Alberta (CA)
From The RadioReference Wiki
Contents
- 1 Alberta
- 2 Geography
- 3 Radio Networks
- 4 Alberta Emergency Services Reference
- 5 Radio Codes
- 6 Alberta Health Services
- 7 Upcoming Province of Alberta Projects
- 8 Alberta Unknown Trunking Systems
- 9 Alberta Pacific Forest Industries - Grassland
- 10 Alberta First Responders' Radio Communication System
- 11 Railways/Subways
- 12 Online Scanners
- 13 Web/Wiki Pages
Alberta
Areawide Trunking System in Alberta
Geography
The province of Alberta is in western Canada, stretching from the United States border at the 49th parallel to the Northwest Territories at the 60th, and from British Columbia to the west - with the Continental Divide in the Rocky Mountains forming part of the border, along with the 120th line of longitude - to Saskatchewan in the east, on the 110th line of longitude. The province is comprised of varying terrain from flat prairie to tall mountainous regions, forested regions, and canyons and coulees, making for difficult comms challenges.
- Special Area
- Relative Geographic Location
Northwest Territories | ||||
British Columbia | Saskatchewan | |||
Alberta | ||||
Montana |
Radio Networks
Currently, the province has several aged conventional repeater networks, supporting the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), who provide municipal policing for the province; various Government of Alberta services including Sustainable Resource Development officers (Conservation Officers, Fish & Wildlife Officers, etc.); Alberta Sheriffs (providing traffic enforcement, court and remand officials, and other non-municipal law enforcement duties); and so on. Many of these networks are beyond the end of their useful life, and are being maintained only as long as is necessary to bridge the gap until the province-wide 700MHz, APCO Project-25 trunked radio network (AFRRCS - Alberta First Responders' Radio Communication System) is built, scheduled to be started in 2009 with full system completion in 2012.
Future edits to this page will include Alberta Unknown Trunking Systems, a list of systems known in the TAFL but whose type and system flavor are not known; Useful Common Alberta Information, such as how to program scanner ABC for system XYZ; and Upcoming Province of Alberta Projects, which will describe what is known about the AFRRCS (mentioned above) and the upcoming (as of January 2009) Alberta Health Services merger/transition of ambulance services to the province.
Alberta Emergency Services Reference
This is a supplemental scanning reference for emergency services in Alberta.
Radio Codes
Most public safety organizations in Alberta use some combination of ten codes and supplementary status codes. APCO has defined a standard meaning for ten codes to provide interoperability between different departments and agencies. Most agencies in Alberta do not subscribe to the standard or have made significant changes.
RCMP
General Fire / EMS
Calgary Police Service
Alberta Health Services
Alberta Health Services is the arm of the Alberta provincial government responsible for health care. In terms of public safety, AHS is (soon to be) the operator of ambulance services for the province.
Background
Ambulance service in Alberta has historically been provided by municipalities as either a combination Fire/EMS agency or a 'third service' model. Several First Nations also provide their own ambulance services, which fall under federal guidelines and the Department of Indian Affairs.
Several times in the 2000s, the Government of Alberta made attempts at amalgamating existing ambulance services across the province into one entity, to be managed and governed by the province. In 2008, the declaration was made that this merger would take place on 2009 April 01.
Dispatch Services
Coupled with the merger (also described by the province as a 'transition' of services) of the ambulance agencies, is a project to consolidate dispatch services for EMS from over thirty dispatch centers across the province to a total of "nine or less", scheduled to be in place by January 2009 (target date missed). The term "nine or less" refers to having one dispatch center responsible for an entire health region, of which there are nine in the province; it is conceivable that one dispatch center may 'win' the bidding to dispatch more than one health region. As of February 2009, one or more dispatch centers are currently in contract negotiations to determine what areas they will dispatch for and when this will begin.
Communications
Currently, EMS services across the province use a myriad of all sorts of communications networks for dispatch and operations, including conventional UHF/VHF, various trunking systems, MotoTRBO, iDEN, VHF paired with satellite relay, and the Internet Radio Linking Protocol (IRLP), to name a few. It is suspected, but not confirmed, that the delay in deciding the dispatch agencies may contribute toward some sort of coincidental agreement or function with the AFRRCS provincial trunking network project.
Timeline
The date for dispatch services to be switched over to the new agencies has already passed without action. Members of the EMS and first responder community have expressed concern that the province will not be able to keep to its scheduled transition date of 2009 April 01. The most recent information available implies that the province will expect all existing EMS providers to contract their services to AHS for a period of no less than two (2) years, thus building in a de facto 'cushion' or delay.
Dispatch Codes
All Alberta Health Services dispatch centres use the Medical Priority Dispatch System to determine the level of response. all codes can be found at: http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Medical_Priority_Dispatch_System
Upcoming Province of Alberta Projects
Currently, there are two endeavors in the Province of Alberta that are relevant to the scanner community.
One is the AFRRCS or Alberta First Responders' Radio Communication System - a trunked network being designed and deployed to cover the entire province with integrated, interoperable communications for first responders and government agencies;
The other is the Alberta Health Services' ground ambulance merger/transition plan, scheduled to move all ground ambulance services to the responsibility of the government as of April 2009.
Alberta Unknown Trunking Systems
Background
There are a number of trunk systems easily identifiable in the TAFL for which information such as system type/brand, trunking protocol, etc., are as-yet undetermined, mainly because no one in the province has yet to attempt to monitor these systems (or has not submitted what they know into the Radio Reference Database, aka RRDB). Because of these missing elements, these systems cannot be included in the RRDB. These systems will be listed below, so that their data is in an easily accessible place, for interested parties to use in helping to 'sleuth out' the missing details.
As systems' traits become identified to a point where they meet the criteria for being included in the RRDB, they will be moved there.
Systems
Systems have been arranged in this section by county.
Provincewide
Athabasca
Alberta Pacific Forest Industries - Grassland
Clearwater
Edmonton
Glentel Riverwind - Edmonton Glentel Stony Plain - Edmonton Westcan Wireless - Edmonton
Leduc
Prairie Mines Royalty - Genessee
Parkland
Peace
Quintel Communications - Peace River
Red Deer
Cellular 90 - Red Deer Glentel - Red Deer Shaw Cablesystems - Red Deer
Strathcona
BA Energy - Fort Saskatchewan Dow Chemical - Fort Saskatchewan Shaw Cablesystems - Fort Saskatchewan Sherritt International - Fort Saskatchewan
Sturgeon
Agrium - Redwater PCOSI (Petro Canada Oilsands Inc) - Redwater St. Albert Corporate Radio - St. Albert
Vermilion River
Shaw Cablesystems - Lloydminster
Wood Buffalo
Albian Sands Energy - Fort Mackay Cellular 90 - Fort McMurray Nexen - Long Lake/Anzac Suncor - Firebag Suncor - Fort McMurray Syncrude Canada - Mildred Lake Tridon Mobile Communications - Fort McMurray
Woodlands
Millar Western Forest Products - Whitecourt
Alberta Pacific Forest Industries - Grassland
This is an "unknown" trunk system in the province of Alberta. The SID for the depreciated system is 5552.
Sites
There is only one site. Its callsign is VBM475, and the name is specified in TAFL as 'Mill Boiler Tower'. The coordinates on record with the TAFL are N54.9188 W112.858056.
Frequencies
The frequencies for Site 1 are as follows:
853.46250 853.71250 853.96250 854.21250 854.46250 856.03750 856.28750 856.53750 856.78750 857.03750
Alberta First Responders' Radio Communication System
See AFRRCS.
See ATCO Electric P25.
Railways/Subways
Online Scanners
Web/Wiki Pages
Web Pages
Wiki Articles
- Alberta Sports
- Alberta Counties
- Alberta Fire Tone Outs
- Alberta RID/UIDs
- Alberta Trunking Information
- Calgary Digital Radio
- Edmonton Public Safety & Public Works