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News Archives
800 MHz rebanding
As Brian Kitaoka, WH6ET, pointed out in a recent post on the
Radio-Monitoring-Hawaii YahooGroup, Hawaii is part of "Wave
1" along with states in the west, central, and eastern U.S.
to undergo a process called rebanding (a.k.a. reconfiguration).
The current 800 MHz bandplan was setup for public safety and Specialized
Mobile Radio (SMRs) to share the entire 800 MHz bandwith from
851-865 MHz; 866-868 MHz was reserved specifically for public
safety agencies.
The sharing of radio frequencies and the explosion of license
grants in the 800 MHz band has caused numerous interference problems
especially towards public safety communications. Rebanding will
result in a contiguous block of frequencies reserved just for
public safety and a separate contiguous block reserved for SMR/ESMR
(conventional/trunked business radio systems). The plan is for
public safety occupy all of 851-854 MHz; public safety, business
industrial users and low-power business radio systems will share
854-860 MHz; all other ESMR systems will occupy frequencies in
the 861-869 MHz range.
The change was supposed to have happend in 2006, but everything
has fallen way behind. Expect changes to occur in 2008.
Trunking scanners with EDACS and LTR capability will not
be affected by rebanding. Frequencies will be relocated to the
public safety portion of the rebanded 800 MHz band, and will have
to be reprogrammed in logical channel number (LCN) order by the
user.
However, Motorola trunking systems (using the legacy Smartnet
3600 baud control channel), that use some or all frequencies in
the 866-869 MHz range will cause problems for all
older analog-only scanners after the systems are rebanded because
of the changes Motorola will make to the trunking channel plan
that is hard coded into Radio Shack and Uniden scanners. The radios
will not scan to the correct channel when the system assigns a
call to a channel that was previously on a frequency between 866-869
MHz and was retuned to a new rebanded frequency 15 MHz lower
between 851-854 MHz.
The Motorola trunking plan for these frequencies will change
because the frequencies are moving 15 MHz down, and, because channels
in the 866-869 MHz are set on 12.5 kHz centers, whereas pre-rebanding
channels in the 851-854 MHz range are on 25 kHz centers. The number
of frequencies between 851-854 MHz will effectively be doubled.
The newer APCO 25 digital-capable Radio Shack Pro-96 and Pro-2096
should not be affected by rebanding because the trunking
channel plan can be edited using software, but we will not know
until a scanner is actually tested on a rebanded system.
New dispatch tones for HFD
As one part of HFD's long-term strategic plan, new digital
dispatch tones were implemented for HFD this past week. In addition
to this change, a new dispatch announcement is in place that announces
the company first before the incident type.
The dispatch tone format is the same with the Station ID followed
by a 1-2 DTMF sequence and then the dispatch announcement. The
reset tone is a 3-5 second tone followed by the same reset DTMF
sequence used in the old system.
"Control" is now known as "Fire Dispatch".
Oahu welcomes 19th EMS unit
The Waipio EMS unit came online on Sunday, 6 January 2008.
The unit is quartered at the Kaiser Permanente - Waipio clinic
from 0700-2300 daily. Officials will determine whether the service
will need to be extended to 24 hours.
Honolulu International Airport to switch to Airports Division
P25 digital radio system
Plans are underway to shift all federal and state agencies
at the Honolulu International Airport from the current analog
system to the Airports Division P25 digital radio system. When
complete, the new digital radio system will have a single site
with seven (7) channels. If someone can locate the FCC license,
we will be able to determine the frequencies for this system.
It is likely that the talkgroup identifiers will change.
University of Hawaii at Manoa
In preparation for 800 MHz rebanding, the security frequency
for the University of Hawaii at Manoa (formerly 852.0625
MHz) has changed. If someone can located the FCC license, we will
be able to determine the frequency for this system. Also, the
Signal Stalker feature on some scanners can be used to determine
what frequency is in use at UH-Manoa.
Outrigger Hotels LTR System
Currently trying to figure out the logical channel number
order for the Outrigger Hotels LTR radio system. This is giving
me a little bit of a headache, as one FCC license covers multiple
repeater sites. As of right now, I can confirm two sites, at two
differnet hotels, but the hardest part is to connect related communications
together.
The two systems that I found are programmed into different
banks. This is to prevent the scanner from trunking incorrectly.
(2) 464.2125 (3) 464.9375
(2) 464.2375 (3) 464.8625
After listening a little more, looks like the correct order is:
(2) 464.2125 (3) 464.8625 -- Security with the same callsigns
and voices were heard on these two frequencies.
(2) 464.2375 (3) 464.9375 -- Possible LCN 1
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