Kansas September 1996

Since the last issue of RCMA (I thought I wasn't going to mention RCMA???), I tried to get copies of the columns that WOULD have been in the Journal to each of the Kansas members of which I had addresses. Those columns were written several months prior to their predicted date of publication, meaning that the last column was written about May. The contents of this column comes from info sent to me during the months of June, July and a few weeks of August. Don, Dale, Bob and Bob have sent gobs of material, so bear with me & my attempt to organize it. For what it's worth, those of you getting this via the US Postal Service should know that your contributions are on the Internet, too. I send all the column to several news groups on the "Web" now that RCMA is no more. Your information can still be read literally all over the world!

One of the Bobs had the opportunity to observe the 800 MHz portable issued to a KHP Trooper. He had most of the channels figured out, and I called some folks "in the know," and filled in the few blanks. The channel list is as follows:

Ch.	Description	MHz
1	Topeka KHP trunked system	856-860.4875
2	CASP Capitol Area Security Patrol (Shawnee Co trunked	-
3	Shawnee SO trunked system	856.4875 to 860.4875
4	YCAT Youth Center at Topeka (Shawnee Co trunked)	-
5	KDOT Ks Dept. of Transportation (Shawnee Co trunked)	-
6	KC KHP trunked system	856-860.7625 & 856-860.9375, no KCK PD channels
7	KC KHP PD trunked system	856-860.7625 & 856-860.9375, with KCK PD channels
8	JO KHP trunked system	856-860.9625, no Johnson County SO channels
9	JO SO KHP trunked system	856-860.9625, with Johnson County SO channels
10	SG SO KHP	856-860.2625, 856-860.4625, 856-860.7375 & 856-860.9625 with SO channels
11	SG KHP	856-860.2625, 856-860.4625, 856-860.7375 & 856-860.9625 with no SO channels
12	Hays PD	856.2125, 857.2125, 862.4875 & 863.4875
13	Future	-
14	MO Motor Carrier Inspection	-
15	Conv RPT #1	866.5125 (National Mutual Aid freq)
16	Conv RPT #2	867.0125 (National Mutual Aid freq)
17	Conv RPT #3	867.5125 (National Mutual Aid freq)
18	Leavenworth County	851.5625
19	Leavenworth County	852.5625
20	Leavenworth County	853.5625
21	Car to Car on Leavenworth SO	-
22	Car to Car on Leavenworth SO	-
23	Horton conventional repeater	866.7125
24	Corning conventional repeater	868.9250
25	Blue Rapids conventional repeater	866.6875
26	Wamego conventional repeater	867.9375
27	Eskrigde conventional repeater	868.6750
28	Emporia conventional repeater	868.9250
29	Waverly conventional repeater	867.9375
30	Lawrence conventional repeater	868.8625
31	Bonner Springs conventional repeater	868.6750
32	Olathe conventional repeater	866.6875

(Note: Don says that, channel 15 is KHP's portable repeater 855.9625, and 16 is 866.0125, and 17 is 866.5125 in Wichita and KC. In Ellis County channel 17 is 867.5125. The list shown may have a few slight errors then, so be advised. I'll keep trying to confirm what we have. Thanks, Don.)

Bob also has noted that some of the old low-band frequencies are being used sporadically in Troop A...I noticed it, too. My conversations with KHP dispatchers indicate that they still multi-cast important stuff

like chases, and have occasion to communicate with Troopers and other state agency units from other areas that don't have 800 yet. Here at Lenexa PD we don't have a monitor for their new stuff, so all we have is the 44.940/45.180 monitors. I'm glad they multi-cast some of the stuff for that reason alone. Thanks for the detective work, Bob.

Dale has done equally well at finding great information. He heard that Troop H is now on 800. (Try 868.9250 at West Mineral, 867.9375 at Independence, 866.7125 at Sedan, 868.8375 at Severy, 868.8625 at Buffalo, 868.6750 at Xenia, and 866.6875 at Virgil...Andy) He says that the Trooper's cars are still equipped with low-band radios, but that's all...not even dispatch has it anymore. Apparently the Troop B cars bordering Troop H are getting the new radios, too.

He says that Salina has been de-bugging new Motorola consoles, but they came up with a new generation of consoles and made the state an offer they couldn't refuse. Now the newest consoles are being readied.

Next...Norton will be the first KHP dispatch center to lose the midnight shift to central dispatch. Look for this to happen about the first of December. During the transition, there will be dispatchers in Salina and Norton in case something goes wrong. The centralized dispatch system will begin on low-band, and migrate to 800 as the system grows. A 5 to 10 year time frame is projected for total centralized dispatch.

That's a long time to wait. Trees add growth rings faster than the government works.

Dale had a question about the frequencies from 866 to 869 assigned to Kansas agencies by NPSPAC. Are they going to be the conventional (non-trunked) repeaters? The answer is a definite "yes and no."

According to NPSPAC, any agency using less than 5 frequencies must be conventional repeaters. If there are 5 or more frequencies used, they can (must?) be trunked.

Another tidbit he came up with is the fact that the Training Center is Salina uses UHF handhelds for communications. The license on the wall showed 453.3675/458.3675. (FCC spacing should be either .3625 or 3875 for the suffix. Maybe a typo. I've looked through my files and FCC databases, and can't find anything there. Dale, can you try to verify the frequency? Thanks for your input.

Two more frequencies that Dale has for us are 451.425 for Sunflower Electric, which was real active during a bad wind storm that downed lots of lines, and 151.295 for Wildlife and Parks. As I read his

letter, it looks like he hasn't actually heard Wildlife & Parks on that frequency, but did hear a couple of them talking about their high-band channel. He knows that they are licensed on 151.295, so that might be a good one to monitor. My records show licenses in Toronto (WNJS654) and El Dorado (WNJZ705.) Let us know if anyone can verify it.

Doyle has provided frequencies for Dodge City/Ford county:

Dodge City/Ford County

More from Doyle...Hays/Ellis city/county Fire is dispatched on 154.445. He has also heard KHP on 460.1125. (As I recall, that is a link for KHP low-band...Andy) Liberal/Seward County is next:

Liberal/Seward County

Doyle says the above 5 freqs are confirmed by one of their dispatchers. The following 3 freqs are listed in various books, unknown for sure if/how they are used.

MHz	Description
453.475	Liberal Police
453.675	Liberal Police
453.700	Liberal Police mutual aid

Hutchinson/Reno County

More from...you guessed it...Doyle!

Garden City/Finney County

Concordia/Cloud County

And now...something from Doyle:

Colby/Thomas County

Salina/Saline County

Whew!!! That's all Doyle had for this column.

The other Bob has been monitoring the Lawrence/Douglas County system for quite a while now, and has reported that 868.0500 is being used by Douglas County. The dispatcher is all that has been heard to date, so the cars are on 39.220 and/or 867.3375. Dispatch is being multi-cast on all three channels. Bob heard them mention that the Sheriff's Office will be testing 800 as their main frequency.During Bob's monitoring he noticed that the signal level was much lower on 868.0500 than on 867.3375. During the above mentioned tests they told one unit to "go to channel 2 and he was never heard from again. Still only dispatch on 868.0500. He thinks it might be in the county where coverage is poor, or possibly even an uplink from the SO to the transmitter site. As Bob is known to do, he has intentions to drive around as sniff out the transmitter site on his own. Good luck, and thanks for the info.

Well, there are a few other bits and pieces that have been sent in, but this column is way too long already. I promise that next month anything left out this time will make it in. Again, thanks to all the contributors...and thanks for your patience. It has been trying times recently with the fall of so many scanner related information sources. That, plus I have had little time to do much scanning myself, so I have done little to add to the column. As things loosen up around home I hope to get back into active scanning again.

Andy <andyb@qni.com>