Worcester County

[emtLarmy15]

The 589 site was actually their original Tower they used for EDACS. Their main EDACS site moved into town 02ish when the state built the 65th street tower. As far as I know they’ve always maintained a complete backup at the 589 site in the event of a major catastrophe in town that destroyed the regular site. It used the same frequencies though but was not set up as a simulcast site so it couldn’t be hot until the main site was down.

Their p25 system has switched to 700 mainly for interference issues. This gives them the opportunity to maintain a hot backup essentially at the 589 site using the old frequencies.

I hope that made a little sense... (and there’s a lot of assumptions made by me there)

 

[maus92]

Sounds about right. I know that one of the justifications for moving to 700 was inference with systems in NJ. I suppose that the proximity to water allowed the 800 channels to travel long distances up the coast. Maybe keeping the 800 channels as backup solves the interference issues for the most part since they will probably not be in use at all most of the time. Not even sure if they would maintain a 800 control channel 24/7 on the backup site, but I'd assume they would be testing regularly.

 

[SShuster221]

Soon

At 11:42am on 20180214, an all station broadcast sent out by Worcester Co Fire Dispatch on their EDACS, advising of the system change over ...

Unfortunately, no current gear to monitor the progress and like many ... still waiting on the Unication P2 upgrade.

The wait will be over soon, I have had the pleasure of testing the G5 with Phase 2 in the wild. It works great, but minor bugs are present. I know Unication has been working on these small issues and I feel the wait will be worth it.

Sounds fantastic on the Worcester System and the FiRST Systems. I imagine that the final word on the release of Phase 2 will come shortly.

 

[maus92]

The wait will be over soon, I have had the pleasure of testing the G5 with Phase 2 in the wild. It works great, but minor bugs are present. I know Unication has been working on these small issues and I feel the wait will be worth it.

Sounds fantastic on the Worcester System and the FiRST Systems. I imagine that the final word on the release of Phase 2 will come shortly.

That's good to hear.

 

[KBZed]

Scott, thanks for posting ... that’s awesome ‘confirming’ news ! Also, congrats on being selected to support beta/field testing for the G5P2 upgrade. Sounds like we may finally have a great tech solution ..!

 

[maus92]

Any updates on Worcester County Mystic Harbor site construction? My understanding is that the water tower site would intrude on the airport's protected airspace for IFR operations. Has this been resolved?

 

[DisasterGuy]

Without going into too much detail, the original design on the water tank was approved by the FAA however had State of Maryland aviation Administration objection (a matter of public record). As an alternative a self supporting tower was erected on the same parcel to keep antenna height AMSL 6' lower than if mounted on the tank. Everything has been constructed but is not yet on the air.

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[maus92]

Without going into too much detail, the original design on the water tank was approved by the FAA however had State of Maryland aviation Administration objection (a matter of public record). As an alternative a self supporting tower was erected on the same parcel to keep antenna height AMSL 6' lower than if mounted on the tank. Everything has been constructed but is not yet on the air.

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Thanks. Nothing was showing up on the sat view of the area for that site, so I just was wondering what the resolution was. Old image survey I guess.

 

[DisasterGuy]

Thanks. Nothing was showing up on the sat view of the area for that site, so I just was wondering what the resolution was. Old image survey I guess.

Here you go

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[maus92]

Pretty.

 

[maus92]

So I went on a wardriving expedition to test out a new (actually refurbished) laptop I purchased to do trunk system mapping. In Worcester County, I received their new system with no issues, located the Mystic Harbor tower site, and was also able to receive the new OC P25 system. The following are some notes:

The Worcester County system was using 857.4625 as the control channel, which is different from what is listed in the RRDB. The other system frequencies seem to be configured as alternate control channels. Perhaps the CC is regularly rolled across system freqs?

The OC P25 system was on the air, but I did not see any system activity other than the control channel (this was after 4pm on a Friday, so....) The was a peer / neighbor site listed as 005-005. Also, the OC P25 site was identifying as Site 030-030.

Also had to visit the Burley Oak tasting room

 

[guyiv]

The OC system has not been very active. Expecially on the weekends. The only people that have been on it are the OC Radio Techs getting the sound and other settings filed in.


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[riveter]

The Worcester County system was using 857.4625 as the control channel, which is different from what is listed in the RRDB. The other system frequencies seem to be configured as alternate control channels. Perhaps the CC is regularly rolled across system freqs?

Harris systems are extremely resilient and adaptable at managing control channel operations. Most of my understanding here is second hand, but that understanding is as follows: If the current control channel drops, any other channel is capable of picking it up. Channels can be prioritized as preferred control channels, but unlike Motorola systems, they do not continuously try to roll back to the original control channel as soon as that channel's operation is restored. Prioritization can change that, but theoretically a Harris system can casually roll all the way through every single RF channel if you have no prioritization and drop each channel in turn.

 

[firebal]

Any update on the timeline of this project? OC switching over fully before the summer?

 

[ThePhotoGuy]

I see that talkgroups were added for Ocean City in the database. Are they active on it now?

 

[emtLarmy15]

No. EDACS pd 1/2 are running to p25 but mainly for interoperability purposes with Worcester.

 

[maus92]

I was down in OC yesterday for the MSFA convention. Lots of shiny new apparatus on display on the parking lot (and some inside.) Sussex County has a fantabulous new command vehicle...

On to Worcester County. Did some limited monitoring with the G5, SDS100, and UT2. There is still a lot of traffic on the old EDACS system. Public Works stuff, and Ocean City emergency services. The SDS100 seemed to be working fine on the Harris P25 system, but my perception of the audio quality was it is not as good as the FiRST system (I am not running the beta firmware.) I tried to use the G5 to monitor fire dispatch on the Ocean City P25 system, but it didn't hear anything, so I switched it to the Worcester P25 system to monitor their dispatch, which worked fine. The SDS received OC Police - South on the OC P25 system simulcast site. Again, the DAQ is not as good as FiRST, in my opinion. The OC P25 system was carrying traffic on both the simulcast site, and on the Ocean Pines site.

 

[troymail]

... the Harris P25 system, but my perception of the audio quality was it is not as good as the FiRST system...

That was my observation with the G5 as well back in May....

 

[maus92]

That was my observation with the G5 as well back in May....

I was monitoring Worcester from 32nd Street in OC - not sure if that makes a difference seeing that the county doesn't have a site on the island. I'm assuming that once the OC P25 system is complete there will be improved wide area coverage and audio quality - or maybe it's a quirk of Harris' P25 implementation, IDK. The Worcester Simulcast site, the Ocean City Simulcast site and the Ocean Pines site all peer (neighbors) with each other.

Side note: The Ocean City EDACS is still patched to FiRST. Not sure why they would not use another source to feed it.

 

[guyiv]

The only users actually keying up on the OC P25 system is the Convention Center(14080-14085 from what I can remember). All other Ocean City talkgroups you will hear are patched from the EDACS system. The Worcester county talkgroups are being simulcast on the OC P25 system.

The Worcester System seams to be turned up(Volume) like the old EDACS system was. I think that may be why it does not sound as good.