Alamance County Commissioners have approved $6 Million Dollars to upgrade the Communications System in Alamance County.  This means by January 2009 the current radio systems in use by Alamance County Fire, EMS, Sheriffs Department, and Haw River Police will be dispatched on the State of North Carolina Viper System.

The new system is capable to allowing communications with other nearby counties and agencies that use an 800 MHZ communications system. The system will be used is APCO-25 Digital mode. The state of North Carolina has a Viper Communications antenna located on Cane Mountain in Southern Alamance County.  County officials are working with viper personnel to convert an existing antenna located in Northern Alamance County over to the viper system. This will give Alamance County Agencies exceptional coverage throughout the whole county.

Deciding the talk groups

Alamance Live Scanner has came up with its own list of talk groups  (This is not the actual list that will be in place) CLICK HERE TO VIEW OUR WISH LIST

System Benifits 

Another Example – Alamance County Sheriffs Deputies are chasing a bank robbery suspect they noticed heading south on highway 87. They would be able to continue following the suspects and communicate with Central Communications in Graham.

Another Example -  Alamance County suffers a strike from mother nature, large air liner crashing, Tornadoes,  and Hurricanes. Other agencies could assist and communicate on the same system.

The coverage area will eventually cover the entire state of North Carolina, Southern Virginia, Northern South Carolina, and Eastern Tennessee.

Understanding the New System

The system consist of anywhere from 6-12 frequencies per site that are in the 800 MHZ range. One of these frequencies is called the control channel. Some systems have an alternating control channel. (control channel rotates between frequencies every day, or month.) Each agency has a block of Talk Group Id’s  (Example Alamance County Fire 48860) The Control channel controls the routing of each talk group id.  This method allows an agency to have more than one or two channels to communicate.

Monitoring

To monitor the new system you will need a APCO-25 Enabled Digital Scanner. Be carefull when you buy, not all 800MHZ scanners are apco-25 enabled. If you live in Alamance County you can purchase one of these scanners from BT Products, INC. and save money with local pick up option.

Alamance Live Scanner has purchased several 800MHZ scanners in the past few years; just recently we purchase a 396t Handheld and a 996T Mobile/Base from BT Products, INC. Customer Service is second to none. I have also purchased a APCO-25 Enabled scanner from Radio Shack. Sorry Radio Shack but I will not be buying another radio shack scanner. I noticed the radio shack scanner on sales one day for $399.00. I thought what a wonderful deal, man was I wrong! The scanner is bulky; I had to purchase a programming cord, batteries, a cd, and a DC adapter to power the scanner. Trust me when buying one of these new scanners you need a programming cord and software.  The Uniden Bearcat scanners BT Products, INC. has for sale comes with rechargeable batteries, DC Adapter, and serial port programming cord.  The bearcat scanner is a quality-scanning receiver.

I you have any questions about the new system, need advise on programming, or anything related to scanning feel free to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

December 11, 2007

ALS Staff