Saturday, December 12, 2009

South Florida New TRS?

A source has reported a new trunking control channel in the Miami/Dade County area of South Florida. Here is what has been spotted:

Motorola Type II
406.8125 MHz Control Channel
System ID: e723

Although not much to go by, this frequency is used in many of the US Bureau of Prisons trunked systems located all over the country. As was noted in previous blog posts, some of these systems are not compliant with the newer NTIA channel plan using a standard 9 MHz repeater offset. In some cases, these systems are being upgraded or replaced. Since it is close to the end of the year, there may be a rush to get these systems up and running as soon as possible.

If you have any federal UHF trunked systems near by, keep and ear on them for possible changes in the near future.

Monday, December 07, 2009

Houston BoP Updated!

I have received some information from the Houston, Texas area that seems to indicate a new UHF trunked system has shown up and is apparently located at the Federal Detention Center in downtown Houston. The current system information is:

Motorola Type II
System ID: 7707
Base: 408.0000
Step: 12.5
Offset: 380
408.1000, 409.6500, 410.0250, 412.4250, 414.3000

The new system is showing this information:

Motorola Type II
System ID: e726
407.4125, 408.4500, 409.4125, 410.2125

Listeners are reporting that 407.0125 MHz may also be part of this new system, but that has not been confirmed yet.

I am guessing this is being done to bring the old system in line with the new NTIA federal UHF channel plan, with 9 MHz repeater offsets. And it may have been easier to simply replace the system than upgrading all the system components already in place. We'll watch for further system info as it becomes available.

UPDATE: As of 12/18.09, this new system is in use and the old system (7707) has been deactivated.