General Mercer/ Middlesex/ Somerset Channels

If you are looking for specific frequencies for towns in the three counties, go to: Mercer County | Middlesex County | Somerset County.

For all the general categories listed above, there is a table of the frequencies and a brief description of how they are used. The first field is the channel name and/or usage, the second column is the radio frequency, the third column is the type (R=repeater, B=base, M=mobile), and the fourth column is the squelch or modulation type (CSq = carrier squelch).

This list is intended to be focused on standardized and/or wide-area channels of interest to scanning enthousiasts in the Mercer/ Middlesex/ Somerset Counties area, so that this data need not be repeated on each of the three county pages maintained at this site. While it is focused on that geographic area this data does include some from afar and may be of use to enthousiasts from other areas of the state, though it should not be considered comprehensive for any other areas.

Good sources of additional information are:
• New Jersey State official site.
• Frequency Lists (located at this site, includes more license data, excludes narratives).
• RadioReference.com, particularly for trunked radio system information but increasingly for conventional data too.
• John Burricelli's site.
• The Philly Scanner E-Book by Joe Cardani, which does require a one-time subscription fee but is very detailed for most or all of southern NJ.

State-wide Police Intersystem

SPEN is short for State Police Emergency Network, and was quite active for communications between police departments such as BOLOs. These days the channels have been abused enough and alternate channels have been set up so it is not used as frequently. SPEN 1 is the primary interdepartmental channel. SPEN 2 is a backup or alternate to SPEN 1 and is the nationwide law enforcement mutual aid frequency. SPEN 2 is officially carrier squelch at least on the receive side but most radios transmit a PL of 131.8 so if you get interference you should be pretty safe squelching to the tone and still hearing most SPEN 2 traffic. SPEN 3 is supposed to be mobiles-only, generally for scene communications. SPEN 4 is also supposed to be mobiles-only and is for public safety coordination.

State-wide Fire Intersystem

The state fire network channel is used mostly in southern NJ for mutual aid; many of those counties have it in their regular channel plan, sometimes with the county's standard PL transmitted on it. Radios should be set up for carrier squelch on the receive side, or users should know to disable the tone squelch when trying to communicate with out-of-town users.

State-wide EMS Intersystem & Standard Channels

There are four JEMS channels for EMS in New Jersey. JEMS 1 is assigned per county and the frequency and PL vary to reduce interference; frequencies are generally between 155.175 and 155.4. JEMS 1 is the primary EMS coordination channel for that county and may or may not also be used for regular dispatch of Basic Life Support (BLS) ambulances and Advanced Life Support (ALS) paramedics. JEMS 2 is the Hospital Emergency Ambulance Radio (HEAR) channel on which incoming patient reports are given to destination hospitals. JEMS 3 is for disaster coordination and JEMS 4 is the same as SPEN 4, also for disaster coordination.

The ten med channels are standardized nationwide> Med 1 through Med 8 are used for medical control, where a paramedic provides patient information and receives instructions to/from a physician, and Med 9 and Med 10 are used for dispatching. A number of different setups are possible, where the medic transmits on the mobile channel and the physician or dispatcher on the base, where the medic also transmits on the base channels, or where a mobile extender is used to relay the medic's transmissions. Many ALS systems now use cell phones for most medical control so these channels are not used as much as they used to be. Med channel PLs vary by user; the NJDOH-OEMS EMS Communications Plan (PDF) provides those PLs (Table 3), and more details on the JEMS system (Table 1).

OEM Intersystem

The EMRAD network is conventionally licensed by the state on public safety frequencies and generally includes all municipal and higher emergency operations centers plus other special locations. Tests of this network and other state-wide OEM networks are usually performed at 7:30 PM on the last Monday of each month.

Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) is an organization of amateur radio operators, created by the American Radio Relay League (ARRL), who stand ready to assist with communications in the event of an emergency or disaster. The North NJ ARES Section includes Monmouth-Middlesex-Somerset-Hunterdon and north. The South NJ ARES Section includes Ocean-Monmouth and south.

Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service (RACES) is similar, created by the federal government and administered by governmental emergency management officials and making use of amateur radio equipment and operators to assist in emergencies. This page lists some of the primary ARES/RACES regional channels for NJ; for county channels see the county pages or follow links from this page to elsewhere.

NJ State Trunked System

The state operates three interconnected 800MHz Motorola trunked systems to provide coverage throughout the state. The primary user is the state police but other users include the Department of Corrections, Department of Health, Department of Transportation, and many others.

These systems now behave as three simulcast zones of one system, in that talkgroups may migrate from their "home" system to adjacent systems regularly. If you are trying to receive another region's talkgroup and can't quite pull in those frequencies, try programming that talkgroup under your local system.

The three systems are called Troop A (south), Troop B (north), and Troop C (central) after the NJSP troop regions. In each area multiple towers simulcast the traffic, which means they all transmit the same traffic on the same frequencies. In addition to this the state has been adding fill-in ("Intellirepeater") sites to improve coverage in various areas. These sites are limited in their number of frequencies and will only transmit talkgroups which a nearby radio is actively tuned to. Often the sites will use frequencies from other parts of the system, for example a Cape May intellirepeater may use a few frequencies also used by the main Troop B (north) system.

The best and most up-to-date sources for information on these systems are RadioReference.com, John Burricelli's site, and the Philly Scanner E-Book (requires a one-time subscription but is very detailed for much or all of southern NJ).

NJ Interoperations

All these channels are particular to NJ; NJ also has licenses on the nationwide standard interoperation channels which are listed in the next section of this page.

U-Tac 4 through 8 are for the Urban Area Security Initiative region, basically the NY Metro portions of NJ. I-Tac 5 is the old Newark MDT channel and now supports the UASI on 800MHz. U-Tac 20 through 27 seem to be for central and western NJ.

A number of channels are licensed somewhat unusually and seem to have been taken from private paging service to public safety interoperations use for various parts of the state. These licenses are actually for a frequency range in a geographic area, without specific transmitter sites or precise frequencies listed. Others have identified U-Tac 7 and U-Tac 8 from this, for the north-eastern part of the state. Another license or two exist for the central and/or southern part of the state, and may use the six channels shown or only one in the center of each range (454.1 & 454.2).

U-Tac 4 repeaters are licensed for: Cranford, Jersey City, Montclair, Newark, Randolph, Ringwood, and West Orange. U-Tac 5 repeaters are licensed for: Carlstadt, Cranford, Jersey City, Mahwah, Montclair, Newark, Randolph, Ringwood, and West Orange. U-Tac 6 repeaters are licensed for: Ocean Twp, Point Pleasant, Randolph, and West Orange. U-Tac 20-27 repeaters are licensed for: Berlin, Bordentown, Bridgeton, and Toms River. U-Tac 23-27 are also licensed for Cherryville. I-Tac 5 repeaters are licensed for: Newark and West Orange. I-Tac 6 repeaters are licensed for: Atlantic City, Camden, Jersey City, Joppa MD, Manhattan, Paterson, Randolph, Springfield PA, Toms River, West Orange, Wildwood, and Woodstown.

Standard Nationwide Interoperations

These are nationwide standard interoperations channels for public safety agencies. All attempts have been made to keep this list current and complete however a better source for this data may be the RadioReference.com Wiki or other web sites.

Federal Government/Agency Interoperations

Rather than try to maintain a current list here, please refer to the RadioReference.com wiki article on Federal/Non-Federal Interoperability

NJ State Police

The New Jersey State Police has five troops: A (South), B (North), C (Central), D (Turnpike), and E (Parkway). The state maintains a trunked system with three zones corresponding to the three geographic areas. Troops D and E have talkgroups allocated across the three zones.

Although most of their traffic is over the trunked system, the NJSP does have a handful of conventional channels. RadioReference.com and John Burricelli's site are good sources for this information as well.

NJ Department of Environmental Protection

The NJ Department of Environmental Protection provides regular law enforcement, operations, and maintenance services for the state parks. The DEP also runs the NJ Forest Fire Service. All routine DEP communications are on their high-band conventional networked repeaters.

Department of Transportation

The NJ Department of Transportation is dispatched and managed on the state's trunked system; see RadioReference.com or John Burricelli's site for the talkgroups. The old low-band channels are still used for truck-to-truck and yard-to-truck communications and can be interesting during weather emergencies. NJ also makes heavy use of contractors for snow removal so other channels such as CB, MURS, and privately-licensed channels are also used.

NJ Turnpike Authority

In 2003 the Turnpike Authority, operator of the NJ Turnpike, absorbed the NJ Highway Authority, operator of the Garden State Parkway. For legacy reasons each roadway continues to use pre-existing radio systems though the authority is in the process of moving all radio communications to a 220MHz system.

The legacy Parkway channels are largely 800MHz conventional repeaters; there are some VHF channels but their usage is unknown. Parkway transmitter sites are at Bloomfield in the north, Bass River and Holmdel in the center, and Toms River and Upper Township in the south.

The legacy Turnpike channels are one networked VHF repeater for operations including status and condition reports, and one networked UHF repeater system for roadside service trucks.

Commuter Buses

NJ Transit operates two trunked systems largely for their administration and their and subcontractors' buses, with other users including NJT Police and outside organizations. The north system has transmitters at Harmony, Holmdel, Ringwood, Toms River, Warren (Somerset), and West Orange; the south system has transmitters in Barnegat, Berlin, Bordentown, Hamilton (Atlantic), Upper Deerfield, and Woodbine. See RadioReference.com for additional information on these systems.

The NJ Transit Metrocom systems provide radio service for commuter buses, with transmitters in Harmony, Holmdel, Ringwood, Toms River, Warren, and West Orange.

Passenger Rail

Freight Rail

Public Service Electric & Gas (PSE&G)

This section lists wide-area channels for PSE&G. The company has many area-specific and facility-specific channels, see the individual towns in the county pages for these. Unless otherwise noted, channels listed here can generally be assumed to have transmitters or coverage throughout the three counties.

PSE&G operates a trunked system with transmitters at the following locations in Mercer, Middlesex, and Somerset Counties: Belle Mead, Edison, Lawrence, and South Brunswick. For more information on the system, like talkgroups, see RadioReference.com.

The "Unknown #" channels have transmitter sites at Bridgewater, Edison, Ewing, Lawrence, South Brunswick, and Watchung.

This page was created Monday 31 May 2004 and last modified Tuesday 10 November 2009.

http://www.jim-robbins.com/radio/general.html