FREQUENCY and EQUIPMENT NEWS
Information is unofficial, and Denver Radio is not affiliated in any way with the agencies listed.
Photos and logos are for illustration only.
For a weekly discussion of scanning and other radio monitoring information, listen to the Rocky Mountain Monitoring Net, Sundays at 8:00 pm, on amateur radio repeater 147.225 MHz.
Updated 23 January 2012
ABBREVIATIONS:
DTRS is the Colorado State Digital Trunking Radio System
TG-Talk Group on trunked radio system
LCN-Logical Channel Number on an EDACS trunk system
HRO-Ham Radio Outlet (303 745-7373)
DENVER PUBLIC SAFETY TRUNK (monitorable from most of Metro Denver)
Police Event 1 05-061 (police ops outside the venue, inside on conventional)
Fire Event 1 07-004 (almost all fire operations)
DENVER PUBLIC WORKS TRUNK (monitorable from most of metro Denver)
NWSS 2T-Maintenance 10-111
NWSS 3T-Engineering 10-112
NWSS 4T Janitors 10-113
NWSS 5T-Coliseum 10-114
NWSS 6T-Parking 10-115
NWSS 7T-Police? 10-116
NWSS 8T-Parking 10-117
CONVENTIONAL FREQUENCIES (monitorable about 5-10 miles from the event)
Maintenance 461.4375R
Parking operations 463.6875R
Command Center - Police 462.425R
Volunteers 463.775R
Shuttle Buses 451.8875R
Security 461.7875
1-15 GRE will soon be releasing their new PSR-900 EZ Scan Digital, which appears to be a base/mobile version of the PSR-800. It's not on their website yet, but a few pictures from the recent Consumer Electronics Show are here.
1-9 GRE has released a major new firmware upgrade for the PSR-800 EZ Scan Digital. Among many other functions, according to GRE,
"Verson U1.5 adds a new import option to the PSR-800 scanner.
When enabled the scanner can import all frequencies systems based on a combination of County, City, or Zip Code and the usage tag (i.e. "Multi-Dispatch", "Law-Dispatch", "Fire-Dispatch") seen on the RadioReference.com web site.
When the Location Select option is enabled, scan lists 151 through 200 are renamed to match the usage tags present in the library database. Items imported via the Set Location menu will be placed in these scan lists. If custom alpha tags for these scan lists exist, those names will be preserved should the location select option be later turned off...
New Features:
- Added battery level and alert voltage settings to the Advanced tab. Voltage levels will be updated to the default settings the first time a configuration is opened.
- The USA bandplan has been adjusted to allow access to Marine channels while preserving access to other frequencies in the same range.
- Updated the error message displayed when there is no data to import in the Library database (i.e. Puerto Rico)
- Added pop-up welcome screens at program start-up and after a successful CPU update to introduce the set location feature.
- Changed the alert type selection to be a pull-down selection rather than a click and cycle through selection."
GRE also released a new firmware upgrade on January 11 for their PSR-500/600 scanners; Version 2.1. Their webpage does not indicate the features of this upgrade.
1-8 Lakewood has changed their police districts. Instead of North, South, and West, they now have:
North, on Channel 1, which is still north of 6th
Central,on Channel 2 (formerly South channel), 6th to Jewell, from Sheridan to Union
South, on Channel 3 (formerly West), is everything south of Jewell, and everything south of 6th and west of Union
12-14 The Lakewood trunk system has made the switch from EDACS analog to P25 digital. This includes West Metro Fire and
Wheat Ridge. Frequencies and renumbered talkgroup ID's that have been identified are available here.
The plan for renumbering EDACS TG's (in the decimal display mode) seems to be:
TG's with 3 digits, add 37 at the beginning
TG's with 4 digits, drop the first digit and add 37 at the beginning
These modifications will create 5-digit TGID's for P25.
Lakewood Public Works is remaining on the EDACS analog (with ESK) system.
sale (ending Saturday 12-31). Of interest are the PRO-197 digital trunking base/mobile and PRO-106 digital handheld at $299 (regularly $399).
There is some question about whether these radios might soon be replaced by newer versions in the near future. This may possibly be announced at CES (the Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas January 10-13, 2012. GRE, which makes the PRO-106, PRO-197, and the GRE PSR series, is listed as an exhibitor at that show. Check the discussion of this subject on RadioReference.com.
12-1 North Metro Fire is scheduled to discontinue their annual contract with
Northglenn Ambulance on December 1, 2011, and begin providing ambulance service to the city of Northglenn. The Fire District will add four cross-trained fire fighters on each shift in Northglenn when it begins providing ambulance service. However, Fire District residents’ property tax assessments will not change. In fact, citizens who need to use 911 for a medical emergency situation should anticipate lower fees for ambulance transports and emergency medical procedures, according to the district.
11-22 Radio Shack has introduced the PRO-18 scanner, which appears to be a 'stripped-
down' version of the GRE PSR-800. The current price is $499.95. The price for the full-featured PSR-800 is $399.95 at HRO.
"Missing from the PRO-18:
Recording / playback -
200 scan lists (PRO-18 has 100 play lists)
Tri-color alert LED
Discriminator output
V-Scanner II
Scan Sets
Clock display while "off" (and connected to external power)
Auto power-on ("alarm clock")
"Extra" audio alert tones (PRO-18 has the 7 from PSR-500; PSR-800 has 8 more)
Power-on password.
R/S will need to deep discount the Pro-18 before anyone should consider buying over the PSR-800.
11-5 The Lakewood EDACS trunk will probably be changing to a P25 
digital trunk Thursday, November 10. This means that your scanner programming will have to be changed to include the P25 frequencies (in the P25 mode) and new talk groups ID's. When the EDACS system is shut down, you will no 
longer receive Lakewood, West Metro Fire, or Wheat Ridge transmissions. Discussion of this change is on the RadioReference Colorado Forum. The latest frequency and talkgroup information is on the RadioReference database.
Update: The only change on November 10 was the additional cross-patch of West Metro Fire talk groups on P25 TG's, including 37785 and 37786. There have also been what seem to be test Private Calls on 9999995 and 9999996. No indication yet when the full changeover to P25 might take place.
Programming hint: The new P25 TG's seem to be derived from the Decimal mode EDACS TG ID's. The pattern so far has been to add 37 at the beginning of the old TG. In other words, if the EDACS Decimal TG was 785 (not the AFS TG of 06-021), the P25 TG will be 37785. The latest TG and frequency info, and a discussion of this change is available on RadioReference.
9-23 Monitoring information: There will be an emergency exercise taking place on Friday, September 23 from 5 am to 4:30 pm, in 10 different locations throughout the Denver Metro Area. This exercise will involve more than 100 agencies including military, hospitals, and first responders (including Denver Health!). This exercise will involve loud noises, simulated weapons, smoke, and emergency vehicles.
Primary Locations Involved
- Park Meadows Mall
- Smedley Elementary School
- Denver Union Station
- Community College of Aurora (Lowry Campus)
Secondary Locations
- Denver International Airport
- Sky Ridge Medical Center
- Denver Health Medical Center
- University of Colorado Hospital
- Catholic Charities (NW Denver)
- Sports Authority Field at Mile High
9-21 Eagle County appears to have switched at least some communications to DTRS, with the East Vail site, control channel 859.4375, on DTRS rather than the Eagle County system. Talkgroups to listen for:
8840 Eagle County MAC
8841 Eagle County ______________
8842 Eagle County West Law
8843 Eagle County East Law
8844 LE TAC-3
8845
8848
8849 Eagle County West Fire
8850 Eagle County East Fire
8851
8854
8855
8856 Eagle County Ambulance District
8857
8862 Eagle County _______________
8863 Eagle River Fire Dept.
8864
8867 Vail Fire Dept.
8869 Vail Mountain Rescue?
9-12 Lake County (county seat-Leadville) has moved to the state DTRS, joining so many others who have made the switch. Possible DTRS control channels/sites to program:
852.8625 Hagerman Pass
853.1 Granite
Talk groups (from radioreference.com)
11801 Lake Co Law Enforcement & Fire Dispatch
11800 Lake Co Mutual Aid
11803 Lake Co Travel Channel
9-8 Some of the frequencies in Boulder County have changed. This is an overview of the changes known so far:
Law:
156.135 BLUE is now POLICE-1
155.49 BRONZE is now TAC-1
New TAC-4 (new repeater, TAC-2, talkaround when installed)
Fire:
TAC-1 is now F-TAC-1
New F-TAC2
Others:
154.98 WHITE is now PARKS
ORANGE is now PUBWRK
Orange2 is nowPUBWR2
8-19 The city of Boulder will enter into a new five-year ambulance contract with American Medical Response starting Jan. 1, 2012.
The decision, announced this afternoon, means the end of the city's participation in a countywide ambulance contract with Pridemark/Rural Metro.
City officials said their decision to bid the contract individually was based on other local municipalities opting out of the county contract, raising costs for city residents and creating the possibility that fewer ambulances would be available for city calls.
Pridemark will continue to be the ambulance provider in the city through the end of 2011.
The city estimates that the average middle-aged man with chest pains will save about $300 under the American Medical Response proposal. The company commits to keeping four ambulances in the city while maintaining a seven-minute response time to 90 percent of all medical emergencies.
The contract also includes ongoing emergency medical training for city firefighters.
-from The Boulder Daily Camera
8-1 In mid-August Uniden will release a significant update for its HomePatrol Sentinel
software, a major update to the HomePatrol-1 Feature Set, as well as an exciting optional Upgrade that adds significant new features and capabilities to the HomePatrol-1. Read on to see what you have to look forward to (quoted from the Uniden release).
HomePatrol Sentinel Update
The HomePatrol Sentinel software has been an essential tool for keeping your HomePatrol-1’s database up to date, managing favorites lists, and backing up your HomePatrol-1’s settings. With the update, we’ll be adding some much-requested features and functionality, including:
Complete programmability for new or existing systems. Create or edit any system in a Favorites list to personalize alpha tags, apply some of the newly available settings (read on!), or set up systems that have not yet made it into the main database.
New channel settings include:
Per-channel delay of 10, 5, 2, 0, -5, or -10 seconds (those negative settings force scanning to resume after the set time elapses, even if a transmission continues).
Per-channel alert to get your attention when a particularly important channel becomes active.
CTCSS/DCS or NAC Search to capture unknown subtones on frequencies.
Per-channel attenuation to help avoid interference from other in-band transmissions.
Per-channel volume offset to help balance the audio level amongst channels.
New service tags for Racing Officials, Racing Teams, and eight Custom tags.
Support for defining location using up to 32 rectangles per department or site, instead of a single circle.
ID Search mode for trunked systems so you can monitor channels even if they are not yet in the database.
Unit ID programming so you can alpha tag individual radio IDs and see specifically who is transmitting.
The ability to add channels to a favorites list automatically based on your location, a range, and the service types you are interested in.
The ability to enable up to 256 Favorites Lists for scanning along with the Main Database.
Tools for reviewing the results of Discovery sessions or Activity Logs (see more in the HomePatrol-1 Extreme Upgrade section).
An Export feature that allows you to easily share Favorites Lists with other HomePatrol users (and a companion Import feature so you can use Favorites Lists others share with you).
A KML Export feature that lets you export system information for viewing in Google Earth.
Automatic update notification for the HomePatrol Sentinel software will now let you know when a new version is available.
More info is available from Uniden; click here.
5-15 Mountain View Fire will soon be dispatched by Weld County, instead of Boulder 
County, using Tac-12 (DTRS 1920). They may also use TAC channel DTRS 9113.
2-26 The city of Boulder is considering ending its ambulance agreement with Boulder 
County. The cooperative agreement, which has been effect since 1999, calls for the city and the county to use Pridemark Ambulance. Sheriff Joe Pelle is concerned that costs and response times could increase with multiple agencies in the county having separate ambulance contracts.
Pridemark Ambulance is the exclusive provider of 9-1-1 emergency medical services in Arvada, Edgewater, Fairmount and Wheat Ridge, and is the primary 9-1-1 provider in Boulder County.
Pridemark was recently acquired by Rural/Metro Ambulance, which is the primary 9-1-1 provider for Aurora. Aurora is Colorado's 3rd largest city, behind Denver and Colorado Springs.
1-10 Boulder County monitors will be interested in a new Wiki page posted to RadioReference.com. There are lots of call signs, a fire district/ambulance map, and much more.
1-6-2011 GRE Electronics has announced their latest digital scanner, the PSR-800. Features are similar to the Uniden Home Patrol, but in a handheld model. This radio looks similar to the recent GRE PSR-700/Radio Shack PRO-107 i-Scan, but adds a lot of functions, including digital system reception. Perhaps the most important: the entire national RadioReference database is programmed on the included 2Gb micro SD chip. MSRP is $499; street price seems to be $450. This radio is now available from a few sources which have received limited shipments.
Features reported by GRE:
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Select your local system you want to monitor. |
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Special request? No problem - you can add favorite frequencies with the included EZ Scan Digital software utility program. |
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The PSR-800 combines simple controls like those used in an MP3 player with the power and sophistication of a state-of-the-art scanning receiver! |
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Designed to provide unprecedented ease of use, for beginners and experts! |
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Complete USA and Canada Database on a MicroSD Card |
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Recording Function permits recording of Transmissions |
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Exclusive Multi-Color Alert LED |
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Full Dot-Matrix/High contrast "WHITE" Color backlight LCD |
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Keypad, optimized for one-hand operation |
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Multi-System Digital/Analog APCO P25 Trunking - Scans digital and analog trunked radio system signaling formats, including Project 25, Motorola Type I/II/Hybrid, EDACS and LTR systems. |
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Upgradeable CPU and DSP firmware and library - Keep EZ Scan Digital current with enhancements and updates as they become available with free upgrades through EZ Scan Digital software utility program. |
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CTCSS and DCS subaudible decoder |
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Weather radio receiver mode with SAME and All Hazards signal decoding |
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User upgradeable CPU firmware |
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Spectrum Sweeper rapidly finds nearby signals even if you do not know the frequency. |