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What happens when an agency over there switches to trunking, do they totally discard their conventional system or they mothball it.
Mike

:D :D Over where ??? Where are you??? LOL

Over here on the ,east side ,were trunking would not work because we don't have enough soup cans and strings. :lol:

:D :D I heard it was beer cans and string. LOL -- While I'm not very fond of trunking -- it will work in just about every environment -- even in your neck of the wooods. However -- when the Statewide 800 mhz plan was made -- each of the States 39 Counties - and all cities were given One new 800 Mhz channel per 25,000 persons. Each county was allocated a minimum of 2 -- 800 mhz channels. A trunking system with only 3 or 4 frequencies will work -- but it would NOT be cost effective. -- Most counties already have more than 4 VHF or UHF frequencies -- so moving to 800 mhz -- is not worth the costs. Nor would be --giving up 6 High Band channels for only 4 new 800 Mhz frequencies. --- It's a matter of the small population paying a large cost to build a new radio system -- from the bottom up. In many Counties -- the taxes would have to be doubled -- or go to a special Bond Issue. As for your question -- some old systems remain and others do not. It's based on NEEDS. However -- some agencies were required to "give-up" some VHF or UHF channels -- in turn for more new spectrum. The term "give-up channel" refers to a channel that was traded in for a new channel.

Thaks, there was a big push to switch over to trunking for the sheriff's office who does the dispatching for the entire county fire, ambulance and law enforcement but it was shot down like you said cost effectiveness everybody would have switch over radios, pagers, repeaters it would have cost over close to $100,000.00 just for our department alone. Is it really worth it to switch or upgrade existing service (which we are doing now). Hey another question for ya'all to answer.
Mike

:D If your question is "should the County upgrade the existing VHF system and is it worth the money" --- it's a matter of "Do you want Police, Fire and EMS service or not. If you do --then you must keep the system going. The FCC and many States and local governments are up dating how they provide service and any improvement to 911 will mean some upgrade of the existing system will be required at some point in time. What's wrong with adding a second High Band channel to the system or a countywide Police and Fire operations channel ?? I have no idea what improvements your County is planning -- but I am sure it would be money well spent. A 911 -- PSAP -- dispatch center consists of a lot more than just telephones and a radio base station. Just about all PSAP's use several computer based systems to enable the center to receive and dispatch calls. Updating those systems also costs money. MTM

Just got back from Vegas, and they are still operating 'old school' on the 15X.XXX frequencies just fine. Bigger city than many here in WA that spent the money on all these other trunking systems, and yet they seemed to do as well or better than anything I have heard trunked. Other parts of Clark County have trunking, including Henderson and outlying towns on the county system.

I don't know. Can see some great benefits by the tagging, automatic logging, auto location features, and great generator of metrics. But what a cost! And then, I don't know that New Orleans or hurricane affected areas had trunked systems, but the natural disaster wiped all communications out for a long time. I suspect they did, and without power, all that fancy stuff left a bigger mess than it helped in the absence of the infrastructure and power. (Personal opinion - a repeater on a hill with a generator to power it up does better than trunking systems in disasters.)

And then, to visit a good sized and active town that did not go trunking, and hearing their effectiveness, wow, that really blew my mind.

FYI - All of Clark County FD/EMS are on 800MHZ trunking system which include Las Vegas, Henderson, N Las Vegas & Clark County FD.

I belive the cops are still on VHF though.

"Old School" here in Thurston County and all is well. Now, we are a consolidated 911 center so my county PD dispatcher is 10 feet away from me at city DP and my fire dispatcher is 40 feet away. We have trunking, it's called teamwork, LOL. We have kicked around the idea of a trunked system, $$$$. We would have to, because of landscape issues, have to double the radio sites and with a county still less the 300,000 fiscally it doesn't make any sense. I have talked to too many people that have worked with a trunked system and all I hear is negative, so for me, for now, I'm happy with the "old school!" :-)

I sure hope I haven't started a "Why I hate trunking" topic. Okanokan County uses over 20 VHF frequencies. With it's present and projected population and radio needs -- they are HOGS. 30 years ago -- everyone in King County was against any improvement or sharing of radio resources. A central dispatch center -- run be the County Sheriffs Office, which includes all Police, Fire, EMS and Public Works / Services -- could provide a countywide radio system -- at less costs and use less radio spectrum -- without being trunked. A WIN, WIN, WIN. It requires thinking. An open mind --. The purpose is to save lives -- and not step on egos. It has very little to do with trunking at all. And yes -- it also applies to areas like Thurston County.

We have a centralized dispatch / 911 center and love it. Thurston County has been that way for close to 20 years and it works. Several fire departments have wanted to break away and do their own fire dispatch center. They haven't because it's expensive and it wouldn't work well in our system we have set up. We have 3 PD frequencies and 5 fire frequencies. Do we see congestion, sure, but we manage well with that and are inovative on how we handle traffic, MCT usage and some non verbal dispatching. I can't imagine working in an area that doesn't use a consolidated 911 center, it makes sense. Again, my 2 cents worth :-)

Does the Thurston County DC handle all of the County or just part ??? Who handles the area from Tenino to Yelm ??

We do it all...Ok, so the only thing we don't dispatch for the WSP. But we dispatch for Olympia, Tumwater, Lacey, Thurston County, Yelm, Rainier / Tenino / Bucoda, and Nisqually Tribal PD. On the fire side we do all the fire districts and then the Tumwater and Olympia fire departments.

Good to confirm -- what I had been told. I was also told that they have added a few new channels -- including one for the County jail ops. Can you give us a good update on what's in use in Thurston County ? Thanks. MTM

We haven't added any new frequencies...The jail frequency has been around and unless you are right near the jail you won't be able to hear it. Here is a list of what we use.

Tac 1 TCSO/Yelm/Rainier/Tenino/Nisqually Tribe 155.550
Tac2 City PD's 156.150
Tac 3 car-to-car, mainly city units 155.010
Tac 5 car-to-car, mainly county 154.800
Data 154.875
Fire Ch. 1 County Dp 154.430
Fire Ch. 2 Olympia FD 154.370
Fire Ch. 3 Tumwater FD 153.800
Fire Ch. 5 East Co. Tac. 154.010 (repeated)
Fire Ch. 6 West Co. Tac. 154.175 (repeated)

Those are our main frequencies. We used to have an 800 Ch for the medics but it hasn't been used in close to or over 10 years. We don't even have it on our fire dispatch positions.

Hope that helps, anyone with any other questions don't hesitate to email me.