Mounted search and rescue

["IRVIN LICHTENSTEIN" <ilichten1@verizon.net>]

Most of the grandfathered community repeaters belonged to REACT teams that have gone the way of unfunded NGO’s or lost their sites to cellular, PCS, or news.

Several of the Amateur and REACT units were hung off the TV towers around here, until the TV stations needed the space for electronic news gathering.  Most commercial users switched to other UHF community repeater services or went to 800 MHz dispatch.  The rules changed over 20 years ago and no new or relocated licenses were to be issued to any organization from that point, and commercial usage had to cease.  Further, any existing systems will have to narrow band by 2013, when all channels below 512 MHz have to narrow band.  The propagation problems at 460-465 MHz and the interference problems due to uncontrolled use are also considerations. Almost all of the Town Watch, and other users switched to cell phones (which are often free) or 800 push to talk services for better coverage and fewer hassles with other users.  And since the systems cannot be relocated when a building changes ownership, or a paying use for the roof space come up, most GMRS community sites will disappear from the urban and suburban landscape, let alone the licenses.  

 

It is just easier to get a public safety license, the equipment is as cheap as GMRS, and better quality, rugged, etc. Our county has kept its 150 MHZ licenses active for tone and voice dispatch, VHF-Hi is used by many townships for public works departments, police and fire companies that had their own base stations kept the licenses when they switched to 800.  For the most part these are HT1000 or later systems that will reprogram.  We also have 2 counties that are in the 500 MHz region, one is an analog voice trunk system.  Other agencies have also remained on 150 or even lower frequencies due to terrain or other considerations.  PA DCNR uses 150 band in the state parks and forests, the PA Turnpike uses 150 for all uses, including patrol and communication with off Turnpike responders.  Many of these systems are very elaborate and will remain in use for many years just due to the costs of replacing them.  And don’t forget the CAP, USCG, USFS, Amtrak, and other national users of the 150 band. And while you may think a Motorola is field programmable, corporate policy is only that Motorola authorized shops can have Motorola programming equipment and anybody using 3^rd party equipment or software is a patent infringer. And if your system does use HT50’s, Motrans, Motrac’s, Maritrans, or similar pre-1995 equipment you may not be able to narrow band it and Motorola has suddenly realized how many systems are out there it can convert to its version of TETRA which it has been sitting on for years.  This will use a digital voice signal and a 2 slot TDMA (the EU version is 4 slots) so everybody will have to buy new radios and only from Moto since they own the rights in North America. Those of you who use Nextel should be aware that Sprint has sold all the IDEN infrastructure to Erricson which will maintain the system and complete the rebanding process while providing the service exclusively to Sprint-Nextel for now. 

  

The usual IMSA coordination fee for public safety in 150 fire is $200 per transmit channel for each fixed site, and the same for each mobile only channel.  Right now, APCO, one of the other coordination groups, is running a sale for narrow-banding and minor non-engineering changes (names and addresses of contact persons, etc.) and charging only $100 per license not per channel or per site.   

 

We currently have 2 Motorola 800MHz trunk units, a county issued 2500 series, and a grant purchased 5000 series operated under the county license and maintained by the county’s authorized in house shop under an extended warranty.  We also have use of 10 B-K (Relm now) 148-174 MHz portables with at least 14 channels.  Several are “master radios” with keyboards and displays, the rest are clones.  These are E, and M series.  One E portable and an LMH 35 watt mobile were bought new over 20 years ago as dealer samples.  The rest were bought used through a dealer for about $100 for each master, and $55 for each clone.  We bought 2 new 1400 MWH batteries for each ($50 per radio). The dealer threw in King smart chargers and whatever accessories (cases and speaker mikes) that had come in with them.  These are military specification radios, (AN/PRC125 I think) can be field programmed, narrow banded channel by channel, power settings can be programmed or set by the user on the fly (1.5 WRF or 5WRF), scan, priority, transmitter time outs,  CG, ANI, and the keyboard units can generate Touch-Tone for paging, dialing (DCNR has auto patch) or repeater control.  There is also a computerized ACT 125 battery reconditioner that was a dealer sample. We have tried FRS and other low power UHF without good results in the woods, or even across a field.  The Kings are programmed with 14 channels—2 statewide SAR simplex and 2 repeaters, 3 county simplex fire channels, 1 public works channel, park police simplex, 3 DCNR repeaters, 1 DCNR talk-around, and what was a county EMA repeater that is now a paging channel.  We hope to change channel 14 to a Turnpike zone repeater soon.  

 

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From: msar-riders-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:msar-riders-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Trailriding-Texas
Sent: Sunday, August 02, 2009 10:51 PM
To: Mounted search and rescue
Subject: Re: [MSAR] Dogs, Horses....rats in SAR :)

 

Irv,

It is not illegal to have a group/organization GMRS license! In fact, there are groups that have managed to keep theirs from expiring, but once it expires, it will not be re-issued!  Non-conforming use—go off the air for a very short period and lose the license.

 

There is a move, to have the FCC re-instate the ability for legitimate and recognized public service groups to have an organizational GMRS license again.  It will take allot of work, and some organized response to the request! Unlikely—the new nationwide 700 public/private network is designed to handle this use and recognized public service agencies are either eligible already for public safety or dedicated channels for their use (see Red Cross, Salvation Army, AAA for examples).   Strictly local organizations that are not considered public safety go private land mobile radio services, or more likely Nextel (IDEN) or a cell phone based push to talk (CDMA).  The police mobile data systems around here use Verizon Wireless VPN.

 

Many organizations that did at one time have the group GMRS license, instead of fighting to keep it, just applied for commercial licenses, in the same general area of the band!  This was easy, since real true GMRS radios are programmable, such as the Motorola HT-50's and newer units! 

----- Original Message -----

From: IRVIN LICHTENSTEIN

To: 'Mounted search and rescue'

Sent: Sunday, August 02, 2009 7:51 AM

Subject: Re: [MSAR] Dogs, Horses....rats in SAR :)

 

In Pennsylvania anyway, if not the rest of the world:

Let’s see—flankers were introduced to the air scent dog world about 1982 or 3, formal use of air scent horses 1986, we had a VHF license and permission to talk to other agencies from 1980 or so (and the state SAR council had a statewide multi-channel license by 1987) and one member did have a TV equipped model helicopter by 1989. So, much of the world you want has been around for a while, and coordinated responses as well.  (By the way it has been illegal for an organization to have a GMRS license for at least 10 years, individuals only). The problem is that people don’t study history, they relive it.

 

What we didn’t have 10 years ago was portable GPS and laptops, but then we didn’t need as many types of spare batteries either.

 

Irv Lichtenstein

 

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From: msar-riders-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:msar-riders-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Dana Mc
Sent: Saturday, August 01, 2009 8:12 PM
To: msar-riders@lists.ibiblio.org
Cc: Jamie Nash
Subject: [MSAR] Dogs, Horses....rats in SAR :)

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