Maritimes Scanning Site
Nova Scotia Government
also including Mutual Assistance and Emergency Operations channels

Last updated February 12, 2008
© 2008, MARITIMES SCANNING SITE, all rights reserved

This is primarily an explanatory page.  Communications of provincial government departments and agencies are overwhelmingly on the Nova Scotia Trunked Mobile Radio System or "TMR".   This system is described separately, and therefore this page does not include any frequency information. To access this information, please go to the TMR information pages.

Most departments and agencies of the government will be of little or no interest to scanner listeners.   Likely the main ones of interest are:  DNR (Department of Natural Resources, which deals with forestry and with wildlife),  Justice, and Transportation.    These three and others are described below.   Provincial policing, hospitals and ambulance services are provided by other agencies and are not described on this page.  For information on these other agencies click here

A. Department of Natural Resources (DNR)

Wildlife Enforcement Radios

Wildlife Enforcement Officers are the equivalent of police officers for the purposes of wildlife legislation in Nova Scotia.  They carry sidearms and their vehicles (green with yellow accent) have lights and sirens.   Their communications are digital, and in some cases are encrypted, due to the sensitive nature of their operations.

There are thought to be 9 assigned talkgroups, three for each of the three regions.   What has evolved however is that W3 has become the generally-used talkgroup throughout the province, and is a sort of party line.   Following contact on W3 the units would pick, apparently randomly, another of the channels for the conversation.  In regard to tg id's these are mostly unknown.  There had been speculation that all 9 were in a series beginning with 7248, but with the discovery of 62756 that appears to be an incorrect assumption.

B. Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal (in radio circles this is often referred to as TPW or DOT)

Most listeners will be interested in DOT in the winter, when snowplowing is at its height.  It is a great way to find out what is going on with the weather!    Most everyday maintenance duties are handled by "sheds" that have assigned areas, and most talkgroups listed below relate to  these.   There is no central dispatch for DOT as most units are responsible to the supervisor in the local area.

C. Department of Justice

This is not intended to be a description of the Department.   "Justice"  does have authority over the provincial and municipal police services in the province, but in relationship to radio, this aspect is of no importance.   Primarily you will hear the Sheriff's department and the various correctional facilities on the air.    In Nova Scotia, the sheriff is primarily a prisoner transportation service, also providing for custody while in court buildings.  While most of the vehicles are prisoner transportation vans, there is at least one police cruiser type vehicle.

The talkgroups listed carry the designations listed when the TMR system was first instituted; however it would appear that there is now some lack of clarity regarding these designations. 

   Please note that the central correctional facility in Burnside is generally heard on what is assumed to be non-trunked Justice 1 (868.3125 MHz) for its day to day operations, and is rarely if ever heard on the TMR talkgroup listed above.  While that might normally be assumed to be a simplex frequency, there is a possibility that it is instead the output of a non-trunk repeater.

D. The Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board

Within the jurisdiction of this board is the regulation of motor carriers (buses).   Occasionally the 10 bus inspectors for the province may be heard.  I do not have full talkgroup information; however it may be that only one talkgroup (41296) is in use.  Buses and vans are inspected twice yearly and may be stopped on the road at any time for an impromptu check. These inspectors do drive marked cars, and identify as MC followed by a number.

E. Vehicle Compliance

This function is actually part of the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal, but is run separately from the highway maintenance and ferry system.   Vehicle Compliance is under the Road Transport division.   It operates 5 scale houses, and has well has a number of truck safety and weight inspectors on the road.  These officers identify usually as RT followed by a number, but have been heard using VC as well.    They drive vehicles equipped with red and blue lights, and perhaps with sirens as well.   These vehicles, which can be either a pickup truck or a police-cruiser-like car are gray in colour.

F. Emergency Management Office/GSAR

I expect to add information on this agency soon.  NS EMO has its headquarters in Dartmouth, with field offices in Kentville, Truro and Sydney.  EMO operates on the TMR, using EMO Alert and EMO Working talkgroups, as well as the EO talkgroups and others as necessary.  Please note that there are also municipal EMO departments that would also be found on all or most of the same talkgroups.     In the following chart, the EMO groups are for the use of EMO organizations, whereas the Emergency Operations talkgroups are also used by other players in emergency situations including fire departments.   EMO and EO groups are regionalized and normally any particular organization, other than provincial ones, would have only the tg's for its own region plus any province-wide ones.  Please note that the provincial and local EMO organizations may also have access to legacy VHF and UHF radio systems.   Also be aware that GSAR, ground search and rescue, is not part of EMO and although there is a provincial coordination body, GSAR teams are locally-run.  They do operate on the TMR on dedicated and liaison talkgroups listed below.  Note that they work very closely with, and to some extent under the supervision of, the RCMP or local police amd cooperate closely with the DNR.

H.  Hazardous Materials

At this time (Feb 08) I am unsure which government department is responsible for response to environmental spills and other serious situations.   Here are the talkgroups associated with such situations.

H.  Mutual Assistance

Related to the preceding section, and indeed to all public service agencies in Nova Scotia are the Mutual Assistance talkgroups.   These groups, or most of them, are found in practically all fire, police, ambulance, DOT, DNR, and other public system.    They are available in may cases for direct communications between units belonging to different agencies.  In some cases they are accessed through the respective dispatch centres via patching.    The term "custody" refers to who is responsible for the use of the talkgroups, as permission is in theory required for their use, so as to keep them relatively unpolluted by overuse.

I. Other agencies

There are many other agencies of the Nova Scotia government but their radio operations are unknown.  One might expect provincial fisheries, agriculture, health inspectors and others to be on the air.