Batboard

I've been pondering the layout of our department's radio system lately. It occurred to me I have no idea how other comparably sized departments' radio systems are laid out and used. Would a few people mind posting their agency size, rough population estimate, and a quick overview of how the channels are laid out? (Even scanner listeners can probably provide most of this information for most cities)

Raleigh, NC (700 sworn, population 375,000, UHF conventional system made up of independent repeaters):

1-Main dispatch channel for entire city. Every single officer expected to have their radio on monitors this main channel.

2-Southside status (though the repeater is on the far west side of town). For units to get out on traffic stops, request wreckers, EMS, and generally anything that isn't urgent. Urgent traffic goes on channel 1.

3-Northside status, same as 2, except for northside units.

4-License/plate checks, local warrant checks, AND talkaround channel for the desk officers to relay messages to units in the field. Sometimes the channel is dead quiet, other times everyone's talking all over each other and you can't run a plate without waiting several minutes.

5-Main dispatch for the smaller agencies in the county (thus, a link to talk to those smaller agencies), but those agencies went to 800 Trunking, so this is just an empty repeater for now. Used as talkaround for those smart enough to realize it's not used anymore.

6-Talkaround - Decent coverage, but not terrific

7-Talkaround - Is in the far northwest part of the city, and coverage SUCKS on this channel unless you're pretty close to the water tower.

8-Status for special units (motors, bikes, humane, etc)

9-Talkaround - probably the best coverage repeater we have

10-Talkaround - small coverage, mainly only usable downtown

11- Rebroadcast of channel 1, for the northwest part of the city

12- Rebroadcast of channel 1, for the north/northeast part of the city

Then most of our radios have 4 simplex frequencies, as well as the capability of talking simplex on the repeater outputs.

In my opinion, we are severely lacking in available radio channels. If you work northeast, 6 and 9 are the only usuable talkaround channels, and if those are busy, you're screwed. With 700 officers, the odds of 2 talkaround channels being used at the same time are pretty good. The main dispatch channel can get pretty busy, too. If main dispatch goes into emergency mode for a hot incident (robbery, shooting, etc), dispatching for the rest of the city goes on hold. This was fine 15 years ago, but now it's not THAT rare to have a shooting in one part of the city at the same time as a robbery across town. I was wondering if it would make more sense to have 2 or 3 precincts on their own dispatch channel, and then use that channel for dispatch AND status. How is YOUR city laid out?

[quote="yoda"]I've been pondering the layout of our department's radio system lately.
[/quote]

Your finding what is normal growth every where in the country. Maybe 10 or 15 years ago the system worked. As time goes by and the city grows, more duty officers are placed on the street. This happens a little at a time. You hardly notice it until someone says I can't get a word in sideways on the radio system.

Sure more channels are the way to go. Depending on just where you are and what evryone else around you uses for a radio system, there nmay or may not be channels available. If all the departments around have gone to 800, then your chances are probably good to locate a couple more frequency pairs. If all the surounding departments have stayed 450, your screwed.

You could probably get some relief by having the department come up with some simplex frequencies that don't have any repeaters on. Use them as short distance TAC channels.

Good luck.

Jim

Is it just me?

why am I having a hard time putting the layout of my city's PD radio system on the internet?

Mike in Ct
KM1R

i wouldn't be able to sit down and possibly think about drawing out how our convoluted system is layed out, then again, i choose not to vomit on my keyboard.

then again, who would put the EMS scramble crew alert on the town routine channel? and then carrier squelch all the EMS units so that the goddamn plows key up and wake everyone up? oh right. bruce did that.

Sounds to me like you have enuf channels, just not using them efficiently.
I come from a larger dept with 4 times the population, and we used 4 "dispatch" channels (kinda by precinct) 1 channel to discuss warrants, etc with "data section", two county wide channels for Unit to Unit conversatons, and 1 Mutual Aid. UHF It worked pretty well.
Then we went to 800 Trunking. Each precinct got its own "tactical" Talk Group for Unit to Unit, and lots of extra Talk Groups, but the basic operation is still the same.
4 dispatch, 1 data, etc.
The only difference is the coverage is crappy.
No surprise.
Your big problem will probably be getting funding for dispatchers to run more channels.

Sacramento Police (about 600-700 officers, possibly more now, population about 450,000) has it set up this way:

1-North Area
2-Car2car
3-East Area
4-Central Area
5-Car2Car
6-South Area
7-tactical
8-tactical
9-Records
then there's about 16 more tactical channels, in addition to narcotics, detectives, admin, EOD, etc...unless assigned to a specific detail, are available as tactical and special events.

each of those areas is a dispatch channel, so at peak times there's 4 dispatch channels. Also have MDTs, but most of it is voiced. records can be run in car, or on radio. If there's a critical incident, either one zone can move off a dispatch channel, leaving it "tactical", or just wait till the incident is over, using MDTs where necessary. Might switch dispatch channels if there's a second crit incident at the same time.

The Sheriff's Dept is similar, but with more officers (about 2000) and a population of somewhere near 2 million (give or take).

There are two configurations here that can be switched on the fly.

Configuration 1:

1. Repeat
2. Direct

Configuration 2:

1. Broken
2. Direct

nmfire10 wrote:There are two configurations here that can be switched on the fly.

Configuration 1:

1. Repeat
2. Direct

Configuration 2:

1. Broken
2. Direct

Simple if nothing else. I guess you do what works.

Cam

Mike in CT wrote:Is it just me?

why am I having a hard time putting the layout of my city's PD radio system on the internet?

Mike in Ct
KM1R

Don't worry it not that hard, hell it is most likely already on the internet, just copy and paste of the citys website (like my hometown) or get it from one of the many scanner site.

Cam

Berkeley County, SC

Law Enforcement:

• BCSO 1 - Main Dispatch Channel
  BCSO 2 - Records (traffic stops, etc)
  BCSO UHF - Special Ops-type channel
  Mutual Aid - self-explanatory, every agency in the area has this freq programmed in (or is supposed to)
  POLICE - Covers LE for Bonneau, St Stephen, Moncks Corner and Jamestown municipalities within the county.

Fire/EMS/Rescue:

• South Fire - South Fire Repeater (14 Fire Co, 3 Medic Units)
  North Fire - North Fire Repeater (13 Fire Co, Rescue, 4 Medic Units)

There are also two cities within the county that dispatch themselves on their own frequencies:

• GOOSE CREEK - PD & FIRE channels, as well as a DPW channel
  HANAHAN - same setup as Goose Creek

Goose Creek's coverage is excellent, Hanahan...never listened to.

All the freq's are VHF High, exception of the UHF channel.
Throw in some 800Mhz systems that we almost never use...for mutual aid with Charleston County, City of North Charleston.


Coverage is pretty good on most channels. Seem to have the most problems with the North Fire. Haven't figured out if it's the user with a poor radio, or the repeater. BCSO 1 is the busiest of all the channels in there, followed by the POLICE channel. We also have problems with interference coming in from Chester County, and also from Richmond Hill, GA. Chester actually called and told us to get off their frequency one day...ha fat chance. Berkeley Cty reportedly offered to re-freq Chester for them in an effort to relieve the interference, but they declined. Oddly though, after the interference began (it wasn't always there), they changed their dispatch callsign from Chester to Central (same as ours) and their dispatch format mysteriously changed to an exact mirror of ours...odd.