Monitoring Somerset County, New Jersey

For all the municipalities or groups 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). A two-digit number in the last field represents an LTR LCN; any known associated talkgroups will be listed further down in the same table.

It is intended for all public safety (police/fire/EMS/OEM) and government (roads dept/building dept/MUA) channels to be listed here, plus most business repeaters and other channels which may be of particular interest. Many business channels have intentionally been omitted because researching and processing them all would be impractical. If you are searching for one not listed, try the FCC database or check if they are using an undentified talkgroup on one of the SMRs. And as always, please feel free to submit additional channels to the author.

Businesses should be listed under the municipality they are principally located in. County-wide busineses may be listed under the County Other section or with the municipality in which the main transmitter is located. Major utilities are covered on the state page. An effort has been made to group the businesses under their real municipality, but in some cases they may be listed under their postal code's municipality (for example, many businesses list Princeton as their transmitter's city even though they're in Montgomery or West Windsor or Lawrence).

Good sources of additional information are:
• Frequency Lists (located at this site, includes more license data, excludes narratives).
• NJ State Channels in Mercer / Middlesex / Somerset (located at this site).
• John Burricelli's Scanner Files (an exceptional resource for Somerset County & NJSP).
• Central-New-Jersey-Scanning Yahoo Group.

Somerset County Trunked Radio System

Somerset County is currently operating a trunked radio system, with many users already on it and more being added. Frequencies are shown at left; there are three configurations for trunk-tracking scanners: Base1=500.3375, Offset1=380, Step1=25.0; Base2=501.9125, Offset2=430, Step2=25.0; Base3=502.5125, Offset3=450, Step3=25.0. A "System Map" (XLS) is available with a great deal of technical information in the various tabs; TRUNKER files for the system are also available for advanced users (County is 8A27 cell 1, Franklin is 8A27 cell 2). Based on observations when the system was offline late on 9/10/06, it appears that 500.8875 is currently not integrated to it, although Trunker has logged a few transmissions on it over the past couple years.

Franklin Township's trunked system is treated separately on this web page, for simplicity's sake. In reality it is just a second zone or cell on the county's system. For the most part, so far, Franklin's talkgroups stay on Franklin's zone and the county's talkgroups stay on the county's zone. There have already been some exceptions to this already, though, including Public Safety Calling and Sheriff Dispatch coming over Zone 2 when a unit affiliated to those groups on Zone 2.

The system (Zone 1) has the following transmitter sites: Bernards on Pill Hill; Bridgewater on Mount Horeb Road; Bridgewater at Mount Prospect and Old Stagecoach Roads; "Green Brook" on Warrenville Road; Hillsborough at Rte 206 & Camplain Road; "Neshanic" on Zion Road; North Plainfield at Johnston Drive; Pottersville at Route 512 & Hacklebarney; "Rocky Hill" on Old Georgetown Road (AAT Tower in southern Franklin Twp); and Somerville on Grove Street. All these sites are simulcast; it is possible that some of the channels not yet in use will become specific-area IntelliRepeaters (basically another, smaller zone which only carries traffic for units currently affiliated on it).

Some notes on the unidentified/unconfirmed talkgroups: 01616 is suspected to be a talkgroup which will open up any radio, a system-wide announcement channel. 09904 is, based on numbering, some sort of county service. 10320, 10352, and 10384 may be county services event talkgroups; the 4H fairs in 2005 and 2006 have been run using OEM loaner radios mostly on 10352 and a little on 10320. A series of talkgroups are in the numeric vicinity of the Fire Interop talkgroup (14960); they may be for other services' interops and/or events; Piscataway PD used loaner portables on 15088 when their system was briefly taken down for maintenance in August 2006. 32304 once had technicians installing or maintaining security cameras apparently at the courthouse.

Somerset County-wide Police

The Sheriff's Department, Prosecutor's Office, and Park Rangers have all moved from their conventional channels to the trunked system. The table on the right lists all the relevant and identified talkgroups.

County dispatches a handful of police departments, but few have yet migrated to the trunked system. The only regular user currently is South Bound Brook PD on Police-South. For specific frequency or talkgroup information for each department, see that individual municipality's section on this web page.

The following are IDs for police units, some of which are dispatched by county and others by themselves:
• Able = Bedminster (trunked, by county)
• Baker = Bernards (VHF-High, self-dispatched)
• Charlie = Bernardsville (VHF-Low, self-dispatched)
• Delta(?) = Bound Brook (VHF-High, self-dispatched)
• Echo = Branchburg (VHF-High, by county)
• George = Far Hills (trunked, by county)
• Mike = Montgomery (not used, VHF-High, self-dispatched)
• Nancy(?) = North Plainfield (VHF-High, self-dispatched)
• Ocean = Peapack-Gladstone (trunked, by county)
• Rocky = SBBPD Rocky Hill Unit (trunked, by county)
• Sierra = South Bound Brook (trunked, by county)
• Victor = Raritan Valley Community College Security (not used, UHF, self-dispatched)
• Zebra = County Sheriff's Department (trunked, by county)

It is possible that currently-outdated and new IDs will be put to use if/when police departments move to the trunked system.

In late August or early September 2006 there was talk of "Delta" units switching to the trunked system in the near future, and separate talk of one department receiving training on 11/12 and switching over on 11/13. They may or may not be related. Some north police departments (including Bedminster, Far Hills, and Peapack-Gladstone) have done coverage testing on the PD North talkgroups.

Somerset County-wide Fire/ EMS/ OEM

Somerset County is gradually taking over dispatching of most in-county fire companies and first aid squads and consolidating their communications in conjunction with the switch-over to the new trunked system. (It should be noted that this take-over is, as far as is known, opted for voluntarily by the various companies and is not being forced upon them.) A new UHF alerting (paging) channel has been established along with the trunked system and many of the various old alerting and dispatch channels will be abandoned. One example is that county took over Montgomery's fire and EMS dispatching in the first quarter of 2006, and the 82.5 PL on fire-high is no longer used (on the dispatch side, at least; see Montgomery or Rocky Hill for more info). Whereas the new alerting channel used to be carrier squelch, it appears that county started transmitting a PL in late July or early August 2006.

County OEM, including the HazMat team, operates entirely on the trunked system. The talkgroups are there for fire and EMS, but so far only 45-Fire and 48-Fire use it routinely.

The table on the right lists all the station numbers for Somerset County fire (-Fire or ##F) and EMS (-Rescue or ##R) stations; some now-defunct stations have been included to fill in gaps in the current numbering. Some stations are physically located outside Somerset County but are primary responders in and so have Somerset County numbers. "Municipality" is meant to indicate the Somerset County town the station is a primary responder for -- out-of-county towns and mutual-aid towns are not included. "Dist" indicates which fire district (if any) the company is a part of, because some areas are dispatched by district. NJFFS Section A7 is included for the sake of providing a link; they serve the area but do not in any way fall under the auspices of Somerset County.

A standardized numbering system has been set in place for apparatus on mutual aid assignments, and this system may be implemented as agencies switch to the county-wide trunked system. The following numbers are prefixed by the station number:

C-1, C-2, ...: Officers, in decreasing rank
101-109: Engine
111-119: Truck
121-129: Tower/Aerial
131-139: Tender (Tanker)
141-149: Brush & Mini-pumper
151-159: Utility/Rescue/Lighting
161-169: Command
171-179: Ambulance

The trainers at the fire academy have been heard using Franklin's F-7 for burn building ops. They may always use this channel, or pick a channel at the beginning of each session. They work off portables so you must be close in to receive it; if not Franklin's F-7 then try Hillsborough's tac channels and then other miscellaneous county tac and mutual aid channels. Eventually they may use the county's new UHF system, probably one of the tac channels but potentially one of the talkgroups. Fire companies drilling at the academy tend to use their ordinary channels, either ops or fireground depending on several factors.

Somerset County dispatches Somerset Medical Center's ALS units (681 & 682). The two units are paged and communicate on Somerset JEMS 1. RWJUH/SPUH medic units (MR1 & MR3) are still primary responders for parts of Somerset County and are dispatched by MedCentral (see Middlesex County for more info). EMS 1 & EMS 2 from Hunterdon, and certain LifeCom ALS units from Mercer County occasionally provide mutual aid.

Somerset County Other

Raritan Valley Community College has a few conventional channels. The county Health Department has recently begun using the trunked system for some or all operations, and the Roads, Recycling, Transportation, Facilities & Services, and Traffic Safety Services departments have been using it for some time now.

Bedminster Township

The Bedminster Police Department (Able units) is dispatched by county and apparently switched to the trunked system on Monday 9/18.

The Bedminster fire companies, Union Hook & Ladder Company #1 (AKA Far Hills-Bedminster Fire Dept., 29-Fire) and Pottersville Volunteer Fire Company (63-Fire), are paged out on the UHF operations repeater, with alerting and dispatch by county.

The Far Hills-Bedminster First Aid Squad, 29-Rescue, is alerted and dispatched by county on the same UHF repeater as the fire companies.

Bernards Township

The Bernards Police Department is dispatched on a high-band repeater.

Bernards Township fire companies, including the Basking Ridge Fire Company #1 and the Liberty Corner Fire Company, are dispatched on a high-band repeater. Two high-band repeaters have been licensed, one by each fire company. It appears that the township assisted both with the licensure, and control points for both are at the police station (LCFC's license shows the repeater at their station). It is unclear what the intent of these channels is, whether to be main dispatch or a secondary coordination/ops channel, and whether they are presently in use.

EMS is provided to Bernards Township by the Basking Ridge Fire Company #1 First Aid Squad and the Liberty Corner First Aid Squad. The squads are dispatched on the same high-band repeater as the fire companies.

Bernards municipal communications were on a low-band channel. It is possible the unidentified high-band repeater is for them, so that they're on the same band as police and emergency services.

Bernards Township and Long Hill Township in Morris County have established a combined communications center for the two municipalities.

The three UHF Water Department frequencies listed here previously are for telemetry; since they're digital and of extremely limited interest to scannists, they have been removed from this page. They, along with more detailed information on the channels which are shown, remain available on the master frequency lists.

Bernardsville Borough

The Bernardsville Police Department (Charlie units) is self-dispatched on low-band.

The Bernardsville Fire Company #1 & First Aid Squad, Station 22-Fire/Rescue, is dispatched by county on low-band, with pages being multicast on the new paging channel. The fire company has recently licensed repeaters on the same frequency as Long Hill Fire Department (PL=146.2), and notes on the license indicate they plan to work together to avoid interference.

Bernardsville Borough DPW operates on the same UHF repeater as neighboring towns.

Bound Brook Borough

The Bound Brook Police Department is self-dispatched on the channel indicated, with the dispatcher identifying as '685' (as in KEB685). Based on some talk on the county's trunked system, it sounds like the BBPD may soon switch to it; this is by no means confirmed yet.

The Bound Brook Fire Department is comprised of four companies: Bound Brook Hose Company #1, American Hose & Engine Company #2, Watchung Fire Company #3, and Relief Fire Company #4. All, together, as Station 23-Fire, are dispatched by county to any and all calls. Paging is usually done off the Franklin tower (PL=100.0); the old dispatch channel/DPL is from when the borough handled it. All response and operations communications are conducted on the Ops channel or other tactical/fireground channels.

The Bound Brook Rescue Squad, 15-Rescue, is dispatched by 685 on the old police channel.

Bound Brook's municipal services use a high-band channel, which also serves as police tac and fireground.

Branchburg Township

The Branchburg Police Department is dispatched on a high-band repeater by county.

Branchburg is served by four fire companies:

General:

All are dispatched by county. All are also primary responders into other municipalities; the alerting channels do not vary but the following ops channels may be for Branchburg only. For ops in other towns, see notes under that town's section.

24-Fire Country Hills Volunteer Fire Company

Alerted on fire-low and operates on UHF repeater. Also is a primary responder into Bridgewater.

32-Fire Readington Volunteer Fire Company

Alerted on low-band, communicates with county on the trunked system. Also is a primary responder into Hunterdon County (Station 32 there too).

48-Fire Neshanic Volunteer Fire Company

Alerted on fire-high and operates on the trunked system, primarily on Dispatch Region 2 (see Fire/ EMS/ OEM for other talkgroups which may be used). Also is a primary responder into Hillsborough (in which case they operate on Hillsborough's channel).

49-Fire North Branch Volunteer Fire Company

Alerted on fire-low and operates on the UHF repeater. Also is a primary responder into Bridgewater.

The Branchburg Rescue Squad (74 Rescue) provides EMS services. Paging and dispatch is done by county on JEMS-3; internal coordination is done on their repeater.

Bridgewater Township

The Bridgewater Police Department is dispatched on a high-band repeater. F-2 through F-4 have not been confirmed (in fact, 3 and 4 do not appear to be licensed), but are reportedly for tactical communications; F-6 is an alternate channel for the PD, the DPW channel.

Bridgewater's fire companies are arranged as follows:

Fire District One

43-Fire Martinsville Fire Company #2

Still alerted and operates on low-band. A UHF repeater is in place, DPL was confirmed, page was sent (unknown whether test or real); it is unknown when they will switch over.

Fire District Two

21-Fire Bradley Gardens Fire Department

Alerted and operates on low-band, a UHF repeater license in the district's name is pending.

Fire District Three

24-Fire Country Hills Volunteer Fire Company

34-Fire Green Knoll Volunteer Fire Company (34-Fire)

49-Fire North Branch Volunteer Fire Company

Alerted on low-band, operates on UHF repeater and simplex channels. Note that 24 and 49 also respond as primary into Branchburg, and use the same channels there.

Fire District Four

30-Fire Finderne Engine Company #1

Alerted and operates on high-band.

BLS agencies serving Bridgewater are: Green Knoll Rescue Squad (34-Rescue); Finderne First Aid & Rescue Squad (35-Rescue); Bradley Gardens First Aid & Rescue Squad (39-Rescue); and Martinsville Rescue Squad (43-Rescue). Martinsville and Bradley Gardens are alerted and operate on their own repeater (formerly licensed to MRS, now expired); Finderne and Bradley Gardens are alerted on 155.31 and operate on the police repeater.

A new VHF-High repeater on 155.6325 was recently licensed. It should be used for emergency services dispatch, presumably police and/or EMS.

Far Hills Borough

The Far Hills Police Department (George units) is dispatched by county. Dispatch apparently switched over from the conventional repeater to the trunked system on Monday 9/18.

Franklin Township

Franklin Township operates a mixed-mode trunked radio system. Frequencies are shown at left; there are two configurations for trunk-tracking scanners: Base1=471.0000, Offset1=380, Step1=12.5; Base2=476.2500, Offset2=540, Step2=12.5. A "System Map" (XLS) is available with a great deal of technical information in the various tabs; TRUNKER files for the system are also available for advanced users (County is 8A27 cell 1, Franklin is 8A27 cell 2). In May of 2006 the township submitted an application to the FCC to add a site at Trap Rock; it was rejected for procedural reasons but the door was left open to allow Franklin to reapply with proper paperwork. They have now resubmitted (late July) and the modifications include not only addition of a simulcast site at Rockingham (Trap Rock), but also deletion of the Wiley Ave site. The Trap Rock site should fill predicted coverage gaps in the Kingston, Little Rocky Hill, and Rocky Hill areas.

The Franklin Police Department moved all their operations to the trunked system on 7/01/04, and all police talkgroups noted to date have been encrypted. The old, conventional infrastructure and ability on it has been maintained and used as a backup to the trunked system. The old police identifiers (possibly still in use) were: police cars= 800 series; chief= 2000; captain= 3000; lieutenant= 4000; sergeant= 5000; detective= 6000; beat officer= 7000; special officer= 8000; dispatcher= 9600.

Franklin PD has occasionally used old PD-1 for operations when maintenance is required on the trunked system. The department also used the analog "911 Access" talkgroup for routine dispatch around 10/20-22/06 for an unknown reason; the encrypted dispatch talkgroup and others were used at the same time for something else.

The Franklin fire companies are divided up as follows:

Fire District One (north)

26-Fire Elizabeth Avenue Fire Company

28-Fire Millstone Valley Fire Department

44-Fire Middlebush Volunteer Fire Department

56-Fire Somerset Volunteer Fire & Rescue Company #1

Fire District Two (south/central)

31-Fire Franklin Park Volunteer Fire Company

35-Fire Griggstown Volunteer Fire Company

41-Fire Little Rocky Hill Volunteer Fire Company

Fire District Three (north/west)

25-Fire Community Volunteer Fire Company #1

27-Fire East Franklin Fire Company

Fire District Four (south - Kingston)

39-Fire Kingston Volunteer Fire Company #1

The Franklin fire companies moved from VHF to the trunked system on 3/04/08. Paging is still done on fire-high but all subsequent communications with dispatch should be on the digital (clear) talkgroups. County will continue to page for alarms but Franklin will begin paging for calls received via 911.

Franklin fire companies use a simple identifier scheme. A prefix (the station/ squad number) is given, then a suffix. The suffixes are as follows: A=Chief, B=Assistant Chief, C+=other officers in descending rank. Significant apparatus generally have a single digit number, apparently assigned based on the next available number at the time of purchase. Simpler apparatus are stated as such: Car 41 or Utility 41 or Rescue 41 (41 being the station number).

Franklin (as "Franklin PD") continues to dispatch all squads itself. EMFAS (52) and FSFAS (71) are paged on the VHF channel, Kendall Park and Kingston Squads are alerted on South Brunswick's (Middlesex County) ES paging channel, and county pages Rocky Hill (53) on Fire-High. All five squads, RWJUH-SPUH ALS, RWJUH-SPUH BLS, and SMC ALS all communicate with Franklin on the trunked system. Since Rural-Metro left NJ in 2006, around-the-clock EMS coverage has been supplemented by Ambulance 782 (primary) and others as needed from RWJUH-SPUH EMS (or Rutgers EMS). Its dispatch is by MedCentral though it also contacts Franklin on Franklin's EMS channel.

Animal control and the construction code department joined the system in 2005 and went digital in August 2006. Health Department joined in August 2006. Public Works began using it in the first quarter of 2006, though it still operates partially on high-band. The Department of Fire Prevention had access to it in the second quarter of 2006, but didn't start using it in earnest until they went digital in August (Township Main Analog is still their F-2). Below are the system's talkgroups, I'll format them into a cleaner table once the changes slow down, but until then this format is easier to update. An "a" following the talkgroup identification denotes analog usage; a "d" denotes digital; an "e" denoted encrypted digital.

Green Brook Township

The Green Brook Police Department is dispatched on a VHF-high repeater.

Green Brook Fire-EMS operates on a VHF-high repeater. Tests are performed daily at 1900.

The Green Brook Rescue Squad shares the repeater with the GBFD. Daytime EMS coverage has switched to Somerset Medical Center EMS from the North Plainfield Fire Department; listen for County to dispatch units on JEMS 1 and the trunked system's EMS talkgroups.

Hillsborough Township

The Hillsborough Police Department is dispatched on a repeater by '841'.

Hillsborough's fire stations are dispatched on Fire-High by County and, including Station 48 when responding into Hillsborough, operate on a repeater. Of interest may be an FCC Notice of Violation against the Hillsborough Township Board of Fire Commissioners, concerning interference with Bridgewater-Raritan BOE's bus channel by one of the fire channel relays. The relay channels are not listed here because it is far more effective to monitor the fire channel itself.

EMS is provided by the Hillsborough Rescue Squad (volunteer) and the Hillsborough EMS Corporation (paid). Units are paged on JEMS 1 and dispatched on the police repeater. A VHF-high repeater is used for operations and internal coordination. Somerset ALS units also communicate with 841 on the police channel.

The high school bandwagon association used to have a license for 154.57 and 154.6; no record of it exists so it must have expired or otherwise been cancelled quite a while ago. It is possible they are still operating, license-free, on these MURS channels. Also try other MURS and business channels.

Manville Borough

The Manville Police Department is on a VHF-high repeater.

Manville fire is dispatched by county, usually off the Franklin tower (PL=100.0). The old dispatch channel is from when the borough handled it.

The Manville First Aid Squad is paged and operates on the old police dispatch channel. The squad licenses 155.2950, for county EMS tac.

The DPW has a channel which may also be used for talk-around channel by all services.

Millstone Borough

Millstone receives police services from the State Police, Troop B. NJSP operates on an 800 MHz analog Motorola trunked system.

Millstone is serviced by the Millstone Valley Fire Company. Look under the Franklin Township section on this page for more info on their communications.

Millstone is serviced by the East Millstone First Aid Squad; look under the Franklin Township section on this page for more info on their communications.

Montgomery Township

The Montgomery Police Department is self-dispatched on a high-band repeater.

The Montgomery fire companies are now dispatched primarily by Somerset County. 46 (and 53) are still on high-band but are expected to move to UHF trunked in the near future. 45 has already switched to the trunked system for routine operations and to the county's new UHF alerting channel for paging. 46 and 53 are sometimes dispatched by Mercer County for mutual aid; Mercer transmits 82.5 on 154.310. Station 46 may still use the old ops channel for fireground use, but all communication with dispatch is on fire-high.

Montgomery EMS is paged and dispatched on VHF-high.

The DPW shares the EMS channel. Montgomery school buses also use a VHF-High simplex channel. It is unknown if maintenance is here as well, and doubted that school securty is.

North Plainfield Borough

The North Plainfield Police Department is self-dispatched, now on the county's trunked radio system. The talkgroups which NPPD routinely uses (one analog and two digital) are on the left; see the Somerset County Trunked Radio System section for specifics needed to program the system, and see the Somerset County-wide Police section for additional talkgroups which they may use for mutual aid, coordination, etc.

The North Plainfield Fire Department (50-Fire) is dispatched by county on a repeater shared with Watchung. Alerting is on both the dispatch repeater and the county's new channel.

The North Plainfield Rescue Squad is still paged and dispatched by county on the former repeater. Daytime EMS is run by the fire department (Rescue-1 & Rescue-2), and responds into Green Brook.

Peapack-Gladstone Borough

The Peapack-Gladstone Police Department (Ocean units) is dispatched by county and apparently switched from the conventional repeater to the trunked system on Monday 9/18.

Peapack-Gladstone's emergency services are dispatched by county on the conventional repeater.

The DPW operates on a conventional repeater.

Raritan Borough

Raritan police are dispatched on a VHF-high repeater, and probably have ability on Sheriff-high for mutual aid.

The Raritan Fire Department is dispatched on Fire-high. Their old F-3, "borrowed" from Franklin, is no longer used for fireground / tactical communications; it has been removed from their radios. Their current tactical channel is F-16.

The Raritan Rescue Squad is alerted on Sheriff-high, and uses the county EMS tactical channel for talk-around.

Rocky Hill Borough

The NJSP Hamilton Station (Troop C) provides law enforcement for Rocky Hill. Rocky Hill also contracts with South Bound Brook for certain police services at certain times; seemingly mostly traffic enforcement during rush hour, though SBB units have been in RH at other times too.

The Rocky Hill Fire Department and First Aid Squad are both now dispatched primarily by county on 154.31/100.0. The squad may switch 2-way communications over to JEMS 1 depending upon the circumstances. Some fire radios still transmit the old PL of 82.5, which the county does monitor on the Neshanic tower but, in response, transmits 110.9. So if you want to be sure to catch everything, program 154.31 in at carrier squelch or three times with 82.5, 100.0, and 110.9. Also, Mercer County will directly dispatch Station 53 for mutual aid into Princeton; this is still done with a PL of 82.5, and Mercer will monitor this channel at least until apparatus or a chief signs on to one of the Mercer County channels.

Somerville Borough

The Somerville Police Department is dispatched on a repeater.

Somerville fire is dispatched on fire-high.

Somerville Rescue Squad is paged and operates on 155.31.

South Bound Brook Borough