverage which will be obtained via this route would require the addition of three more WISCOM towers at approx $500,000 × 3 = 1.5 million.
It is not a step backwards if the officers can communicate now when they could not before. In addition the WISCOM System works for mobile coverage, portable coverage is the name of the game now!
It can be done
1. They are adding coverage to areas WISCOM covers.
2. They do not need to put a 5 channel site in, they could put a 4 channel in and add to it later.
3. Yes WISCOM works for mobile coverage, and it also works for portable coverage if the county plans for portable coverage.
A system is what a user makes of it and if they don't invest in the system it won't get them anywhere.
1. They are adding coverage to areas WISCOM covers.
2. They do not need to put a 5 channel site in, they could put a 4 channel in and add to it later.
3. Yes WISCOM works for mobile coverage, and it also works for portable coverage if the county plans for portable coverage.
A system is what a user makes of it and if they don't invest in the system it won't get them anywhere.
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Is it normal for control channels to change frequencies ? Within the past couple days Pierce county's Prescott control channel moved from 139.6125 to 152.7425..same site ID of 057 etc..just wonderin
okie dokie thanks
Drove through the entire length of the state recently, traveling for the holidays.
I upgraded my mobile setup, this time using 5/8 wave commercial antennas with just a very short run of low-loss coax, terminating directly (no adapters) into my portables I was using on this trip. These antennas are advertised with 3db gain, and they perform very well indeed. The downside is that they are about 5 feet tall, so they strike trees in driveways, low overhangs and there’s no way they’ll go into a garage or parking structure/sallyport. I also put them in the correct place which is the center of the roof of my SUV, I suspect many users would be sorely tempted to place them on the trunk; they will still function there but the radiation pattern will be altered.
In any case, the payoff is with far greater listening distance. It wasn’t horrible on my last trip, but this time it was simply excellent. As an example, I could hear the Baraboo site in Warrens (north of the 90/94 split).
When looking at the coverage maps created before the trip, I was skeptical that the maps were correct, they looked horribly optimistic. Turns out they are generally accurate, and in a few cases, even a bit pessimistic. This was good, as I added quite a few towers to capture more traffic on the drives up and back. All in all, I had over 35 sites programmed. Also note - this is site to mobile coverage. Site to handheld and mobile to site, as well as handheld to site are different maps, with smaller coverage areas. Also, these sites have coverage which vastly exceeds their operational serving area, check the best server maps for comparisons. Typically (based on configuration and programming; exceptions do exist) a P25 unit in the field will automatically be selecting the site with the strongest CC signal, which will generally be the closest site.
The native P25 traffic - what little there is - sounds, well, like native P25 traffic, which is pretty good, but will never sound as good as a good quality full-quieting FM signal. But it’s generally more consistent and once you’re used to it, the consistency is a major plus; going back to analog, you’ll quickly notice all of the analog artifacts. The scan TGs are still pretty bad, not that I expected any improvements of course.
There was no WSP activity that I heard; last trip there were some patches up, those were gone, I only heard them on conventional VHF.
Iowa county sounded fine; as did Gold Cross in Eau Claire and Sawyer county traffic. Something was amiss with Douglas County; not all traffic was being carried on all sites, and for quite a long time Maple’s CC would not decode but I could hear it quite well. The last morning I was in the area it started decoding, but heard no traffic on it. I suspect there was some maintenance going on as when I drove past the Parkland site there were people on the tower.
Unlike the last trip, Gold Cross Duluth traffic wasn’t always heard on the Douglas WISCOM sites either. Perhaps a console patch needs to happen, or there was a timeout of some sort on either side, but GC dispatches weren’t heard until there was a call into Superior, then some towers (not all) started carrying the traffic.
I did have the opportunity to monitor the Red Cliff site for extended periods of time, while decode was 100%, I heard not one transmission the entire time (approx 10 hours of listening over several days). It’s quiet up in the northwoods this time of year. As a site note, coverage for Red Cliff extends well up the Minnesota north shore, perhaps as far as Lutsen.
Since no licenses have been granted for the Port Wing site yet, I didn’t attempt to monitor that site.
In the southern part of the state, the Dane Scan TG wasn’t being carried by the Van Hise site, but it is carried by both the Milton and Deerfield sites - that’s the only Scan TG that I’ve found carried on more than one tower so far.
I didn’t even try to figure out what’s going on Juneau county, didn’t even program it in based on getting nothing on the last trip and basically having that confirmed in this thread before I left. My editorial comment is that C4FM simulcasting is likely to be a cluster for technical reasons, LSM has definite reasons for being used. “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should” definitely applies to C4FM simulcasting.
Much like last time, there’s very little traffic on the system other than the scan groups. Of course, some of that has to do with the time of year and the fact that much of the state is quite rural and there just isn’t much going on.
Perhaps this has been noticed; I found the following blurb in the state budget summary, which was out in July of 2015, so I believe the June 30th date refers to 6/30/2016:
“Interoperability Report: The budget requires the Interoperability Council to submit a report to the Joint Committee on Finance by June 30 regarding the following issues: the amount the state has expended to develop, construct, and operate the Wisconsin Interoperability System for Communications (WISCOM), from its inception through 2015-16; the annual operating budget for WISCOM during 2015-16, specifically identifying costs relating to staff, infrastructure expansion, infrastructure maintenance, supplies and services, and other related costs; the local, state, and federal agencies that use WISCOM, as well as the frequency with which the agencies use the system and a description of how each agency uses WISCOM to support the agency’s operation; identification of the local, state, and federal agencies that use an alternative communications system for its emergency responders, as well as an explanation why the alternative system is used; identification of each federal, state, and local agency that uses WISCOM daily, and an explanation why they do so; identification of each federal, state, and local agency that does not currently use WISCOM daily, but intends to do so, as well as when the agencies intend to use WISCOM daily; an explanation of the current status of WISCOM’s infrastructure and an indication of whether, and how, it may be expanded in the future; a comparison to other, similar systems in other states; a statement of WISCOM’s successes; a statement of the challenges facing WISCOM; an explanation of WISCOM’s compatibility with other emergency response communication networks; and a statement on the number of sites, channels, and users WISCOM currently supports and its anticipated future capacity.”
I upgraded my mobile setup, this time using 5/8 wave commercial antennas with just a very short run of low-loss coax, terminating directly (no adapters) into my portables I was using on this trip. These antennas are advertised with 3db gain, and they perform very well indeed. The downside is that they are about 5 feet tall, so they strike trees in driveways, low overhangs and there’s no way they’ll go into a garage or parking structure/sallyport. I also put them in the correct place which is the center of the roof of my SUV, I suspect many users would be sorely tempted to place them on the trunk; they will still function there but the radiation pattern will be altered.
In any case, the payoff is with far greater listening distance. It wasn’t horrible on my last trip, but this time it was simply excellent. As an example, I could hear the Baraboo site in Warrens (north of the 90/94 split).
When looking at the coverage maps created before the trip, I was skeptical that the maps were correct, they looked horribly optimistic. Turns out they are generally accurate, and in a few cases, even a bit pessimistic. This was good, as I added quite a few towers to capture more traffic on the drives up and back. All in all, I had over 35 sites programmed. Also note - this is site to mobile coverage. Site to handheld and mobile to site, as well as handheld to site are different maps, with smaller coverage areas. Also, these sites have coverage which vastly exceeds their operational serving area, check the best server maps for comparisons. Typically (based on configuration and programming; exceptions do exist) a P25 unit in the field will automatically be selecting the site with the strongest CC signal, which will generally be the closest site.
The native P25 traffic - what little there is - sounds, well, like native P25 traffic, which is pretty good, but will never sound as good as a good quality full-quieting FM signal. But it’s generally more consistent and once you’re used to it, the consistency is a major plus; going back to analog, you’ll quickly notice all of the analog artifacts. The scan TGs are still pretty bad, not that I expected any improvements of course.
There was no WSP activity that I heard; last trip there were some patches up, those were gone, I only heard them on conventional VHF.
Iowa county sounded fine; as did Gold Cross in Eau Claire and Sawyer county traffic. Something was amiss with Douglas County; not all traffic was being carried on all sites, and for quite a long time Maple’s CC would not decode but I could hear it quite well. The last morning I was in the area it started decoding, but heard no traffic on it. I suspect there was some maintenance going on as when I drove past the Parkland site there were people on the tower.
Unlike the last trip, Gold Cross Duluth traffic wasn’t always heard on the Douglas WISCOM sites either. Perhaps a console patch needs to happen, or there was a timeout of some sort on either side, but GC dispatches weren’t heard until there was a call into Superior, then some towers (not all) started carrying the traffic.
I did have the opportunity to monitor the Red Cliff site for extended periods of time, while decode was 100%, I heard not one transmission the entire time (approx 10 hours of listening over several days). It’s quiet up in the northwoods this time of year. As a site note, coverage for Red Cliff extends well up the Minnesota north shore, perhaps as far as Lutsen.
Since no licenses have been granted for the Port Wing site yet, I didn’t attempt to monitor that site.
In the southern part of the state, the Dane Scan TG wasn’t being carried by the Van Hise site, but it is carried by both the Milton and Deerfield sites - that’s the only Scan TG that I’ve found carried on more than one tower so far.
I didn’t even try to figure out what’s going on Juneau county, didn’t even program it in based on getting nothing on the last trip and basically having that confirmed in this thread before I left. My editorial comment is that C4FM simulcasting is likely to be a cluster for technical reasons, LSM has definite reasons for being used. “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should” definitely applies to C4FM simulcasting.
Much like last time, there’s very little traffic on the system other than the scan groups. Of course, some of that has to do with the time of year and the fact that much of the state is quite rural and there just isn’t much going on.
Perhaps this has been noticed; I found the following blurb in the state budget summary, which was out in July of 2015, so I believe the June 30th date refers to 6/30/2016:
“Interoperability Report: The budget requires the Interoperability Council to submit a report to the Joint Committee on Finance by June 30 regarding the following issues: the amount the state has expended to develop, construct, and operate the Wisconsin Interoperability System for Communications (WISCOM), from its inception through 2015-16; the annual operating budget for WISCOM during 2015-16, specifically identifying costs relating to staff, infrastructure expansion, infrastructure maintenance, supplies and services, and other related costs; the local, state, and federal agencies that use WISCOM, as well as the frequency with which the agencies use the system and a description of how each agency uses WISCOM to support the agency’s operation; identification of the local, state, and federal agencies that use an alternative communications system for its emergency responders, as well as an explanation why the alternative system is used; identification of each federal, state, and local agency that uses WISCOM daily, and an explanation why they do so; identification of each federal, state, and local agency that does not currently use WISCOM daily, but intends to do so, as well as when the agencies intend to use WISCOM daily; an explanation of the current status of WISCOM’s infrastructure and an indication of whether, and how, it may be expanded in the future; a comparison to other, similar systems in other states; a statement of WISCOM’s successes; a statement of the challenges facing WISCOM; an explanation of WISCOM’s compatibility with other emergency response communication networks; and a statement on the number of sites, channels, and users WISCOM currently supports and its anticipated future capacity.”
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Intresting post sixtytwo. Now i`m wondering what i`ll hear when i head to Dayton this may, might hafta give the system a listen when i get on the bus to Milwaukee to catch the train. But reading what you`ve said already makes me wonder if i`ll really hear that much, example, around here all there is is the scan TG`s and one county (Taylor County) along with a regional bus company that`s on the system, other than that not much else to hear, at least on the Rib Mtn site anyway. Like i said, might hafta give WISCOM a listen during the bus ride to MKE just to see for myself, might hear a lot, or i might not, ether way it`ll be kinda fun. N9NRA
Just to confirm/update in this area.
TG 154 WSP EC Post still active on Holcombe tower at least. Sound like, from post by sixty two, that TG 144 WAU Post maybe was taken down This was active during deer season on Park Falls tower.
County scan TG heard for EC, Chippewa, Barron, Washburn, Rusk, St Croix & Trempealeau. Dunn, Taylor and Sawyer on xx001 TG.
TG 154 WSP EC Post still active on Holcombe tower at least. Sound like, from post by sixty two, that TG 144 WAU Post maybe was taken down This was active during deer season on Park Falls tower.
County scan TG heard for EC, Chippewa, Barron, Washburn, Rusk, St Croix & Trempealeau. Dunn, Taylor and Sawyer on xx001 TG.
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