All radio information distributed by Fayette County Emergency Management Agency is faxed and emailed to departments that we have contact information for and reviewed and available at the Fayette County Fire Association meetings. It is very important that this information is reviewed by your department. Please contact us if you have any questions.
Notice to All County First Responders
February 1, 2013
1. Update on low band paging
This is a reminder that the official shutdown of 33.70 for dispatching is Tuesday, April 30, 2013.
However, due to ice storm damage around the end of December 2012, the antenna at the Connellsville radio tower for 33.70 was damaged. 33.70 from our Connellsville radio tower was shut off on Monday January 7, 2013.
Both Stat Medevac and LifeFlight have been advised of this, and requirements for Fayette County TAC2 to be in their choppers for LZ coordination.
2. Update on the trunking radio system
September 2012 Commissioners Meeting-Radio system upgrade approved
November/December 2012- Detailed Design Review occurred (this is where the Motorola Project Team and the Fayette County Project Staff met and reviewed the actual design of the radio system and reviewed and fine-tuned the design to our site specifics.
January/February 2013- Microwave link design review (Microwave Radio used to tie our radio sites together, and tie the 911 center to the radio network)
At this point-Motorola is starting to place orders for the tower side radio equipment needed to make the system work.
3. Purchasing of used radio and new radio equipment
At this point Motorola is the company Fayette County is 100% sure will work with the multi-county radio system Fayette is joining. EF Johnson and Kenwood both have equipment that should work on the radio system once it is operational. Fayette County's priority is to concentrate on bringing the new system operational prior to working with Johnson and Kenwood to verify operation of their equipment in our environment.
Purchasing of used radio equipment- There is a lot of used equipment available on eBay and other avenues on the internet. Some of this equipment will work, some will not. Some of this equipment has been bootlegged to have options that were not purchased with the radio originally. Fayette County will caution departments that used equipment could have issues and not operate properly on the new system. Fayette County can only advise if a particular option set as advertised with the radio is "compatible" with the new radio system. Some XTS3000 radios are showing up and our office has received numerous questions regarding whether these radios will work on the system. The XTS3000 radios that work on our new system are very rare. Additionally our agency does not have the software to program the XTS3000 radios. Since these radios are out of production by Motorola and have been end-of-lifed, the software is no longer available to Fayette County. XTS3000 radios will not be supported on the new system.
Should you need assistance in determining whether a particular used radio will work, please contact Tony @ the 911 Center talviar@fcema.org or 724-430-1277. If this is an eBay item, please have the item number/auction number ready for a quick lookup.
Also, at this time, Fayette County 911 is recommending that our emergency services and other radio system users no longer purchase used MTX8000, MTS2000, MTX8250, and GTX portables, as well as no longer purchase used Spectra, GTX mobiles, or MCS2000 mobiles that will only work on our current system. If a replacement is needed to keep a radio operational until the switchover occurs, please spend wisely and evaluate each broken radio to determine is it really worth spending the money on a repair. (This only applies to the older radios listed above)
January 8, 2013
On Monday December 31, 2012, our Motorola service technician advised Fayette County 911 that the 33.70 MHz antenna on the Connellsville tower was experiencing difficulty. At that time the tower was encased in a thick layer of ice. It was unknown if there was truly a problem or if ice was causing our coverage issues on 33.70
On Monday January 7, 2013, our Motorola service technician advised Fayette County 911 that the 33.70 MHz antenna on the Connellsville tower is definitely bad. Part of the antenna is actually no longer on the tower.
October 19, 2012
(Please review correspondence sent out over the past 12 months)
Click here to revew
Fayette County 911, in preparation for our radio system upgrades, and in preparation to allow interoperable communications with our neighbors in Garrett County, MD, and Preston County, WV, find it necessary to shut down our low band (33.70 MHz) fire bases. Official shutdown date for 33.70 MHz from the 911 Center is Tuesday, April 30, 2013.
At this point a failure of the antenna or antenna system at either tower on our 33.70 MHz bases will cause the plug to be pulled sooner.
This agency has been advising departments since 1998 to switch their pagers out to 155.190 MHz. If your department has not done so, you will need to remove your 33.70 MHz pagers from service and replace with pagers on 155.190 MHz prior to Tuesday, April 30, 2013.
Secondly, as many of you are aware, the Fayette County Commissioners approved the purchase of the new APCO 25 trunking radio system from Motorola at the September 18, 2012 Commissioners meeting. Our agency is aware that many departments are trying to spend their money as wisely as possible when it comes to purchasing equipment. Should your department need to invest in communications equipment while the radio project is progressing, we encourage you to contact our office and speak with Tony Alviar, Roy Shipley, or Guy Napolillo if you have any questions about what options you should be buying on the radios.
The option to operate on our current radio system through Motorola and EF Johnson does add quite a bit of money to a radio. We are encouraging departments to only purchase radios at this time if absolutely necessary so that costly options that will not be needed in a year or two are not bought. Call our office at (724) 430-1277 and ask for Tony, Roy, or Guy if you need radios and have questions about what you should do.
January 6, 2012
As we start the new year-
As many are aware, the FCC has a mandate requiring all transmitters operating below 512 MHz be narrow-banded by December 31, 2012. As part of that process, Fayette County 911 commenced initial testing of narrow-band operation on 155.190 from the Uniontown tower site with 8 departments that represent a cross section of pager tones and compatibility with non narrow-band Minitor 3's and 4's, along with Minitor 5's that have not been programmed to narrow-band operation.
This testing was successful.
Despite this success, Fayette County 911 would like to recommend that fire and EMS departments no longer continue investing in repairs or used equipment purchased of Minitor 3's and 4's. 911 would encourage you to instead use those funds to purchase replacement Minitor 5's or other pagers that are capable of narrow-band operation.
At this time, Fayette County 911 is in the process of scheduling (tentatively early April) a 7 day live test of narrowband operation of both tower sites for fire paging to allow departments to determine if any problems will be experienced with non narrow-band equipment.
At the conclusion of that 7 day live test, a decision will be made as to when final cutover to narrow band paging will occur. Remember this is a requirement by the FCC that Fayette 911 must comply with.
As an additional reminder, in 1998 when paging started on 155.190, a plan was started to stop paging on 33.70 MHz. Fayette 911 will attempt to keep 33.70 operational as long as possible. But paging may cease on 33.70 without notice based on availability of parts and antennas for the low band base stations.
