CalSIEC Southern Planning Area SPA Quarterly Meeting Minutes Pea Soup Andersen s Restaurant 376 Avenue of Flags, Buellton, CA 93427 Tuesday, April 10, 2012 1. Call to Order: Robert Stoffel called the meeting to order at 10:00 A.M. 2. Attendees: Aguilera, John Armitage, Leland Ayala, Joe Berry, Kim Chamberlin, Jack Crongeyer, Sven Davis, Denise Dowden, FG Edge, Jay Foster, Michael Friday, Steve Guzzardi, Joe Jeffers, Kressie Jenkins, Jackie Kimmerle, Gary LaPlant, Mike Lawless, Tom Lipthay, Andras Mann, Ken Mathiasen, Lisa Money, Geoff Norris, Jim Polehonka, Bobbie Richards, Dan Sizemore, Rick Stoffel, Robert Thornton, Carl Walker, John Weidner, Alex Whitham, David Via Phone: Cooper, Paul Digiambattista, Dale Marin, Denis Nishina, Wes Cal Fire / San Luis Obispo Fire Department San Luis Obispo County Santa Barbara County Sheriff, Admin Supervisor Lompoc Police Department, Supervisor Harris Dailey-Wells Los Angeles Sheriff s Department, (SPA Vice-Chair) Los Angeles Sheriff s Department UCSB Police, Captain Santa Barbara County Office of Emergency Management Santa Maria Police Department Montecito, Communications Coordinator Dailey-Wells / Los Angeles Ventura County Fire U.S. Department of Homeland Security OEC Santa Barbara County, Communications System Supervisor City of Los Angeles, Communications Santa Barbara County Sheriff Cal Fire / San Luis Obispo Fire Department Ventura County Fire, (SPA Executive Coordinator) Ventura County ITS ATF, Senior Telecomm Specialist Orange County Communications Division, (SPA Chair) Santa Barbara County, Communications General Services City of San Luis Obispo, Sterling Communications Santa Barbara Police Department, Communications Manager Claremont Police Department Riverside County Sheriff s Department Orange County Communications Division City of Simi Valley
Root, Don Rowles, Mike Samples, Mel Servin, Jason Wallace, Kurt Weston, Steve San Diego County Communications Wireless Division San Bernardino County IT AT&T Newport Beach Police Department Anaheim Police Department Los Angeles County Fire Department 3. Approval of Minutes: Don Root moved to approve the January 11, 2012 meeting minutes; Mike LaPlant seconded the motion. All present were in favor, and the minutes were approved. 4. Discussion Topics: The following agenda items were discussed during the meeting: a. General Discussion Monthly Planning Area Chair Meeting Updates (Robert Stoffel): CalEMA, Michael Crews, may be on the phone later to update everyone on funding and programs for the SPA. State microwave will not be supported going forward and there will probably be limited use of some of the State maintained networks. The State is attempting to determine if it there will be funding to continue supporting the Operational Area Satellite Information System (OASIS) or to possibly contract services to a new vendor to possibly reduce cost. National Broadband Impact on the State of California: Dan Richards - After completion of the Ventura gap analysis, Dan is now looking to understand what the next steps will be to access funding, planning, etc. related to use of National Broadband. Don Root The APCO Broadband Committee is looking to the State for guidance. They are working on the State s Implementation Plan which will include recommendations to the Governor. Under consideration by the State is whether to participate with the Federal Government which is proposing use of FirstNet or to opt out and put an RFP on the street to fund the network with State Funds. Don indicated that it may be years before the National Broadband network is ready; therefore, it may be advisable for those local agencies with waivers and those that are ready to turn on their system to wait until the National Infrastructure is in place or to wait and see what the State decides to do. He does not think that LTE will replace Voice radio in the near future; therefore, agencies should continue to update equipment and maintain their LMR systems. P25 Radio ID Conflict: Ken Mann Ken indicated that neighboring P25 system users who wander onto your system with the same radio ID programmed into their radios as the ones on your system will have the voice signal mixed. This problem exist with the 700/800 MHz P25 systems that are not using ISSI. He was bringing this issue to the SPA for discussion and possible ideas and solutions in hopes that it would help avoid the problem before the implementation of their P25 system. One possible solution was to establish agreements with neighboring agencies to use assigned blocks of ID numbers so that all will be using different radio ID numbers.
Don Root Don indicated that San Diego County s 700 system is up and running now. When you roam onto another system, the system needs to program radios only with your home radio ID number. The system that is recognizing you should differentiate between the system and then the ID. He indicated that there could also be some vendor-specific issues that need to be worked through. Dale Digiambattista Dale indicated that Riverside County and ERICA are not P25 yet but they are expecting to have their new system up and running later this year. Tom Lawless Tom indicated that the Feds recognize the issue and may be working on a clearinghouse concept to address this issue. Gary Kimmerle Gary indicated that several Los Angeles area agencies/systems that are currently on P25 or are moving toward P25 soon are Port of Long Beach, Port of LA, City of LA, LAPD, and ICIS. Robert Stoffel Robert suggested that a P25 Subcommittee be formed to deal with this issue and asked for volunteers. The following members volunteered to work on the committee: 1. Ken Mann, City of Los Angeles 2. Dale Digiambattista, Riverside County 3. Mike Rowles, San Bernardino County 4. Don Root, San Diego County 5. Wes Nishina, City of Simi Valley b. Initiatives and Projects Bobbie Polehonka introduced herself as the new SPA Executive Coordinator and introduced the agenda for the Willdan presentation. Web based Training (Denise Davis) Denise Davis presented information about the status of the web-based training courses being developed for the SPA. She explained that the conversion from instructor-led training to the web-based training was a means to make training available to a larger audience. The basic courses are expected to be ready by mid-may and the advanced course by late May. FG Dowden asked for volunteers to participate in the BETA test of the courses, which will begin in late April. Willdan is seeking agency participation and comments. For each course, there is a need for evaluators/testers from Law, Fire, and Non-Public Safety for the Field and Dispatch courses. Denise explained that the courses are designed to be very basic in nature. Testers should consider if basic communications interoperability concepts are adequately addressed. Lastly, the Interoperable Communications Instructor course will remain a face-to-face, instructor-led course. This course is scheduled to be offered in June-July 2012 and will be held in strategic regional locations within the SPA. This should allow for better participation by those who would like to take the course. The following members volunteered to participate: 1. Jackie Jenkins, Montecito Fire - Fire (Field and Dispatch) and Non Public Safety 2. Mike LaPlant, Ventura County Fire - Fire (Field and Dispatch) 3. John Aguilera, CalFIRE Fire - (Field and Dispatch) 4. Kressie Jeffers, Santa Maria PD - Law and Fire (Field and Dispatch)
5. Dale Digiambattista, Riverside County - Law (Field and Dispatch) 6. Jay Edge, LASD - Law (Field and Dispatch) 7. Lisa Mathiasen, Santa Barbara County - Law (Dispatch) 8. Scott Allison, Ventura - Non Public Safety Willdan also asked everyone to consider any additional requests for training topics needed within the SPA for course development or implementation and to bring those suggestions to the next meeting. Narrowbanding Report (FG Dowden / Steve Friday) FG Dowden presented information about the status of the Narrowbanding Report. The major information gathering effort has been completed. This included the compilation of FCC license information and generation of statistical information. Current activities include validating the information and developing the draft report. Steve Weston Steve asked if there were plans to check the FCC database again to see if licenses were updated due to the recent data gathering effort with the agencies. At present, Willdan is trying to focus on the actual transition and not so much on the status of the FCC license updates after the fact. IFOG Updates (Bobbie Polehonka) Bobbie Polehonka presented information about the status of the IFOG Updates. The updates will be in the form of an Addendum that can be inserted into the back of the current IFOG booklets. The addendum will include information for incorporated cities with populations under 100,000, which were not included in the first publication (by design). The IFOG Addendum will be printed and distributed to the Operational Area representatives for distribution. Bobbie submitted the following status of each Operational Area s IFOG Update Imperial: In progress Inyo: Completed / Ready for Printing Los Angeles: Completed / Ready for Printing Mono: Completed / Ready for Printing Orange: No updates to cities are necessary Riverside: Completed / Ready for Printing San Diego: Not started San Bernardino: Confirmed that no updates were necessary (all cities are on the county radio system) San Luis Obispo: In progress; contacted cities for information Santa Barbara: In progress; contacted cities for information Ventura: Completed / Ready for Printing Don Root - Since Imperial County is part of the San Diego County Regional Communications System (RCS), Don would like to make sure that San Diego and Imperial are combined into one IFOG, not 2 separate documents. Response: Bobbie will follow up on this. Leland Armitage - Leland asked if Willdan was drilling down into Universities, Campus Police, etc. Response: Yes, where those entities are known we will include interoperability channels.
Paul Cooper Paul asked if there would be copies of the LA IFOG by the end of April for use at a conference coming up on April 25-26. Printing may not be completed by then; therefore, Bobbie will provide an electronic version. Dale Digiambattista - Dale questioned if changes were included beyond the city information. There are frequency/channels that will not be current after narrowbanding. Response: Bobbie stated that only city information was added. The additional updates may be included in the next full version update. Robert Stoffel - Robert pointed out that the Cal IFOG was not meant to include all local information, only National and State interoperability channel availability. Cal EMA has an initiative to update the Cal IFOG with more information, which is separate from this SPA IFOG initiative. Tom Lawless - Tom provided more information about the National IFOG. There will be more of the NIFOGs printed; until more are printed, they are available online, and there is an IPAD app available for it. Don Root Don requested copies of the Cal IFOGS. Robert Stoffel offered him a box of 50. TIC Plan Updates (Steve Friday) Steve Friday presented information about the update to the Tactical Interoperable Communications Plans (TIC Plans). He is currently working to confirm the points of contact from the cities in each Operational Area (OA). He has also conducted a review of the 2010 TICPs and he handed out a CD containing their respective TIC Plans to each OA with the missing cities information highlighted in Word Track Changes. He would like the OA points of contact to distribute the CDs to the appropriate cities for updated information so that it can be added to the respective OA TIC Plans. The information for the updates needs to be submitted by July 1, 2012. There was a discussion within the group about leaving the channels that have not been narrowbanded in the frequency tables in the updated TICPs. There was also comment about including a W for wideband, and N for narrowband in the frequency charts. Another suggestion was to assume all of the channels within the FCC mandate for narrowbanding have been narrowbanded unless there is a W next to the frequency. Robert Stoffel suggested that the updates to the TICPs should be made from the approach of what would each agency have at the end of this year. Cities should add information for narrowbanding, even if the narrowbanding hasn t yet occurred or is in process because the update would last longer, instead of needing another update once the narrowbanding took place. 5. Interoperability Requests: Don Root Don indicated that San Diego has an immediate need for an ITAC3 Repeater in Solana Beach. It will be purchased and installed, but not used until the licensing is approved. A console patch will be used after implementation. Robert Stoffel expressed concern that this repeater being left on would potentially interfere with public safety agencies. Don Root indicated this was of no great concern; the location is in a bowl and will be low power, should be no problem. Los Angeles County expressed concern with this request and would like further review at the next meeting. Don will write up a recommendation to CALSIEC to address the immediate need for ITAC3 use and will submit it to Robert to forward to Michael Crews. License applications for the other channels (VCALL, UTAC, 700, etc.) will be submitted through the normal process.
Don Root Don indicated that Fire WHITE and NALEMARS are getting interference from Mexico. He would like for the SPA to recommend to CALSIEC that 156.7 be the standard interoperability tone for these channels, implemented at the time of narrowbanding. Don will draft a policy for consideration by CALSIEC. Steve Weston requested that a copy of the proposal be sent to Firescope. 6. Roundtable: None. 7. Adjournment and Next Meeting: The next meeting will be on Tuesday, July 10, 2012. Location to be determined. The radio rodeo/exercise will be the Q4 SPA meeting-event and will be held on October 9, 2012. Planning for this event will begin soon. Location to be determined. The meeting was adjourned at 12:05 P.M.; lunch was served.