Mobile City on Cnty Radio system.

[Slovitte]

Originally Posted by MFRD8539

The city has already completed its rebanding agreement with S/N. The county is very close. So, you can expect the switchover to commence soon.

I heard about 6 months! LOL insider joke.

[ScannerWayne]

LOL

Yeah.. All this was supposed to have taken place over a year ago.

Wayne...

[KE5TLF]

Finally took the opportunity to map out site 11 that apparently nobody but me has known about for all this time and entered in the DB. Got rid of all the other inactive stuff too. No idea how this site fits in the big picture though. The freqs are licensed for N McGregor but it is awrully strong here in Jackson County so they be simulcast on other towers as well.

Lots of unknowns in this system. Need all hands on deck to help ID some of this stuff.

Also found this
FCC Callsign WNZZ305 Details
The 2 freqs on this conventional license are sending ProVoice data only it seems.

[ScannerWayne]

Hey Mike,

Reference WNZZ305; When this system came online I made some inquerys about it. I was told that it was a system that the city put together to test Provoice. Much later another source told me that only a few city employees are currently using Provioce. I'm not at liberty to divulge that source, but I know he's reading this and perhaps he will make himself known to you and perhaps give some insight into the future use of this system.

Looking at the placement of the towers I have to wonder about the coverge it offers. Doesn't seem like it would be as large as the current system and nowhere near the coverage of the county system. So it makes sense that it would be a test bed.

Not long after the LUMSDENS BATTERY CIRCLE site came online I went out there. It's located in a wooded area that does not allow observation from the road. It's fenced in as you would expect and there are federal protection signs around it as well. The reason I went out there was because I'm familier with the area I didn't recall seeing any towers. I was right, you cannot see them from the road. Access can only be gained by going to the backside of a subdivision and locating a non-descript dirt road between two houses.

Now you know what I know about it.

Now I have a question. I looked over the data you posted and am wondering how come channels 1 thru 10 are blank? Do you suspect that the WNZZ305 channels are a continuation of another system? Which when considering the coverage problem inside buildings that digital transmissions have would make sense.

Wayne...

[KE5TLF]

I think I figured out that "site 11" is indeed a set of simulcast freqs. I got a decent signal from site 1 last night and the strength of the signal from it was more inline with the distance from me to N McGregor street. Need someone from north Mobile Co. or south Washingtion Co. to see if they can also hear that control channel. If they can then that would certainly confirm simulcast. The signal strength I'm seeing from site 11 is more inline with what I see from the Bayou la Batre site, which is closest to me.

As far as the LCN numbering goes I'm not sure of an explanation of that. I guess that maybe at some point in the future they could merge those freqs into other sites and use them all together with with one contol channel?

The WNZZ305 is a conventional license, not a trunking license, and it only has 2 freqs. at 3 sites on it. Now as to how they are being used I have no idea. I just know you can frequently hear what appears to be ProVoice noise on them.

WNUX634 is the license that contains all the freqs for sites 1 and 11.

[ScannerWayne]

Ok..

I knew there was something familier about site 11. I looked into my list of previously programmed systems and found site 11. Went and got my old logs from last year and there it was as well. And with what you talked about above I remember it now.

When this first came online I found it was indeed a simulcast of the city motorola system licensed to the county. I never said anything about it because it was a test system and the license expires in May of this year. It's one of those things that I've been keeping an eye on when I think about it <laugh>.

Wayne...

[KE5TLF]

Ah ok. Yeah it's been on the air quite a while. I've picked it up in searchs many times but never really looked at it in depth until here recently. As it is now I've seen activity from pretty much every area of the county and the city.

[MFRD8539]

WNZZ305 is the new simulcast system that will also include SpringHIll. In the end, 3-site, 24-channels. Y'all are getting good at this!

[mcems79]

WNZZ305 as MFRD 8539 said is the new 3 site similcast system...the tower locations are MC GREGOR RD BY EMA, LUMSDENS BATTERY CIRCLE BEHIND BURNS MIDDLE SCHOOL AND ON TOP OF THE GOVERMENT PLAZA BLDG IN DOWNTOWN MOBILE...when rebanding is done the springhill tower will be folded into this system....the other tower sites SARALAND, SALCO, CITRONELLE, MOWA, WILMER & BLB will act as stand alone sites but they will all be apart of the mobile metro 800mhz radio system

[ScannerWayne]

I looked over the entire system last night and after wrapping my mind <what mind I have (laugh)> around it reached pretty much the same as conclusion MCEMS79 voiced above.

It finally dawned on me that the City portion of the system will be the McGregor rd, Lumsdens Battery Circle and the Govt' Plaza towers. The mistake I was making was thinking that they would utilize the county's towers without adding their own towers. I even went so far several months back of making a new system for Mobile City utilizing the same county freqs, just seperating the talkgroups between the two entitys.

What I am going to have to do now is change the freqs in my city system to those shown for the three new sites. The talk groups that have so far been identified won't require changing. And these new freqs also suggest an answer to a mystery involving the city busses.

When the city busses changed over to the new system I had quickly id'ed them. However one of the channels, Talk One, disappeard one day. I made several efforts to find it again but up till now hadn't had any luck. I suspect that once I make the proper changes, I will find it again because for some reason it's not being simulcast on the county freqs. I'll update the message base once I get a chance to monitor the system.

Wayne...

[KE5TLF]

Talk One is definitely on "Site 11"

For the 3rd time WNZZ305 is a conventional license with only 2 channel pairs.

Looking at licenses for this thing makes my eyes bleed and my head hurt....

[ScannerWayne]

Laugh

Know what you mean...

Wayne...

Update...

Ok.. I built a system with three sites:
1 - McGregor
2 - Lumsdens Battery
3 - Gov't Plaza

I used the freqs from RR to populate the McGregor site. I used freqs from the FCC DB to populate the other two.
What I found was that there is no control channel being broadcast on the 5 freqs assigned to Lum and Gov't towers.
It's getting late and I have to turn in so more exploring will have to wait till tomorrow.

Wayne...

[KE5TLF]

I guess dusting off this thread is as good a place as any...

All 86x.xx freqs on site 11 have been rebanded (dropped 15 MHz) and are now recorded in the DB. WQID750 seems to be the license in use for these freqs. and the attachment to a pending application filed on 4/24/12 sheds a bit of light on much of the previous discussion on Site 11.

ULS License - WQID750 - ALABAMA, STATE OF

ULS Application - 0005177295 - ALABAMA, STATE OF

Attachment letter

[KE5TLF]

Found and logged a little from the MOWA/Mount Vernon site with some good ducting the last couple of nights. Of course it's yet another licensing boondoggle trying to figure it out though.

These two licenses directly apply, but only partially it seems.
WQPC353 (ALABAMA, STATE OF) FCC Callsign Details
WQPG308 (MOBILE, COUNTY OF) FCC Callsign Details

There are 9 channels in use, but out of all those freqs. I could only find 4 that were active. No idea what the other 5 are, or what license they may be pulled from.
02 851.9375 (control channel the last two nights)
03 852.4875
05 854.1125
09 854.4125
Site number is 18.
Neighbors are 3, 6, and 7

[KE5TLF]

Picked up on a major change to Site 11 now. Many new channels added. New freqs from licenses WQHC621 and WPPW333 it appears. Brains scrambled again over how they use select freqs from multiple licenses for this thing. All new info submitted to the DB.

Complete freq loadout here for the mean time, all confirmed. All blank channels are not used in the rotation as of right now.
01 0.0
02 0.0
03 0.0
04 0.0
05 0.0
06 854.6125
07 854.7375
08 855.6625
09 0.0
10 856.8875
11 856.4375d
12 857.4375d
13 858.4375d
14 851.4375d
15 852.4375d
16 852.9125
17 853.4375
18 853.9125
19 0.0
20 851.8500
21 853.8250d
22 853.5500
23 851.3500

[KE5TLF]

Site 18 now fully mapped out and submitted. All sites should soon be 100% correct once again.

Site 18, channel 6 is not used in the rotation.
01 851.4875
02 851.9375d
03 852.4875
04 851.9625
05 854.1125
06 0.0
07 854.0875
08 854.3125
09 854.4125

[BamaScan]

Mobile, Alabama Digital Radios are now in use. The Fire Department has been testing them. See here.

Mobile Firefighters Test New Technology | Mobile AL, Pensacola FL News, Weather, Sports | WPMI-TV | Local15TV.com

[garys]

Interesting. What system are the new radios operating on?

[MFRD8539]

800 Mhz EDACS ProVoice

[garys]

Originally Posted by MFRD8539

800 Mhz EDACS ProVoice

They're building a new EDACS system? I thought that technology was end of life and Harris was going to end support?