Wolcott

[Cskib32087]

Anyone have any news on wolcotts new system

Im told the entire town will be UHF. PD & PW will be Digital with PD being encrypted
Fire & EMS will be UHF but analog (All this came from town meetings a friend was at)
Any Freqs yet?

 

[mlevin]

That's what I've more or less been told as well. Supposedly the switch is supposed to be sometime in October. I'm not sure if they are still on target to meet that goal. PD and EMS will keep their existing freqs, with PD of course going digital encrypted. Not sure what the FD freq will be but it will be UHF analog. I've been told that we are getting the digital radios so that we can monitor and communicate with the police. Hope that helps.

 

[Cskib32087]

I see in the FCC site Wolcott Pd has new freqs 453.100 & 453.5125. I’m thinking that FD & PW will be using those if EMS is going to stay on their business freq.
I wonder if EMS knows that someone could get a license on that freq in Waterbury tomorrow on high power and totally wipe them out?
And they could not do anything since it’s not a public safety frequency they are not protected at all

 

[mlevin]

Campion Ambulance would have a similar problem as well since they are also on a business freq.

Since the FD is a independent organization from the town the same way the ambulance association is, I would imagine that the new FD freq would be listed as Wolcott Volunteer Fire in the database and not under the PD license. Perhaps PD will have a secondary frequency to use. We will just have to wait and see. I am away from the area for the summer, so I am not really up to date on the progress of everything. When I left in mid-june Ambulance 166-2 already had the new XTL 5000 Mobile installed in it for quite some time.

 

[gmeier68]

453.100 will be the new FD freq. I assume the other is for PW. The last I heard it should be online sometime in December or January. The last hang-up was getting the ok for the antenna's. Equipment is being installed at the PD as we speak. PD says they won't be using encryption unless it's for tactical purposes. I don't believe that for a minute.

 

[Cskib32087]

Wolcott PD will be encrypted 24/7

 

[mlevin]

New Mobiles now installed in the rest of the EMS vehicles. And correction from before, they are XTL 2500s.

 

[N1SQB]

I dont get it. Is wolcott that busy of a town and is that much criminal activity happening that they NEED to go encrypted? Seriously, I always thought of Wolcott as a little hole in the wall dept.

Manny

 

[izzyj4]

I dont get it. Is wolcott that busy of a town and is that much criminal activity happening that they NEED to go encrypted? Seriously, I always thought of Wolcott as a little hole in the wall dept.

Manny

With Waterbury to its south, they get to see a lot of "traveling" crime through it because of the fact people think of it as a rural town. A lot of intersting thing happen in that town but as for encryption I really don't think a PD should be wasting the money for it unless it is being used for tactical or swat operations in my opinion. Look at Milford, why do they need encryption???

 

[Cskib32087]

Again Motorola ADP encryption is only $10 per radio when you order them. Im sure thats what they will use. Cheep and its a basic encryption not something the 3 letter people would use

 

[n1chu]

As I follow this string, I see that there are two opinions on when the new systems will come online, Oct or Dec and two ways the PD may use the encryption. As for which are correct, I can not tell as no sources were credited for the information so it's tough determining the credibility. Since I am not from Wolcott, I don't know the authors of the posts that were good enough to volunteer what they heard or know for sure. I thank you for that. If it wasn't for your postings the rest of us would still be in the dark.

There is one thing, someone expressed a concern about the EMS located on the business band frequency. I don't think it is a problem. If it's licensed it has be coordinated and no one would be able to license on top of them for 70 miles. The fact that it is in the business band is acceptable as coordinating "out of band" has been available for years. At first it was not an option, or radio dealers such as Motorola out fo Rocky Hill were telling you "no more room so you have to move to the 800 MHz band" which bode well for them because now they can sell you a bunch of new gear. I like Motorola but being advised by the people who sell the system can be slightly less than unbiased. The Farmington Fire Departments have a VHF system which I aquired for them after Motorola/Rocky Hill told us there were no frequency pairs available and we could not "steal" one from other services. Farmington uses an output frequency obtained from New Britian FD when they went trunked and an input frequency obtained from the Forestry Service at 159.42 MHz. Check out Windsor Locks Fire and you will see they also have a 159 MHz frequency. All licensed and proper. I offer this as just a little insight as to my understanding of the topic at hand.

Bill

 

[Cskib32087]

Bill

Tell that 70 mile thing to Orange FD they were on 452.225 for a year when the golf course that sits on the border of orange and milford got a FB2 channel for operations. 452.225 less than 2 miles from each other
Shelton EMS got 452.0125 Tilcon in north branford and Yale got the same channel months later all 3 high power FB2s. marcus communications is has FB2s on the sams freqs as yale on the same location. LCD has a FB2 in cornwall now someone in granby has it also, line of sight hill to hill. It gets worse as you look more..All business band frequencys
Public safety is no better. Seymour 154.3775 narrow band and Cheshire 154.370 wide band 6 miles from each other, if you put in 154.370 you can listen to both. The new Oxford EMS output freq is 7.5 KHZ from bridgeport PD input. Portland FD out put is southbury ambulances input it goes on and on

 

[n1chu]

Yikes! Thats a lot of RFI!

Youve cited a lot of examples where there is multiple loadings on a frequency without a distance spread but you didn't say if they were sanctioned or not. I must assume they were because we both know there is a lot of "just buy the gear and pick a frequency to come up on. If it interferes, move. And no one bothers to check if they ever had a license to begin with kinda stuff going on.

So assuming the examples you cited are all licensed assignments, did the sharing parties have an understanding from the onset? Were mistakes in assignments discovered? Did any of the "last on, first off" rule play a part in corrective action? What corrective action, if any, was taken?

I know the yahoo who coordinated our frequency submitted it to the FCC incorrectly which allowed AMR in Worcester, Ma. to come up slightly off our center freq and destroy our noise floor. It took a consultant and a week of study to determine how to correct it. And it was all on our dime. All because the frequency was not recorded correctly in the license application. Geeze. Thanks for your valued input, I found it interesting. Not suprising, but very interesting.

 

[DLuccia]

From the Rumor mill (friday jan 2) the low band fire freq 33.920 and the new high band freq 453.5125 will be cross patched so you can hear communication on the high band and low band untilthe radios are installed in the apparatus and the testing is done.

 

[Cskib32087]

Testing is done on the system, Motorola was there a wek ago and they are done with all the testing to complete the system. The cross patch will go up in the next 1-5 days. Yeaserday I caught L31 talking to radio service doing a test. The system also keyed up for 10 min just open a few times in the last week. Listen up over the wekend for lots of "can you hear me now"

 

[gmeier68]

The new system is in fact cross-patched with low band. Mobile installs on the apparatus will begin 1/5/08. It's expected to take about 2 weeks to complete at which time the low band will be shut down for good ( as long as everything goes as planned. 3.75 million doesn't get you what it used to.)

Fire Dispach 453.5125 P/L 97.4
Firegoround 453.8625

PD is fully encrypted. Public Works is 453.100 and is digital. EMS didn't change.

 

[mlevin]

There is supposed to an open house for the new communication system at Wolcott PD HQ on Sunday Jan. 4th from noon-3pm. If anyone is interested.

 

[kinishba]

Wolcott - Scanner Help Needed

Please keep in mind..I am female..a Grandma...and know very little about electronics!

I have a scanner which I always listened to for Wolcott Police, Fire, etc. I know there is a new system and the police frequency is now "encryted". Does this mean that no matter what scanner you buy, that you will NEVER be able to pick up the police frequency? Please advise as I will have no further use for this scanner if that is truly the case.

 

[mlevin]

Yes, unfortunately the new police frequency is encrypted and yes there is no way to monitor them with a scanner. However you can still monitor Fire and EMS so I wouldn't go about throwing a perfectly good scanner in the garbage.