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jimsmowin
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if you are in baltimore you may not recieve it or will need an outside antenna. when i come south with a mobile scanner i lose it around the 3rd exit going south on 83
Did you program it manually or by RRDB download? York County's system has custom tables. Also, as the other member mentioned, if you're in Baltimore (with the exception of northern Baltimore County), you probably won't hear the system reliable. The exceptions granted to York County for UHF-T licenses required them to keep the system's footprint pretty tight so as not to interfere with nearby T-band TV stations.
My four years of experience with the County-issued P5100 portable is that I can receive the network from Mt. Airy MD to the southwest to just before descending the river hills to Havre de Grace to the southeast; northeast to nearly the Morgantown interchange of the PA Turnpike, north to the Clark's Ferry bridge, and northwest to the Blue Mountain tunnel on the pike.
Due south is weaker, drops off at the Gunpowder/Parkton valley on I-83. Which is why things were getting very dicey about two years ago when Stewartstown PD+Southern Regional had a high speed pursuit which ended just before that drop off point.
Due south is weaker, drops off at the Gunpowder/Parkton valley on I-83. Which is why things were getting very dicey about two years ago when Stewartstown PD+Southern Regional had a high speed pursuit which ended just before that drop off point.
Subscriber units are a bit better than a scanner with holding the signal, which is the case in any band or on any system. My P5100 is sitting on the desk in front of me in Fallston, locked on to OPS10 from me listening to the tanker accident this morning. I've keyed the system from the bay bridge. There's no doubt, York's system carries.
YORK CO COMM COSTS
York County commissioners are urging lawmakers to revisit new federal regulations that they say will require the county to pay an estimated $28 million to upgrade its public safety radio system.
The regulations were passed as part of the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act in February 2012, and the law says money will be raised through competitive bidding to cover the costs of such upgrades.
But commissioners Steve Chronister, Doug Hoke and Chris Reilly wrote in the letter that the legislation does not indicate who will be responsible for any costs above the amount raised through the bidding system.
"The uncertainty of this potential cost burden is unsettling and troublesome," they wrote in the letter, which a county spokesman said was mailed out Wednesday.
York County commissioners say federal regulations could cost $28 million, urge action - The York Daily Record
York County commissioners are urging lawmakers to revisit new federal regulations that they say will require the county to pay an estimated $28 million to upgrade its public safety radio system.
The regulations were passed as part of the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act in February 2012, and the law says money will be raised through competitive bidding to cover the costs of such upgrades.
But commissioners Steve Chronister, Doug Hoke and Chris Reilly wrote in the letter that the legislation does not indicate who will be responsible for any costs above the amount raised through the bidding system.
"The uncertainty of this potential cost burden is unsettling and troublesome," they wrote in the letter, which a county spokesman said was mailed out Wednesday.
York County commissioners say federal regulations could cost $28 million, urge action - The York Daily Record
troymail
Silent Key
It is P25 -- just in the wrong frequency and (for the "new" standards). They had no idea new standards (laws) would require 700 Mhz (vs. UHF) when the system was planned, designed, and built.
Different band=different propagation characteristics=need for full re-engineering of the system. They won't be able to just plop new base stations and antennas at the existing sites and expect it to work. But that's probably what will happen.
And by the time they do this fix and upgrade everything to work properly under the current guidelines and standards and get it up and running at a respectable performance there will probably be new guidelines and requirements again that they'll have to work to beat. LOL
I guess it's only a dream but can we hope during the update to the system they will decide to go back to a mix of alpha and voice TONE paging? Or at least add in some sort of a prealert to the alerting groups? That was a poor decision to drop them. At least to my ears when I listen to the feeds. No tones or prealerts and someone talking to me = not a dispatch and means I miss hearing a lot. Hearing at least a prealert would make me listen up a little closer to what comes after it. Of course I don't also have the ability to have the pager in a coffee can to go bbbbuuuuuuzzzzzzzz at the same time to perk me up either. LOL
I guess it's only a dream but can we hope during the update to the system they will decide to go back to a mix of alpha and voice TONE paging? Or at least add in some sort of a prealert to the alerting groups? That was a poor decision to drop them. At least to my ears when I listen to the feeds. No tones or prealerts and someone talking to me = not a dispatch and means I miss hearing a lot. Hearing at least a prealert would make me listen up a little closer to what comes after it. Of course I don't also have the ability to have the pager in a coffee can to go bbbbuuuuuuzzzzzzzz at the same time to perk me up either. LOL
One13Truck.. It's a shame that calls are not being missed because of the digital pagers.. The only thing voice paging does, is slows down the process.. A multi alarm, multi station digital page takes approx. 10 seconds.. Just to get thru the 1 second 3 second tone pairs takes twice that long and then add the 40-50 piece equipment assignments that need to be voiced.. Even the "Non reading" FP members seem to be responding on time..
Digital is the way to go when seconds count...Bar None..
Digital is the way to go when seconds count...Bar None..
PCPA... Thats funny, when we did coverage testing and many runs to Towson in the county vehicle, we could call back to the 911 center all the way down I-83 from the 25 watt mobile radio with 1/4 wave roof mounted antenna.. We did have a lapse in the Parkton pit (even Balto. Co. has a dead spot in this hole), but had useful coverage all the way down..
I know the old high band PD systems and the low band FD systems did not work that far.. especially the talk back..
I know the old high band PD systems and the low band FD systems did not work that far.. especially the talk back..
Ok, this is a pissing match that's very old, but I'll chime in one more time, as a life-long responder (paid and volunteer). Tone and voice paging may be time consuming as far as airtime goes, but the advantages to voice dispatching are indisputable.
AT HOME Volunteers who respond from home (particularly in the middle of the night) can be getting dressed and getting down the hallway to their front door and to their car while a voice dispatch is being listened to. This is much more user-friendly than having to scrub and rub your eyes, focus on the pager, take in all the information, and THEN get dressed and get going.
IN THE CAR This horse is beaten dead, having to pull over to read your pager is a joke, and is unsafe and causes delays. Period.
IN STATION There are some career fire department in York County, as well as some full-time staffed volunteer departments. The advantages to voice dispatching are similar to those for volunteers at home. The bell goes off, the speaker opens up, and you listen to the dispatch as you get out of bed, get into your turnout gear, and hustle to the apparatus.
Truth is, from a radio system manager or technician's standpoint, POCSAG saves transmitter time, but there is no time saved when it comes to the end user. And emergency dispatch radio systems should be designed and built to the needs of the end users (the emergency responders), NOT the radio system managers and technicians.
If digital is the wave of the future (which it clearly is), then we need to develop a digital voice paging protocol, where the alerting cadences are sent in a digital format (such as POCSAG or similar), opening a speaker on the pager or station alerting receiver, and then allowing for voice carrier (digital or analog) to proceed through the pager.
And I'm not interested in hearing about how the county announces dispatches by voice over the dispatch talk group. These voice announcements have no consistent correlation with the transmission of the paging signals, so there is no way to integrate the voice for effective station alerting. The only thing it's good for is units "on the air."
Dissemination of emergency dispatches to units should be built to the needs of the users. Career departments and agencies (fire and EMS) should have full in-station voice dispatching as well as one or many textual mediums (printers, MDTs, alphanumeric pagers, smartphone apps, lighted display boards, etc.). Volunteers should have tone and voice paging, alpha paging, smart phone apps, etc.
The elimination of voice pager dispatches in the region is purely manager and budget centric.
I've heard nothing of this, but I can tell you that the county is transmitting the digital pager signal in narrowband format now (as required by the FCC), but the pagers themselves are still receiving the signals in wide-band mode. This should cause little problems, unless the adjacent narrowband frequencies are licensed and placed into operation nearby. This could cause interference with the pagers.
You're probably confusing this with the eventual mandated switch from the UHF-T frequencies on the trunked system to a 700mhz spectrum.
Disregard. I think I found my answer above.
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