Worcester County - new channels

[maus92]

Worcester County will be spending around $4M to update / upgrade their 800 system. A 6 channel reconfiguration has been engineered by L3Harris and is currently awaiting implementation. That cost roughly $350K. There is a further $3M+ for site, center, FNE and presumably backhaul updates to be completed which includes building an additional tower site. The county recently signed a $25K agreement with FE to advise and oversee the construction on an as needed basis. I don't believe they have selected exactly where the new site will be spotted, but previously in this thread Snow Hill was mentioned. A new site has not been licensed as of yet.

Side note: the changes I made to my receive antenna and adding an inline amp now allows me to receive the Wicomico system with enough power to reliably deode and provide good audio. The closest site to me is about 14 miles away, but other than trees there is little obstruction.

 

[Dispatcher308]

Worcester County will be spending around $4M to update / upgrade their 800 system. A 6 channel reconfiguration has been engineered by L3Harris and is currently awaiting implementation. That cost roughly $350K. There is a further $3M+ for site, center, FNE and presumably backhaul updates to be completed which includes building an additional tower site. The county recently signed a $25K agreement with FE to advise and oversee the construction on an as needed basis. I don't believe they have selected exactly where the new site will be spotted, but previously in this thread Snow Hill was mentioned. A new site has not been licensed as of yet.

Side note: the changes I made to my receive antenna and adding an inline amp now allows me to receive the Wicomico system with enough power to reliably deode and provide good audio. The closest site to me is about 14 miles away, but other than trees there is little obstruction.

If Disaster Guy is the one who told you about Snow Hill, you can take that to the bank. It will probably be at the Snow Hill water tank which currently has some infrastructure on it, unless they build something completely new.

 

[maus92]

Another area of improvement is the Fire / EMS paging system: $30K was allocated in FY23 and $650K in FY24. I have been hearing tones on a previously unidentified talk group, so perhaps that's their test tg.

 

[DisasterGuy]

Worcester County and the Town of Ocean City will be performing a refresh of certain hardware components over the next 18 months. This will include things such as servers, routers, switches, console computers, site alarming computers, etc. This is being timed to be about halfway through the expected life of the system and within the generally accepted 7 year MTBF of public safety IT equipment. While the contract for this is not yet finalized, the total amount budgeted is $2 Million (matter of public record) and expected to be under that cost.

Worcester County has been planning for quite some time to improve coverage in both the Newark and Snow Hill areas. To that end after much effort, a plan is in place to add a new site on an existing antenna support structure with existing shelter in the Town of Snow Hill as well as to change the highly directional antennas at the site located closer to Newark to omi-directional antennas. While the contract for this is not yet finalized, the total amount budgeted is $870,000 (matter of public record).

There are no planned projects related to Fire/EMS paging.

 

[maus92]

I consolidated some of my costing from these documents attached below. It's possible that the paging project may have been de-funded.

 

[DisasterGuy]

The Capital Improvement Plan is simply a financial planning document. It is not a funded budget. That version was created 18-24 months ago. Since that time the County obtained a very large surplus of free VHF Mastr III stations (model used for VHF paging) and as such has sufficient spare equipment on-hand to run the existing VHF paging system for many years to come resulting in substantial cost savings.

 

[maus92]

Worcester is buying a bunch of new subscribers, taking advantage of a special discount. Of course it has nothing to do with the expense to implement the upcoming encryption process.

Worcester County gets major discount on new radios

Worcester County officials agreed last week to take advantage of a sale to purchase new emergency services radios for the sheriff's office and fire companies.

www.oceancitytoday.com

According to an article published today in the Dispatch/OC Today and not available online yet, the Sheriff "understands this [encryption] is not a popular decision, but is necessary for the preventative safety of our law enforcement officers." If this is the primary justification for concealing routine radio traffic, the obvious compromise solution would be to provide a delayed feed as other jurisdictions in Maryland have implemented to maintain transparency - a stated goal of the Sheriff. The suggestion to file a FOIA request mentioned later in the article is not a reasonable remedy as most people are unfamiliar with the process, and in many cases, the public would not even know about certain incidents because they have been hidden from disclosure by the encryption policy itself.

The article also talks about the complexity of deploying encryption. The technology was originally planned for deployment in January, however radios are still being programmed, and apparently not fully tested with all stakeholders as the deputy director of ES notes that there is significant coordination effort ongoing. The new goal is to deploy encryption "in the next month or so."

 

[DisasterGuy]

Worcester is buying a bunch of new subscribers, taking advantage of a special discount. Of course it has nothing to do with the expense to implement the upcoming encryption process.

Worcester County gets major discount on new radios

Worcester County officials agreed last week to take advantage of a sale to purchase new emergency services radios for the sheriff's office and fire companies.

www.oceancitytoday.com

According to an article published today in the Dispatch/OC Today and not available online yet, the Sheriff "understands this [encryption] is not a popular decision, but is necessary for the preventative safety of our law enforcement officers." If this is the primary justification for concealing routine radio traffic, the obvious compromise solution would be to provide a delayed feed as other jurisdictions in Maryland have implemented to maintain transparency - a stated goal of the Sheriff. The suggestion to file a FOIA request mentioned later in the article is not a reasonable remedy as most people are unfamiliar with the process, and in many cases, the public would not even know about certain incidents because they have been hidden from disclosure by the encryption policy itself.

The article also talks about the complexity of deploying encryption. The technology was originally planned for deployment in January, however radios are still being programmed, and apparently not fully tested with all stakeholders as the deputy director of ES notes that there is significant coordination effort ongoing. The new goal is to deploy encryption "in the next month or so."

To provide some objective clarity, the purchase of new radios has nothing to do with encryption. Every radio in use within Worcester County for the last 5 years has AES encryption. The radios purchased, as noted in the minutes of the meeting, were made because there is a special offer to obtain fully featured XL-200p radios (multi-band, LTE, etc) with accessories for $2,700/ each. That is around a 68% discount from standard contract price and an amazing time limited deal.

To answer the specific timing piece, one large state level law enforcement agency that interoperates with Worcester County also needed to make codeplug changes for changes in other portions of the state. They requested a bit more time to get their codeplugs finalized and distributed.

I will not speak for any position of the Sheriff nor directly about encryption however I will point to references previously made to the public by the Sheriff referencing the recommendations of DHS CISA, the FPIC, and APCO P25 TIA DHS CISA & FPIC Publish New Comprehensive P25 Encryption Resource that specifically recommend the use of encryption to protect personally identifiable information, protected health information, tactical information, and disaster information. For those that tend to listen to law enforcement a bit, you will note that there is a great deal of PII on standard law enforcement talkgroups including with every traffic stop or citizen contact made.

 

[maus92]

Without going into actual, potential or perceived threats of not utilizing encryption, the bottom line is that there need to be a balance between security and accountability, and the tools available to the average citizen to question or alert public officials or representatives about incidents that significantly affect their well being. The organizations / bureaucrats that are recommending encryption are not answerable to average citizens, nor are they subject to recall as are local elected officials. They will almost always recommend the most stringent policy because it is less risky than a more nuanced policy that balances the needs of all parties.

As far as PII being revealed on LE channels, that does happen and I am amazed that some agencies haven't done a better job in designing processes and procedures that limit that kind of disclosure. Many jurisdictions and organizations utilize mobile data terminals, handheld devices and encrypted voice channels specifically to exchange PII and sometimes photographs, etc. This is more of an operational issue: poor training, expediency, or just laziness. This is a valid reason to provide for an encrypted channel for this specific purpose.

It is rare event that any identifiable patient information is exchanged over radio channels. There is no need to know PII or HIPPA protected info in a pre-hospital setting. AFAIK. MIEMSS has no plans to encrypt their Med channels which to me indicates there is no reasonable risk of exposure.

As far as the new radios go, what a deal! And convenient timing as a good chunk of money was available to fund an otherwise unplanned procurement.

 

[maus92]

A few days ago, a WCSO deputy had detained a suspected DUI who ended up barfing in the back of his Tahoe. He tried to use his portable to contact Central to request EMS, but it was unreadable and was told to use his mobile radio. Not sure if he was in or out of the vehicle. Stop was 50 East about 1 mile west of Rt 90.

Yesterday was an interop fail between NRP, MSP and WCSO. Apparently some kids were off in the woods shooting off a handgun and i "think" DNR received the initial call (not sure). Since NRP is now encrypted, and Worcester is trying to implement encryption, a finding a common channel for comms was a cluster**** - probably because of programming incompatibles of the various subscribers. MSP and NRP (in the clear) eventually ended up on Worcester's system and officers asking Central if they could hear them. Ugh.

**Opinion alert** My plumber mentioned to me that FFs are in the process of turning in their portables for reprogramming. The conversation moved to the implementation of encryption and its effects on transparency. He mentioned that his FF friend told of a murder last year in North OC that has not been publicised by the OCPD and not picked up by any media sources. The media relies on the PDs to provide public info, but if info is not provided, in practical terms means it didn't happen. Combine PDs not being forthright or thourough, and the public and media's inability to provide a check on government agencies is problematic.

 

[ThePhotoGuy]

I was down the Ocean for the past couple days.

It seems that NRP have the updated codeplugs for the encrypted talkgroups on Worcester already. During the serious accident near Assateague on Tuesday. NRP officers were communicating to the dispatcher on Worcester Sheriff but was encrypted. An officer indicated that he couldn't hear the NRP officers transmissions.

It was a lot of agencies on scene of the accident & landing zone - Berlin VFC/EMS, Worcester Sheriff, MSP, MSP Aviation, NRP, National Park Service Protection Rangers, & MD State Park Rangers.

 

[motorcoachdoug]

Why am I not surprised that when DNR started to use encryption it all turns into a major cluster F***?? Plus the public does have a right to hear what is going on the dispatch channel if for no other reason if a BOLO is put out, those of us who listen can function as an extra pair of eyes to be on the look out. They forget they work for THE PEOPLE OF MARYLAND!! and need to be transparent as well. They can use their Tac channels or their computer in their vehicles to pass along sensitive info.

 

[maus92]

I noticed in my dive into coordiantion / licensing data today that Worcester is planning to implement a two channel DVRS, likely to be rolled out with their system refresh in the next few months / year.

 

[ThePhotoGuy]

Seems that the encryption switchover occurred yesterday. Noticed it on the OpenMhz feed. Sheriff, all of the Town PD's and Ocean City Police are now encrypted.

 

[maus92]

I looked at the logs, and it looks like it was initiated at around 7am on Friday. The MSP Berlin crosslink is still in the clear today. The attached file is the announcement, although it did not get fully recorded by SDRT. Change the extension to mp3.

 

[maus92]

Attached is the transition on the OCP Citywide channel - change the txt extension to mp3. Of course there were miscreants that didn't get the memo and remained on the clear channel throughout the morning.

 

[jtwalker]

Dang ... even the dog catcher went encrypted.

 

[DisasterGuy]

I noticed in my dive into coordiantion / licensing data today that Worcester is planning to implement a two channel DVRS, likely to be rolled out with their system refresh in the next few months / year.

DVRS units will not be used as a rule. Worcester obtained a pair of Harris DVRS units that operate as P25 VDOC sites to subscribers and as a standard subscriber to the system. These are being kitted together for use in exceptional situations where coverage extension could be beneficial on extended incidents that don’t call for the roll out of the full site on wheels (example being a confined space rescue).

 

[maus92]

The Worcester County Commissioners ask for more information on the proposed $2M upgrade of various system networking components:

Worcester County delays radio purchase

The Worcester County Commissioners recently delayed a decision to buy radio system hardware until they get more information on the nearly $2 million proposal.

www.oceancitytoday.com

It appears that the upgrade was budgeted, but apparently there are questions.

 

[jtwalker]

Has anyone observed whether the Worcester Co police TGs that are patched with MD FIRST are encrypted on FIRST?