Is the Iowa State Patrol moving to RACOM?

Rumors are now swirling around the Iowa State Patrol and RACOM after some new information got “leaked” out to scanner hobbyists.

A RadioReference user (who has previously delivered reliable RACOM information) reports that the Iowa State Patrol has been spotted on the RACOM network from the Des Moines tower using talkgroup ID 399 talking about new radios. Another user also heard troopers discussing RACOM on ISP’s current P25 car-to-car channel.

This is certainly an interesting development, considering the Iowa Department of Public Safety is suffering some severe cutbacks from a tighter-than-expected state budget. While I am not as familiar with the State Patrol’s relatively antiquated VHF/UHF system, the state has of course been interested in deploying a statewide or regional radio network such as ARMER, ORION, or STARCOMM. RACOM has been mentioned previously as a ready-made statewide radio network that the state could easily utilize.

Could this just be a test drive of the system for ISP, or is this something that’s been in the works for years and State Patrol is finally beginning to flip all the switches?

Many agencies are already on the RACOM network, including Polk County, who was RACOM’s first-ever public safety agency client (RACOM was geared towards farmers needing regional communications until that point).