SteveOFD

In production pictures are now available at Ferrarafire.com. Unit #'s are 3172 & 3173.

We had repeaters in our apparatus (3 Chiefs and 3 Engines), they never worked properly. The problem with repeaters is you can only have one repeater operating at a time. If you have more than one operating on the fire scene, when a portable keys the repeater function all repeaters will receive and retransmit at the same time. This is like keying two or more radios at the same time. The coordination it takes is just not worth the problems, especially when it hits the fan, you don't need to try and figure out whose repeater will be turned on and whose will be turned off as you are trying to coordinate all the incoming resources.

Exmrvfc, I couldn't have stated it better myself. That's what the new system is all about.

I used to be exclusively Bearcat, but I've had no problems with my Pro 97.

The original RFP I read was that all dispatch points (FD & PD) would get base radios. Hospitals and the BeeLine bus bases would also get base radios. I read that the buses were included for two resaons, one being they would need to be coordinated for evacuation puposes, and the second that the Feds. would fund a major portion of their piece or the system (approx 1/2 the price of the total system).

From The Journal News legal section 2/18/06 "Bond Resolution...authorizing...City of New Rochelle...to finance the construction and acquisition of Fire Aerial Ladder($600,000). Possibly L12?

Was up in the North East corner of the County today and confirmed that the North Salem tower is operating with a CC of 470.575Mhz. This means all four county owned sites are now up and running for testing.

RWC, Where did you hear they had to limit the power output? From the FCC's website both WQDW263(North Zone) and WQBR539(South Zone) the power outputs have not changed. The following are the outputs for the two licenses: Bedford - 100 watts North Salem - 110 watts Ossining - 50 watts Peekskill - 50 & 110 watts (3 freq's each) Pound Ridge - 110 watts Yorktown - 80 watts Port Chester - 25 watts (old PC Hospital site closed, new site TBD) Valhalla - 60 watts Yonkers - 80 watts If I recall correctly some of the antennas were required to be directional to limit interference to existing licensees. The system was not designed primarily for portable usage, that would be 8 Fireground freq's. The system is primarily for response and communications to Dispatch.

The CT rest stops on I95 sell them also, usually no waiting.

FYI - Strongsignals.net is good, but I've gotten alot of my info from the Wiki and the forums at Radioreference.com.

Man that RS "salesman"(best description I can mention-they only want to sell) does not know what he is talking about. Dual tracking means it can receive two types(brands) of trunked systems, typically Motorola and EDACS. Triple triple receives three types usually adding LTR. The new Westchester system will be an analog Motorola Type II system and either the Pro 94 or 97 will recieve fine. The main difference between the two is that the Pro 97 has alpha tagging which means you can program a word description (i.e. "Westchester Fire") as opposed to only having channel 102 displayed for that frequency.

From what I understand if you enter both sets in your scanner's' settings that is all you need. You do not have to enter them for each freq.

For Westchester Co. repeaters check out this thread Westchester Repeaters

Driving through Yonkers today, confirmed that the Dunwoodie GC tower is transmitting with a CC of 476.2375Mhz. The signal is not that strong East of the Bronx River Parkway.

Ems-buff, by entering only the CC you will not be able to monitor the South Zone. First you have to have a scanner capable of tracking analog trunked systems. Second you will have to program all the frequencies of the South Zone posted in the Communications forum. Third you will have to program the base/spacing/offset listed in post #22 above. It is a bit more complicated than programming conventional freq's., but you have to play with it and get used to the programming. Once the system is operational you will need to program individual talkgroup ID's, otherwise you will hear all users on the system including BeeLine buses.

On a clear day in the summer I can hear them up here in Ossining.

The Control Channel for the South Zone will most probably be 476.2375Mhz. This is the CC presently transmitting off of the Valhalla tower. Valhalla, Port Chester(Summit Ave.) and Yonkers(Dunwoodie GC) will be the South Zone and will be simulcast on all three towers. The North Zone will simulcast its six towers. I have heard both working tower's CC's in Saddle River, NJ. The 46 freq's will not be simulcast on the new system. The low band freq's. will be for paging only, this will eliminate the problem of paging tones stepping on fireground communications. Unit designations will not change. Talkgroups (think of these as "channels" or "frequency's") will be assigned by Battalion. All Dept's. in the Battalion will be on the same Talkgroup. This means when you are monitoring your Battalions talkgroup ("channel") you will only hear units in your Battalion. If you have Mutual Aid from outside of your Battalion the incoming units will switch from their talkgroup ("channel") to yours.

U51 (FAST utility truck) is in Ossining Steamer Co.'s(E98) building, the old L41 quarters. It will be there as far as I know until the new Hawkes Avenue (Steamer Co.) building is built there. U51 responds with E98 to FAST calls. That is the reason it will be relocated to Hawkes Avenue.

Confirmed today that the Yorktown(Mohansic) tower is up with a control channel of 470.5750Mhz. I was unable to confirm the Peekskill tower the other night, the scanner I had did not have metering capabiltiy. The Yorktown signal was strong up into Mahopac at the Firehouse on Rt.6.

Heard the control channel datastream on 470.5750Mhz for the North Zone in the area of the Peekskill tower. Heard it as far South as Ossining, Pleasantville and Valhalla.

I believe they had a trunked system that they sold to Nextel and are now using their trunked system through Nextel with Nextel (iden™[not scannable]) technology.

Just saw on the FCC's website that Westchester County has a pending application for 460.325Mhz for security purposes at Playland. 100 radios at 4watts, 1 base at 25 watts.

Radio Shack scanners are made by both GRE and Uniden(Bearcat). The Pro 90, 91,94,2050,2051,2052, and 2066 are all made by Uniden. This info is from Monitoringtimes.com

From posts on other sites you may try taking the receipt back to RS and try to get the difference. Others have tried it and gotten the difference. Some RS scanners are made by Uniden (Pro 2051), others by GRE (Pro 97/2055).

$248? The Pro 2055 is on sale at RadioShack for $189.99 until 1/21/06, with free shipping online for orders over $50.