NOVA SCOTIA RCMP
Last updated March 23, 2008

© 2008, MARITIMES SCANNING SITE, all rights reserved

Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Use of the RCMP crest above does not indicate that any material within this page is officially presented or sanctioned

H Division Ten Code

I live in an area served by the RCMP and this is the police service I know most about. In fact I grew up elsewhere in Canada in an RCMP area and had several boy scout leaders who were RCMP members and I also have had friends and relatives in the force.  I don't mind saying that I feel very positive about this famous Canadian institution!   Listening to them in various parts of the country over the past decades has only increased my respect for the duties and individual  responsibilities that even a constable in the force has.  Well, enough editorializing!!  Here's a link to their national site which will tell you more about the wide range of responsibilities.

The RCMP in Nova Scotia operates primarily on the 800 MHz Nova Scotia Trunked Mobile System.   Its communications on the trunk are all digital, and some of them are encrypted.   What this means is that you must have a digital scanner to hear them at all, and I understand that practically anything outside of day-to-day detachment communications is encrypted and therefore impossible for a scanner to decypher.  Moreover, much of the communications between the dispatchers and the police cruisers is now done by way of mobile data terminals and therefore in comparison with days gone by, there is much less to be heard.

Trunk Communications:    For information on the NSTMRS (the "TMR"), including sites and frequencies CLICK HERE.    I myself do not have a digital scanner and am not listing RCMP talkgroups; however it has been reported that many of their talkgroups are numbered in the range of 63000 and upward.   It is known that the RCMP in the Halifax area occasionally operate on a non-digital liaison talkgroup with the Halifax Regional Police, and it may be that there are similar liaison talkgroups for use with other municipal police forces.   Reports indicate that there are currently three district detachments of the RCMP in Nova Scotia, replacing the many smaller area detachments of the past.   These districts are Southwest, Halifax, and Northern (Northeast?).    The Halifax District Detachment is completely integrated with the Halifax Regional Police, and those interested should check the HRP page.   The other two district detachments are organized into local offices, still sometimes themselves incorrectly referred to as detachments.   Communications are on the TMR and overwhelmingly are organized into county-wide talkgroups.   For example in Southwest Nova District, there are talkgroups for each of the counties in the district.   Having said this, it is also true that in a few cases there are two or more talkgroups in any one county.

420 MHz Communications:   The RCMP is a national force that has an allocation of many frequencies in the 420 MHz UHF band.   Here is a link to the Eastern Ontario Frequency Directory's list of 420 MHz RCMP frequencies.  I have not monitored these frequencies but I do expect that they are in use in some way in our region.  I have been told that in other areas of Canada they are encrypted at least most of the time.

VHF Communications:    Prior to the changeover to the 800 MHz system at the end of 2000, the RCMP in Nova Scotia utilized an extensive VHF network, with most repeater outputs in the 155 MHz range.   It was at first assumed that the VHF network was dismantled and its frequencies given up.   This does not appear to be entirely true, as over the years since then, several of the repeaters have been heard on rare occasions with what appears to be auxiliary patrol communications ("Citizens on Patrol").   I last heard these communications on Halloween 2003.   It is now my assumption that all or much of the VHF network was left in place as some sort of backup to the trunk; however it is obvious that police cruisers no longer have VHF antennas.   The status of the VHF network is a bit of a mystery; however I am including extensive information in case it again becomes more active; perhaps in case of some major emergency.

Here are the frequencies used in the VHF network.  Before the early to mid eighties, there were only seven repeater channels, 1 to 7, along with two simplex channels, and there was no tone input.   It was relatively common to hear DX on the repeaters, e.g. communications from distant areas in the USA, during times of unusual propagation.  Later a CTCSS tone was added in order to prevent this.  There still would be interference around the province from time to time, especially if a cruiser happened to be in a relatively high location.  In the late eighties, a second set of channels was created by instituting a second tone, and a small number of entirely new channels were created using new frequencies; one of these being Channel 10.  In days gone by, Channel 5 was on 155.405 and Channel 6 was on 155.39 MHz (which were non-standard frequencies in the VHF channel plan)

Please note that where two different channels are listed for the same frequency pair, there is a difference in the CTCSS tone.  Tone A = 123 Hz, Tone B = 151.4 Hz

** It is unknown why the 155.73/154.86 pair (Channel 2) was not re-used with the second tone.  Note that Channel 12 is assigned to the second use of 155.97.

VHF Repeater Network (Historical information only....system not in use)

* The telecoms centre in Sydney was closed when the Cape Breton Regional Police took over jurisdiction throughout the Cape Breton Regional Municipality.   It may be likely that repeaters within the CBRM have been deactivated.

ORGANIZATIONAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE RCMP IN NOVA SCOTIA.  

Click here for the official current list of offices and detachments in Nova Scotia, at the RCMP website

This information should not be affected by the radio changeover and may be of interest to you.   A lot of this was gleaned from listening in over the years so it is likely as time goes on that parts of this may become incorrect, due to "no more scanning".  

The RCMP serves most of the land area of Nova Scotia.  Its operations make up H Division of the national force and its headquarters are on Oxford Street in Halifax.  That location is also the headquarters for the force throughout the Maritimes.  At one time H Division was divided into subdivisions; however the nomenclature seems to be changing.  For scannists all that matters is that, outside of specialized duties, the force is divided into local detachments.  There are three dispatch centres or telecommunications centres (often referred to as "telecoms"), each with its own call sign.  These are Halifax (XJE416), Yarmouth (???961) and Truro (XJE82). A fourth centre in Sydney was discontinued when the suburban areas around Sydney were taken over by the Cape Breton Regional Police, and the remaining parts of Cape Breton Island are now dispatched from Halifax. These centres generally identify themselves by the numerical part of the call sign only.  I have never heard a local detachment office use its official call sign.  In most cases each detachment had its own frequency under supervision of its telecoms centre, and this continues with the trunk system, except that in some cases several offices are now on one talk group instead of one frequency. The remainder of this information pertains to the pre-trunk era and now may be completely out of date.  When a local unit called for the dispatch centre, the dispatcher would often reply by naming the repeater, rather than the particular unit or the detachment in the area.  For example if a Chester car called for the dispatcher, the dispatcher replied by saying something like "Sherwood - 416", as Sherwood was the location of the repeater for the Chester and Lunenburg area.  There were no data bursts identifying the calling unit to the dispatcher.  It was possible for any detachment (or car, or portable) to be linked to any other detachment area so that you could, in theory, hear any detachment on any repeater frequency.  This didn't happen all that often and therefore I am only listing the "home" frequencies here.  As far as everyday operations were concerned, the detachments communicated locally, but each officer could press a tone button to summon the telecoms operator (who doesn't otherwise listen to the channel) for help with enquiries.  On the other hand the telecoms centre often came up on the channel with assignments. This was because when people call for help (emergency or otherwise) their call more than likely is routed to the telecoms centre, rather than the local offices, which are often unmanned.   Each case or incident is called a "complaint".  In the more built-up areas the cars are equipped with mobile computer terminals and the telecoms operator only gives the barebones outline of the complaint before sending the details to the terminal of the accepting officer ("member").  Of course in fast-breaking incidents it is "over the air" even in these more advanced areas. 

Each detachment and other organizational unit in the province has a radio ID number, which in the case of marked vehicles also appears on the side of the car.   For example the number for the Tantallon office of the Halifax detachment is 40 [I have listed these ID's farther down this page].  Then there is a letter for the type of unit or assignment, then an individual car number.  The letters go like this:

  A   general uniformed duties in town contract detachments (not many in NS)

  B    general uniformed duties in other detachments (very common)

  C    highway patrol ("traffic") units

  D    plainclothes investigators

  E    special duties e.g. identification ("ident"), police dog service, community liaison, etc.

A typical police cruiser in Tantallon would be 40B4 and a highway patrol car could have been 40

The RCMP consistently uses the international phonetic standard which goes like this: Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, etc. etc.

Some detachments may have a highway patrol section, but in general the traffic services duties have been combined into regional units -- there are thought to be about six or seven of these units, including those for the South Shore, Annapolis Valley, Halifax area, Truro area, and possibly others for the Cumberland County and Northeast/Cape Breton areas.  It would be normal for the individual units to operate on the same channel as the general duty members in that same area.

These are the unit ID's as I knew (or "intelligently guessed" them in 1999, based on the obvious alphabetical order).  There have been some amalgamations or other changes since then. All numbers 60 and higher are new allocations since 1999.  Guesses are indicated by ??    Once again, please send me your corrections or amendments.  e-mail marscan@canada.com  Thanks!!

 Links to Nova Scotia RCMP sites: Antigonish Detachment,  Digby Detachment,
Kings Detachment , Cape Breton Regional, Lower Sackville office of the Halifax Detachment