diff --git a/drb-c2-core/app/routers/upload.py b/drb-c2-core/app/routers/upload.py
index 7188881..cfedbdd 100644
--- a/drb-c2-core/app/routers/upload.py
+++ b/drb-c2-core/app/routers/upload.py
@@ -112,20 +112,66 @@ async def upload_call_audio(
 def _recent_incident_on_same_talkgroup(ctx: dict) -> bool:
     """
     True when one of the already-loaded recent incidents is running on this
-    call's own system + talkgroup. Covers the "unit dispatched on the dispatch
-    channel, thin acknowledgement 10-30s later" case: the ack carries no
-    substance of its own but plainly belongs to the job just opened.
+    call's own system + talkgroup AND was active within the last
+    `settings.tg_dispatch_thin_idle_minutes` minutes. Covers the "unit
+    dispatched on the dispatch channel, thin acknowledgement 10-30s later"
+    case: the ack carries no substance of its own but plainly belongs to the
+    job just opened.
+
+    That window intentionally reuses `tg_dispatch_thin_idle_minutes` (5 min)
+    rather than inventing a new constant — it's the same recency bound the
+    fast/thin path already uses for this exact "dispatch, thin ack" scenario
+    (see its tuning note above in config.py), so both places agree on what
+    "just happened on this channel" means.
+
+    This used to be a plain "does any recent incident exist on this
+    talkgroup" check against a 2-hour window (`correlation_window_hours`).
+    Measured live in production (server-26#115, CORRELATION_REVIEW_0912.md,
+    window #3): on a busy dispatch channel producing 3-13 incidents per 2h,
+    that condition is satisfied almost unconditionally, so the surrounding
+    LLM-orphan gate never fired on exactly the channels it exists to
+    protect (0/24 target-shaped calls gated in a 4h window). The docstring's
+    own intent was always "10-30 seconds", not "hours" — a few minutes is
+    the right shape.
 
     Reads ctx["recent"] — the same window-filtered candidate list the rules
     engine already loaded — so this adds no Firestore read.
+
+    Known limitation (server-26#115): ctx["recent"] is derived from
+    `all_active` in `_build_context` — incidents with `status=="active"`
+    for the call's org, with over-capacity incidents already dropped by
+    `_drop_capped` — not a full scan of the `incidents` collection. A
+    same-talkgroup incident that has already auto-resolved (no longer
+    "active") or hit `incident_max_calls`/`incident_max_duration_minutes`
+    will NOT appear here even though it is chronologically recent. This is
+    the confirmed explanation for 2/24 gate misses in the window #3
+    measurement where a naive full-collection timestamp scan found no
+    same-talkgroup candidate either once status/capacity are accounted for
+    — i.e. the check here was already correct for those two calls; some
+    other `_call_is_substanceless` condition (severity/substance/type) must
+    have been true instead. A proper fix for the truncation case (an
+    incident that WAS same-talkgroup-recent by clock time but is invisible
+    here because it resolved or capped) needs a dedicated Firestore query
+    that is not status/capacity filtered — a new read, out of scope for
+    this pass.
+    # TODO(server-26#115): add a talkgroup-scoped incident lookup (any
+    # status, no capacity filter) if this escape hatch ever needs to see
+    # resolved/capped incidents rather than just the active candidate pool.
     """
+    from app.internal.incident_correlator import _idle_gate_minutes
+
     tg_id = ctx.get("talkgroup_id")
     system_id = ctx.get("system_id")
     if tg_id is None or not system_id:
         return False
     tg_str = str(tg_id)
+    now = ctx.get("now") or datetime.now(timezone.utc)
     for inc in ctx.get("recent") or []:
-        if system_id in (inc.get("system_ids") or []) and tg_str in (inc.get("talkgroup_ids") or []):
+        if system_id not in (inc.get("system_ids") or []):
+            continue
+        if tg_str not in (inc.get("talkgroup_ids") or []):
+            continue
+        if _idle_gate_minutes(inc, now) <= settings.tg_dispatch_thin_idle_minutes:
             return True
     return False
 
diff --git a/drb-c2-core/tests/test_consensus_gate.py b/drb-c2-core/tests/test_consensus_gate.py
index d3483a5..3c089ac 100644
--- a/drb-c2-core/tests/test_consensus_gate.py
+++ b/drb-c2-core/tests/test_consensus_gate.py
@@ -156,10 +156,12 @@ async def test_recent_incident_on_same_talkgroup_is_not_gated():
     ctx = {
         "system_id": "sys-1",
         "talkgroup_id": 9048,
+        "now": NOW,
         "recent": [{
             "incident_id": "inc-live",
             "system_ids": ["sys-1"],
             "talkgroup_ids": ["9048"],
+            "updated_at": (NOW - timedelta(minutes=1)).isoformat(),
         }],
     }
     m_apply, m_tiebreak = await _run_consensus(
@@ -168,6 +170,57 @@ async def test_recent_incident_on_same_talkgroup_is_not_gated():
     m_tiebreak.assert_called_once()
 
 
+# server-26#115 window #3 (CORRELATION_REVIEW_0912.md): the escape hatch used
+# to treat ANY same-talkgroup incident inside the 2h correlation_window_hours
+# as "recent", which on a busy dispatch channel (3-13 incidents/2h) was
+# satisfied almost unconditionally — the gate fired 0/24 times against its own
+# target shape. It now only counts an incident as recent within
+# settings.tg_dispatch_thin_idle_minutes (5 min) — the same bound the
+# fast/thin path uses for the "dispatch, thin ack" case this escape hatch is
+# actually for.
+
+async def test_recent_same_tg_incident_inside_new_short_window_still_escapes_gate():
+    ctx = {
+        "system_id": "sys-1",
+        "talkgroup_id": 9048,
+        "now": NOW,
+        "recent": [{
+            "incident_id": "inc-live",
+            "system_ids": ["sys-1"],
+            "talkgroup_ids": ["9048"],
+            # 3 min ago — inside tg_dispatch_thin_idle_minutes (5).
+            "updated_at": (NOW - timedelta(minutes=3)).isoformat(),
+        }],
+    }
+    m_apply, m_tiebreak = await _run_consensus(
+        _preview("new", {}, ctx=ctx), _llm("orphan"),
+    )
+    m_tiebreak.assert_called_once()
+
+
+async def test_recent_same_tg_incident_older_than_short_window_now_gates():
+    # Regression test for the fix: this incident is well outside the new
+    # 5-minute window but still inside the OLD 2-hour correlation_window_hours
+    # lookback — before the fix this escaped the gate (tiebreak called);
+    # after the fix it no longer counts as "recent", so the gate fires.
+    ctx = {
+        "system_id": "sys-1",
+        "talkgroup_id": 9048,
+        "now": NOW,
+        "recent": [{
+            "incident_id": "inc-stale",
+            "system_ids": ["sys-1"],
+            "talkgroup_ids": ["9048"],
+            "updated_at": (NOW - timedelta(minutes=45)).isoformat(),
+        }],
+    }
+    m_apply, m_tiebreak = await _run_consensus(
+        _preview("new", {}, ctx=ctx), _llm("orphan"),
+    )
+    m_tiebreak.assert_not_called()
+    assert m_apply.call_args[0][0]["decision"]["action"] == "orphan"
+
+
 async def test_recent_incident_on_a_different_talkgroup_still_gates():
     ctx = {
         "system_id": "sys-1",