THE MARITIMES SCANNING SITE

SAINT JOHN, NEW BRUNSWICK PUBLIC SERVICE  & REFINERY COMMUNICATIONS
© 2008, MARITIMES SCANNING SITE, all rights reserved

Last Updated March 16, 2008

 Please e-mail updates to marscan1@canada.com

A. Some conventional public service frequencies:

Saint John Harbour Bridge Authority: 158.43 MHz
River Valley GSAR: 173.79 MHz
District 6 School Buses: Rptr outputs shown, all with input 456.3375.  451.3125 Saint John, 451.6875 Rothesay, 451.8875 Sussex.  Buses in Saint John itself District 8 have no radios.
Saint John Transit: 171.78 with input 172.5

B. Saint John Area public service Trunk system

It is reported that Saint John has two 800 MHz trunk systems.   The one described here is by far the more important, and relevant to the typical scanner listener.  See farther down the page for the system used by the Irving refinery.    

As of early 2008, the ambulance system of NB has been unified, and therefore any reference to ambulance usage of this trunk system is now obsolete, as all ambulances in NB now use the provincial VHF repeater system.

The Saint John trunk system is a Motorola Type IIi hybrid system with one site at Mayflower Lake (near the Regional Hospital).  This system is owned and operated by Bell Canada, with talkgroups and airtime being rented to the City of Saint John, to the local ambulance services, and to various commercial companies.  The latter group includes Parkway Mall security,  McAllister Mall, Prince Edward Mall, Brunswick Square, and Market Square, hospital security, Delivery companies and Towing companies.

This system is not thought to have any connection to the Nova Scotia Trunked Mobile Radio System even though it has the same owner/operator (unlike the Fredericton system, which is part of the NSTMRS)

The system is partitioned, with some frequencies available to all users, and some available only to the non-public safety users.

In 2006 it appeared to be that almost all communications of most interest to scanner listeners could be heard on this one frequency, according to a local listener.   I am not sure how this can be, but I assume that this is the primary voice channel, so that unless there are two conversations going on at once, this is the one that will be used.

Please note that channels 260, 270 and 280 are not part of this system as they are Industry Canada designated special use frequencies.  Same for 340 and 350, which may explain why this system has had to go outside Group 0 for additional frequencies (394 and 404).

Saint John Trunk System Talkgroups

Here is another list.  I will be amalgamating these lists ASAP

Fire nomenclature:  During on-scene communications the term "Fire" followed by a number indicates a person or non firetruck unit.  Fire 1 = Chief, Fire 2= Deputy FC, Fire 3= District Chief (Ops), Fire 4 = District Chief (Admin), Fire 5 = Training Division, Fire 6 = Training Supvr.

Radio Channelization
Channel numbers shown are those appearing on the indicated agency's radios.

Some channels are not allocated or not known.   Please note that channels 14 and 15 are the same for all three agencies, in order to facilitate inter-communications.

Saint John Emergency Services Conventional Frequencies:

There is supposedly also a South Repeater used by the Police and other services.. In the chart above the Police West and East frequencies may be incorrectly switched.

Please note that ambulance services remain primarily on VHF. They may be dispatched on the trunk but use 150.65 for operations. See the NB Ambulance page for information.

TRUNKED SYSTEM USED BY THE IRVING REFINERY

This information provided in April 2007 by a contributor in Saint John:

Pardon the format.  Will be fixed when time permits.