The History of Contra Costa County
Sheriff & Fire Communications
By Alan E. Nielsen Sr.
Communications Manager [Retired]
Contra Costa County Fire District,
Pleasant Hill, CA
© 2006 Alan E. Nielsen Sr.
Preface
My involvement in Contra Costa County Communications first
began in the middle of the 1950’s. I lived in the Camino Tassajara
Road area of Danville, CA with my parents and was attending high school. I had
an old A.M. “TRF” Radio Receiver that I found laying around the ranch where I
lived and I managed to get it working. At the high end of the dial I was able
to hear several police channels, which all seemed to be located in one spot.
Later I found out they were Marin County Sheriff on 1610 KHz, Contra Costa
County Sheriff and Alameda County Sheriff on 1658 KHz, San Mateo County and
South San Francisco on 1674 KHz and California Highway Patrol on 1690 KHz. If I
moved up the dial a little bit I could hear Kern County and Los Angeles County
Sheriff. Listening to police calls became a major hobby of mine and later, it
became my profession.
My earliest personal contact with Contra Costa County
Communications came in 1958 after I graduated high school and enrolled in a
two-year electronics program at Diablo Valley College. After my first day of
classes, I drove to
2130 Arnold
Industrial Highway in Martinez where
there was a
140-foot
self-supporting tower and a very strong signal from Contra Costa Sheriff
radio system on 1658 KHz. I waited until everyone around there went home and
drove up the road to the parking lot in front of the building. There was a
Deputy Sheriff, out in front having a cigarette and I introduced myself and
what I was looking for. He was the swing shift dispatcher/deputy and he invited
me in to see the building. Back then, they didn’t really bother to close the
gate or lock the building, as security did not seem to be a problem. The
dispatcher could go outside and still hear the radios in case a call came in or
a phone rang.
A few weeks later I was there during the day, and met
several of the radio technicians, Bill Goheen,
Blackie Lawrence, & Chet Hayden. I hung out there for a week or so and soon
was hired on a temporary basis to install radios in the new
Sheriff’s cars and
help install a new Local Government radio system. In October of 1959 I was
hired full time as a Sheriff’s Dispatcher and worked the graveyard shifts while
going to school.
After graduating DVC in Spring of 1961, my draft
classification was changed from 4A [going to school] to 1A [Available] Things
were a little hot around the world and a lot of my single friends were getting
drafted so I elected to take a four year leave of absence from my job and
enlist in the Navy.
After my tour of duty in the Navy, I returned to my Job as a
dispatcher and in June of 1966 I was promoted to Sheriff’s Communications
Technician and worked in the Radio Shop located at the same place as before but
now known as 50 Glacier Drive.
In January of 1972, I was promoted, and transferred to the
Contra Costa County Fire District as Communications Supervisor later re-titled
Communications Manger a position from which I retired from in January 1999.
In this document I will try to describe how a lot of the
systems came about. These are my personal recollections and most of the
narrative derives from my personal experience, observations or knowledge. I would
also like to acknowledge three very good friends and mentors. Captain George K.
Burton [deceased] retired Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Department, Captain
Alan R. Burton [deceased], retired, Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Department
and Battalion Chief Jack Hill, retired of the Contra Costa County Fire District
Alan E. Nielsen Sr.
The
Beginning
Early in the 1930’s, the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s
Department first installed radio receivers in five of their patrol cars. The
base transmitter was located at Berkeley Police and operated on the frequency
of 1630 KHz. The Federal Communications call sign was KSW and was used to send
dispatch messages to law enforcement patrol cars located in Alameda, Contra
Costa, Marin, and Solano Counties.
Although this system was one-way, and all messages for the
patrol cars had to be phoned to Berkeley for transmission the value of this was
to be able to contact patrol cars in the field. It was soon apparent that
Contra Costa County needed it own system.
In 1935,
Sheriff Johnny Miller,
hired and deputized
George
K. Burton, who had very good knowledge radio communications. He was given
the task of designing and installing a radio system for the Contra Costa County
Sheriff’s Department.
In 1937, the county obtained its own Federal Communications
Commission license. It licensed a frequency of 35.22 MHz A.M. running 100 watts
of power and to be located on the roof of the Court House in down town
Martinez. An antenna had been strung from the dome of the Court House to
another point. The power on the license was in proportion to the population of
the county which at that time was 100,000 thus the license granted was for 100
watts. The mobile frequency was also 35.22 MHz with 15 watts of power. This
system had very limited coverage so the Berkeley system was still used for
one-way calls to the patrol cars around the county.
On January 3, 1940, the Federal Communications Commission
issued the following license to Contra Costa County.
Call Sign
KQCE Base
Transmitter 1658 KHz using A3 [A.M.] Transmitter Link 500B 500 Watts of power.
Location at the foot of Pine Street Lat 38-03-10N & Long 122-12-25W. Mobile
Transmitters on 35.22 using A3 [A.M.] Units were to be Composite running 10
watts or 15 watts and Fred Link was to build a couple units to be known as Link
Model 15UBX.
The new Martinez location provided excellent one-way
coverage throughout the county. The patrol units could transmit back to the
Dispatcher in Martinez on a frequency of 35.22 MHz but that proved to be very
disappointing. In 1940, the county obtained an experimental FCC license for the
purpose of constructing a “repeater” station on the top of Mt Diablo located in
Central Contra Costa County. Mt Diablo had an elevation of about 3920 feet and
had very good countywide coverage. On February 5, 1940, the Federal
Communications Commission issued the following license to Contra Costa County.
Call Sign
W6XCD
Located on the Summit of Mt Diablo. Transmitter to be built by Fred Link and
model was a 551. It had 15 watts of power.
The frequencies to be experimented with included 134.36 KHz,
39.46 KHz, 39.54 KHz, and 39.14 KHz. The Fred M. Link Company was contracted
with to construct the repeater, which consisted of a Link Model 8UA super
heterodyne receiver, receiving on 35.22 MHz. A.M. and
a Link Model 15UPS transmitter, transmitting on a frequency of 39.40 MHz. A.M. The base 1658 kHz transmitter was replaced with a
500 watt Link A.M. Transmitter, moved to the waterfront area and connected to a
new self supporting radio tower. In 1944 the Federal Communications Commission
ordered the County off of the 39.46 MHz frequency and then on October 9, 1944
issued the following license to Contra Costa County. Call Sign
W6XCD Located on
the summit of Mt Diablo. Transmitter to be built by Fred Link and model was a
15FMR. It had 15 watts of power. The frequency was to be 116.150 MHz FM.
A second receiver on 35.22 MHz was installed on San Pablo
Ridge and the audio from this receiver was carried to the Martinez Dispatch
office on a gas company, telephone Line system.
The Dispatch
& Telephone consoles were installed at the County Court House in
downtown Martinez.
Many of the mobile units were built in house, using
materials from melted down slot machines confiscated by the Sheriff’s
Department. The housings were made by a foundry company in Emeryville and the
units were hand built. Eventually the Mobile system was changed to F.M. on
another low band frequency in the 43 MHz range then in the early 1950’s the
system was rebuilt again. Most of the mobile radios were then purchased from
the Link Radio Company.
When aviation band created in 1948, the repeater had to be
moved to 73.54 MHz FM where it remained until about 1961 when the Mt Diablo
site was shut down.
Early
Fire Communications
In 1947, the Federal Communications Commission established the Fire Service Radio Service. Up to that time, the only agencies that could apply and receive FCC licenses were Police or Law Enforcement agencies. Contra Costa County applied for and received several fire services licenses, which were assigned the frequency of 46.38 MHz.
In the early
1950’s all of the fire departments were districts and pretty much associated
with the county except for Antioch, El Cerrito, Pinole, Pittsburg and Richmond.
The City of Richmond Fire Department was assigned a frequency in the 33MHz
band, Pittsburg and Pinole Fire Departments had their own license on 46.38 MHz
Antioch and El Cerrito Fire Departments used their Police Radio systems.
Each fire district had it own dispatch operation and either
received calls directly at their station where, they had someone on duty, or
had a place away from the station to handle the incoming telephone calls. The
call taker could activate a siren to summon the volunteers or some other way to
summon their firefighters. In some cases there were firefighters on duty in the
station to respond.
Many of the fire units had a “Link” Radio model 2365
transceiver installed, which was a one-piece unit operating on either 6 volts
or 12 volts from the mobile unit. It had a speaker-handset mounted on the dash
of the unit. The antenna was about 54 inches and usually mounted on a spring
base on the side of the unit. Coverage was pretty good, unit to unit and unit
to base.
The Fire Agencies that were around in the early 50’s
included the following:
Antioch City Fire Department
Bay Point Fire Protection District (Port Chicago &
Clyde)
Bethel Island Fire Protection District
Brentwood Fire Protection District
Byron Fire Protection District
Central Fire Protection District [Walnut Creek]
Crockett-Carquinez Fire Protection
District
Danville Fire Protection District
Eastern Fire Protection District (Marsh Creek, San Ramon,
Moraga, Highland & Tassajara, unincorporated Antioch &
Pittsburg)
El Cerrito Fire Department
El Sobrante Fire Protection
District
Kensington Fire District
Lafayette Fire Protection District
Mt Diablo Fire Protection District
Oakley Fire Protection District
Orinda Fire Protection District
Pinole Fire Department
Pittsburg Fire Department
Richmond Fire Department
Rodeo Fire Protection District
San Pablo Fire Protection District
Major
Upgrade in the 1950’s
In the early 1950’s, the county did a major upgrade to its
radio communication systems. A new building was build at
2130 Arnold
Industrial Highway, near the Juvenile hall in the outskirts of Martinez. A
new
Link
Radio 1000C radio transmitter was purchased and installed at this location
and transmitted on 1658 KHz. A new concrete tower base was poured and the site
was readied for the relocation of the self-supporting transmitting tower from
the Martinez waterfront to this location. During the actual move, the system
was down for a few days and all calls to Contra Costa units were handled by Alameda
County Sheriff’s dispatch as both counties used the same 1658 KHz frequency.
The old
Link
Radio 500B transmitter, from the Martinez waterfront, was then moved to the
Arnold Industrial Highway location and became a standby providing redundancy to
the system
In the new system, the patrol cars transmitted back on a new
frequency of 155.01 MHz. There were three receivers
in the system to relay the signals back to the Dispatch Center, which became
known as “Control
One”. One of the receivers was located on Tank Farm Hill in the Pinole area
with the audio signal carried back to “Control One” over a telephone carrier
system owned by one of the pipeline companies. A second receiver was located on
Grizzly Peak located in the Berkeley hills. Its
received audio was carried to “Control One” via a 458 MHz.
point-to-point radio system using directional antennae. The main receiver for
155.01 MHz. was located near the summit of Mt Diablo.
It continued using the frequency of 73.54 MHz to carry the received audio
signals back to “Control One”. A military surplus multiplex system called an
AN/TRC system, which was capable of carrying 4 different receiver audio
signals, was used. The first audio channel carried the 155.01 MHZ. radio audio
for Contra Costa Sheriff, the second audio channel carried audio from a fire
frequency receiver installed on Mt Diablo to receive 46.38 MHz.
The third audio channel was not used and the fourth audio channel was connected
to an Alameda County receiver on 155.25 MHz. Alameda
County had the same equipment installed at their San Leandro dispatch center to
receive this audio from Mt Diablo.
Both Contra Costa County Sheriff and Alameda County Sheriff
were using 1658 KHz frequency to transmit to their patrol units and they were
able to monitor each other’s patrol units.
The 46.38 MHz fire receiver allowed fire units in the
county, which had a receiver, installed on 1658 KHz to communicate directly
with “Control One”.
In the 1950’s the county police agencies used the following
radio frequencies. Each agency on had one radio frequency to use.
Antioch 155.31 MHz.
Brentwood 155.31 MHz. Also used the Sheriff’s Channel
Concord 155.31 MHz.|
El Cerrito 155.31 MHz.
Kensington 155.31 MHz.
Martinez 155.31 MHz
Pinole 155.31 MHz. Also used the Sheriff’s Channel
Pittsburg 39.xx MHz.
Richmond 155.37 MHz.
San Pablo 155.31 MHz.
Walnut Creek 155.31 MHz.