Shelby County Project 25 TRS

[puzzleriddle]

I have pro96.com running.. but what next??.. does it operate like Unitrunker???

[Avery93]

Originally Posted by wwhitby

Which agencies in Shelby County are going to the system right off the bat? I figure the SO will, but is there anyone else?

According to this article, the SO will indeed be the first user of the system, followed by other law enforcement agencies and fire departments.

Originally Posted by puzzleriddle

I have pro96.com running.. but what next??.. does it operate like Unitrunker???

Pro96Com is much easier to use than Unitrunker. There are really only four steps to start decoding using either of your scanners, and they are outlined on Page 4 of the Pro96Com manual.

[codeplug]

P25 control channel on 155.1900.

Heard a P25 control channel on 155.1900 on Friday Dec. 28 at around 6:30 PM in Calhoun County North of Jacksonville.
Using a Pro-96 the screen readout only showed 96: and it was showing a flashing Dg off/on in the top right of the screen.
Either it was not broadcasting a System ID or I wasn't able to get one for some reason.
Signal was around 35-50 % on the control channel.

[jfarr318]

You did get part of the system ID. Most likely the signal is not strong enough at that distance to catch all the data. I am really surprised that you are hearing anything at all. The system is up and running and still in a testing phase with limited traffic. If everthing is good, cut over should be early 2013.

[Julian1]

I was in Bham early December and heard Vestavia on the Bham/JeffCo system. VPD and VFD analog mode.

[medic9351301]

could have been cullman city pd they are digital

[Avery93]

One thing I forgot to mention: The system likely uses extended or "multi-block" Trunked Signalling Blocks (TSBKs). This enables specific input frequencies to be defined over the control channel, which is necessary because there is no standard offset for the input frequencies like there is on 7/800 MHz.

Unfortunately, GRE/Radio Shack scanners do not fully support the extended TSBKs, which results in them not being able to display information like the WACN, RFSS, Site ID and possibly System ID. They will still decode the messages and send them out through the CC dump, so you can use Pro96Com to get this information. They will also track group and private calls on the system normally. I believe Uniden scanners fully support the extended TSBKs, but I'm not sure.


Puzzleriddle, did you ever get Pro96Com running on the system? If you need any more help let me know. It would be great if you could let it run on each of the control channels for a couple of hours, and then post the log files. That info will tell us a lot about the system.

[codeplug]

RR Forum Admin. Please consider making this thread a Sticky.
I re-posted my info here. I didn't realize there were two threads with similar info.

P-25 control channel found on 155.1900 on Friday Dec. 28 in Calhoun County North of Jacksonville.
Decoded the Shelby County P-25 control channel on 155.1900 on Thursday Jan.03, 2013 in Jacksonville, AL. - Calhoun County.
Using a Pro-96 to monitor the control channel the screen readout only showed 96: & Signal strength %.
The scanner did not show a system Id, tower Id or WACN.
Signal strength on the control channel in Jacksonville was about 60 +/- % in some areas.

Here is what found on decode today. See the attachments.
If everything checks out please submit the info to RRDB for the system update.
If someone can try and decode the other sites to see if the are active, the neighbor sites were shown on decode but the CC freq.'s were not listed.
Neighbor tower site Id no's may change, it almost appears that they are in Site Trunking mode for testing. Site 404 did not indicate site trunking.
There was no activity on the freq.'s, only the CC's & alt. CC's and neighbor sites broadcasting on decode.

There are two trunked licenses for this system.
Callsign: WPXF230 has Five tower sites listed, Columbiana, Birmingham, Montevallo, Chelsea, Vincent
^^This license has 25 output freq.'s, five freq.'s at each site. ^^
^^This license is scheduled to expire in March, 2013. FCC has sent a renewal reminder to the licensee.^^

Callsign: WQOT500 has Five tower sites listed, Columbiana, Alabaster, Montevallo, Harpersville, Chelsea
Unknown if they will merge all of the freq.’s & locations together or if they will be separate.

Shelby County First Responder Emergency Radio Network - Harris - P-25 VHF Trunked System
Callsign: WQOT500 - YW Trunked VHF - Five Site, Multi-Channel, Multi-Cast.
System ID: 296 - WACN was not shown on decode.
RFSS --- Site -------- Name ----------- County ------ Freq.'s - Output
1 (1) ----- 001 (1) --- Columbiana ---- Shelby ----- 155.692500 ----- 159.660000

2 (2) ----- 002 (2) --- Alabaster ------- Shelby ----- 152.900000 ------ 160.050000c

3 (3) ----- 003 (3) --- Montevallo ------ Shelby ----- 155.947500 ------ 154.785000

4 (4) ----- 004 (4) --- Harpersville ----- Shelby ----- 155.190000c -----155.415000a ------160.110000a

5 (5) ----- 005 (5) --- Chelsea ---------- Shelby ----- 155.542500

[Avery93]

Thank you codeplug! This gives us a good look at the inner workings of the system, but unfortunately it seems the radio techs haven't really "filled in" a number of parameters yet. The channel numbers listed for the neighboring sites all seem to be the default setting, and there is a lot missing from the basic system information.

Looking through the raw data, I can confirm that the system uses extended TSBKs; so those of you with GRE/RS scanners will not be able to see system information like the WACN, RFSS ID, Site ID and possibly the System ID without using Pro96Com.

I don't know why each site has it's own RFSS ID. I have never seen that done before, and it may just be for testing. All of the sites seem to be in wide-area trunking mode, and not site trunking, as they were all actively connected to site 404 while it was being monitored.

Since (so far) the system seems to be lining up perfectly with the WQOT500 license, I can't help but wonder what they will do about frequencies for the other four sites. Only the Harpersville site has more than two output/control channel frequencies licensed, and the Chelsea site only has one frequency licensed. With the amount of traffic this system will eventually have, I can't imagine it having less than three voice frequencies per site.

To the forum admin: I suggest merging my and codeplug's posts into the more recent thread, and then perhaps sticking that one instead of this one, as I feel the other one has much more useful information. Regardless, I think we should only have one active thread on this topic.

[Avery93]

Had a good band opening this morning and managed to get a solid decode on sites 202 and 505. I got a lot more information from these sites than what site 404 was providing the other day. I have attached the Pro96Com files, but here is most of the important stuff:

WACN: 92778

Confirmed site frequencies (CCs in bold):
101: 155.6925
202: 152.9000, 157.8300, 157.9800, 160.0500
303: 155.9475
404: 155.1900, 155.4150, 160.1100
505: 152.7200, 152.8100, 155.5425

So much for the system lining up with the WQOT500 (or any other...) license. I also looked through the database and it appears most Harris systems are setup so each site has it's own RFSS ID, so I guess its just a Harris thing. I don't know if it has any advantages/disadvantages.

As you can see, we still need someone to run Pro96Com on sites 101 and 303.

[puzzleriddle]

Originally Posted by Avery93

Had a good band opening this morning and managed to get a solid decode on sites 202 and 505. I got a lot more information from these sites than what site 404 was providing the other day. I have attached the Pro96Com files, but here is most of the important stuff:

WACN: 92778

Confirmed site frequencies (CCs in bold):
101: 155.6925
202: 152.9000, 157.8300, 157.9800, 160.0500
303: 155.9475
404: 155.1900, 155.4150, 160.1100
505: 152.7200, 152.8100, 155.5425

So much for the system lining up with the WQOT500 (or any other...) license. I also looked through the database and it appears most Harris systems are setup so each site has it's own RFSS ID, so I guess its just a Harris thing. I don't know if it has any advantages/disadvantages.

As you can see, we still need someone to run Pro96Com on sites 101 and 303.

Good info!.. no luck yet here but will keep on listening
Thanks!!!

[wwhitby]

I went up to Bessemer last weekend to visit with relatives, and on the way I picked up a talkgroup, 991. 991 is apparently being used by radio techs as they configure the system.

I was able to pick up four control channels in the Jemison area in Chilton County, but all four were very weak.

[medic9351301]

ok here is the latest info from my friend that works for the so

"Hey, on the new radio system...we are ready to go but they are waiting on radio training before turning it on. Not sure when that will happen."

also IT WILL NOT BE ENCRYPTED IT WILL BE IN THE CLEAR

[codeplug]

Shelby County First Responder Emergency Radio Network
Tower 404 Decode

Ran decode on the Shelby County System on Wed. 1-29-2013 from Jacksonville, AL.
Control Channel was 155.1900 but was not showing up on the system activity screen during decode and was not being broadcast in the dump file.
No new freq.'s found, neighbor sites still broadcasting on towers 101, 202, 303, 505.
Have two screen shots of the system bus was unable to get them uploaded because of the files size..

Found one active Talk Group for this system:
Someone was doing two tone pager testing over & over again.
TG: 990, Hits: 165

[puzzleriddle]

any more updates on thi system.. been 2 months... I am unable to pick up from my location

[medic9351301]

puzzle as far as i know nothing has changed. it might be a case of your location. it's like digital tv signals.
either you have it or you don't. not like the old days. perfect examples for me are cullman county stuff.
used to hear them soooooooooooooooooooo good when they were analog.

nothing since they have jumped to p-25 nothing herd same as for cullman ems, cullman city pd and hanceville pd.

we are going to have to learn our limits with this digital and encrypted stuff.

[puzzleriddle]

your prob right... was just seeing if the system had "gone live " yet

[Steve]

Don't know about the TRS but I still heard the SO on VHF analog (when I can).

[codeplug]

Shelby County P25 TRS.

This License has been renewed for Shelby County. Call Sign: WPXF230
ULS License - Public Safety Pool, Trunked License - WPXF230 - SHELBY, COUNTY OF
The Emission designator shows that they are narrow band analog, 11K2F3E.
An administrative update was done but the frequencies and emission have not changed.
If the freq.’s have not changed since the last update then they are using several unlicensed freq.’s on this system under Call Sign: WQOT500.
Two of Site 202’s freq.’s appear to be unlicensed.
Two of Site 505’s freq.’s appear to be unlicensed.

[codeplug]

Shelby County First Responder Emergency Radio Network

Shelby County Tower Site 404 is now using control channel freq. 160.1100.
The control channel has changed from 155.1900 to 160.1100.
No site or traffic activity on decode other than the control channel broadcasting.
No new freq.'s found, neighbor sites still broadcasting on towers 101, 202, 303, 505.
Not sure why but the tower site ID was not showing up on decode, but it did show up on the other control channel..

MultiPacket - SysID: 296 Type: 3B (Network Status Broadcast) - Follow Count: 1
MultiPacket - SysID: 296 Type: 3A (RFSS Status Broadcast) - Follow Count: 1