WESTMORELAND COUNTY
800 Mhz
Explanation of TalkGroups

part of K3SAM.COM
 

WHAT ARE TALKGROUPS
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A FREQUENCY AND A TALKGROUP

 

In plan English, talk groups are just different frequencies ( no they aren’t, but read on ).  Below is a simple example of what the City of Latrobe use to look like.

POLICE
PD TAC

 154.740
151.040

AMBULANCE

 155.715

FIRE

 154.385

Now here is an example using the new 800 Mhz trunking system.

 

POLICE
PD TAC 1
PD TAC 2

 TALKGROUP 64
TALKGROUP 65
TALKGROUP 66

AMBULANCE
AMBULANCE TAC 1

 TALKGROUP 277
TALKGROUP 278

FIRE
FIRE OPERATIONS

 TALKGROUP 200
TALKGROUP 212


The frequencies used by the TalkGroups are all shared, they just have different “addresses“.  Just like having many houses all on the same street (Frequency) but having different house addresses (TalkGroups).  You would not receive mail addressed to your neighbor, would you ?

Police vehicles (or ambulances, fire trucks, etc…) will only be receiving calls addressed to them on their radios, just as you would only be receiving mail addressed to you at your house.  Their TalkGroup number IS their address.

Channel 16 on all the new radios are all the same, a common address.  In the event of an major emergency all first responders can talk to each other without the delay of a dispatcher relaying  critical time sensitive information between TalkGroups.  Just like a school house at the end of your street, in an emergency you would all gather there, the common address.

I hope this helped in some way to show the difference between each service having a dedicated frequency as opposed to all services using the same frequencies and having different TalkGroup addresses.

 

RETURN