Friday, January 16, 2015

FPS Atlanta Mystery

I am seeing reports on Radio Reference that the multi-site UHF trunked system managed by the Federal Protective Service (FPS) is not longer on the are in the metro Atlanta, GA area. Folks are asking what happened and where did the FPS operations go.

I haven't been down in the Atlanta area in a few years, but when I was there last, the Federal Protective Service appeared to be running a 4 site UHF Motorola Type II trunked system with both analog and digital voice. One of the subscriber agencies appeared to be Dobbins Air Force Base.
Here are the system specs as I had them:

FPS Atlanta
Motorola Type II
System ID - 750d
Voice NAC - N0d0
Site 1 - Atlanta
406.4125, 407.2125, 408.5375, 410.1250
Site 2
406.5625, 407.1625, 408.5625, 410.3625, 410.5625
Site 3
407.3625, 408.3625, 408.7625, 409.3625, 410.7625
Site 4 - Dobbins AFB
406.7625, 406.9625, 407.5625, 407.8625, 408.9625

Since my last time monitoring the system, it appears that Dobbins AFB has built out their own 380 MHz P25 trunked radio system, so they were no longer using the FPAS managed system.

Reports on Radio Reference include some VHF channels (173.7125, 173.9125 and 173.9875 MHz) that claim to be "TRS control channels", but are very weak in downtown Atlanta.

I suspect that if the FPS decided to dismantle the trunked system, they have probably returned to conventional UHF channels, most likely APCO P25.

Can anyone in the Atlanta area offer any further information?

UPDATE:
A listener in the area reports that the FPS is using 410.8000 MHz, N201 for their operations and has been for some time now. I checked my logs from my last trip to the area in 2012 and I did not get any hits on that frequency.