Bill's Nova Scotia Radio Site

MARITIME RADIO COMMUNICATIONS INITIATIVE

The future radio system of the Maritime Provinces

Last updated December 8, 2011

This is the planned tri-province radio system to be jointly owned by the provinces of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia.     As time goes on more and more information about this system is coming to light but as of late 2011 there are still knowledge gaps.   As with other large projects there are ongoing changes, and as well a level of confidentiality due to the bidding process for contractors.   Information on this page does NOT come from any government employee or contract worker but rather from a variety of sources such as on-line documents, speculation, and as well industry bidders who have been given access to system parameters.  

As of late 2011 it thought that that the MRCI will go into operation in 2014, at least in part.   It is not necessarily envisaged that all three provincial components will go into operation at the same time.    700 MHz frequencies have not yet been licenced.   It is thought that frequency allocation will be done by the radio engineering contractor once it is awarded the contract, and then submit to Industry Canada for approval.   It may be quite some time before we hear anything about the frequency plan.    

Essentially the MRCI, sometimes colloquially known as TMR2, is a system of 700 MHz trunked repeaters located throughout the three Maritime provinces.   Depending on province and on specific location there may be links to existing or future conventional repeaters and/or pagers that operate on VHF or on 400 MHz UHF.    It may be that these links would enable some of the existing networks to continue to operate for some time, yet be linked to the new system.   For example if it was deemed appropriate for the New Brunswick government systems to continue to operate they could exist side by side with the new system, at least temporarily.   It may be that some or all sites will have co-located VHF capability on the 700 MHz tower, and available to various public service users.

The inter-governmental body in charge of this system is called the Maritime Provinces Co.      This may not yet be actually in existence, but will be in the future.

It has come to be known that for Nova Scotia there will be a system of around 80 sites.    It is to be expected that the 25+ presently existing IMRS sites will be used, plus a combination of sites owned by other governmental entities, NS Power, and brand new sites.   It is thought that the existing TMR sites owned by Bell will not be used.

Due to the hilly nature of New Brunswick it is thought that they will have more than 100 sites, perhaps as many as 125.   The New Brunswick government already owns or uses a large number of sites for its conventional Natural Resources, EMO/GSS, Ambulance and Transportation networks plus others, and most many will become MRCI sites unless they are on each other's doorsteps.    A significant number of the existing provincial sites are actually Bell-owned, and it may be that these will continue to be used.

PEI is expected to have approximately 15 sites, which in itself is surprising for such a low-lying and small area.   

The timeline for the system to come on line varies with the province concerned, but it is now considered highly unlikely that this can happen prior to at least 2013.   A perusal of TAFL will show that the frequencies are not yet authorized unless of course this system has been placed on the protected list and will not be published. For those of you not aware of this, it is policy in Canada to not publish law enforcement frequencies.    This is why in TAFL you will not see the New Brunswick RCMP frequencies.   The present NS TMR is listed even though the RCMP use it because it is a Bell Aliant system.   A government-owned system might be treated differently by Industry Canada as far as publication is concerned.