Los Angeles, City of (Municipal Services) System Description

Introduction

These two 800 Mhz EDACS Standard systems handle radio communication for all Los Angeles City "council controlled departments" except Police (UHF P25 conventional) and Fire (800 Mhz conventional).

"Council controlled" departments are all City departments except those with some independent authority under the Charter; the notable non-controlled departments are Port (Port PD uses a simplex UHF P25 system), Airport (as of 2011, Airport PD & Ops is migrating from a UHF analog conventional system to a P25 TRS) and Water & Power (a combination of VHF low-band conventional, 900 Mhz Motorola TRS and Nextel).

A few notes:

• Some departments appear on system 2 and some on system 3. Talkgroup IDs appear to be unique across both systems.
• EOO (Emergency Operations Organization) talkgroups have appeared patched between both systems, using the same talkgroup ID.
• DOT parking enforcement dispatch talkgroups are regularly patched, particularly overnight and weekends.

System assignments

Below are known departments and their "preferred" system; keep in mind its possible that departments can switch systems since TGs are not duplicated between the systems. I recommend programming all TGs into each system on your scanner.

System 2 departments:

• DOT (Transportation)
• PW/Sanitation (Public Works)

System 3 departments:

• Animal Regulation
• ITA (Information Technology Agency)
• Harbor
• Library
• General Services
• PW/Street Maintenance
• Parks & Recreation

A note on patching and talkgroup IDs

Keep in mind that when two talkgroups are patched in an EDACS system, a "virtual" talkgroup in the format of 15-xxx is created at the time of the patch. Uniden scanners of the Trunktracker III generation or later will decode the virtual TG into the individual TGs and will stop on the orignal talkrgoup ID, if programmed.

Other manufacturers, such as GRE, will not decode the 15-xxx talkgroup as a patch talkrgoup, and will treat the 15-xxx talkgroup as an regular talkgroup.

If you're using a non-Uniden scanner and do not hear any activity on the DOT parking enforcement channels, search for 15-xxx patch talkgroups