New System in Ft Smith, AR (rebanding)?

[poppafred]

My Pro-197 is nothing short of sweet!

But I am not hearing Ft Smith PD or Fire on AWIN.

A check of the list of grants shows 4 freq granted in March 2009, classified as "YE". A glance at the service type chart at the FCC says "Public Safety/Special Emergency and Public Safety Ntl Plan, 806-817 / 851-862 MHz, Trunked (Rebanding)".

Does that mean Ft Smith is about to or has just installed a new rebanded trunking system and will be leaving or has left AWIN?

I guess I could plug in the frequencies and listen for a control channel. The locatioin is listed as Ft Chaffee so I should be able to hear it.

BTW, they are 859.7375, 854.875, 814.7375 & 809.2875 and the freq list for Sebastian lists a 5th of 855.7375 classed as service "GP" - "Public Safety/Special Emergency 806-817/851-862 MHz, Conv."

Any comments or hints here?

[poppafred]

859.7375 & 854.875 are quiet from Charleston, 25 miles east.

Wonder where Ft Smith has gone?

[bpckty1]

Try these:

Scanner Frequencies: Arkansas Wireless Information Network (AWIN) Trunking System, Statewide, Multi-State

1-001 1-1 Fort Smith Simulcast (Troop H)* 764.20625a 764.45625c 764.70625a 764.95625a 765.20625 765.45625 765.70625 765.95625 774.08125 774.33125 774.58125 774.83125 775.08125 775.33125

[poppafred]

Already have AWIN programmed into the Pro-197 and included all the Ft Smith control channels. Also have several others in the system in case I go mobile.

Regretfully, I am too far out to hear the Ft Smith towers directly and have to rely on the Waveland towers to get AWIN.

Does that mean Ft Smith only uses those local towers and those do not propagate through AWIN?

[btritch]

I'm not sure about ft. smith on that but I know Jonesboro is that way, Most of the time they can only be heard on the Jonesboro tower which is VERY WEAK in signal, I'm 24 miles north and can't hear the CC. However, Some nights they come over all of the towers, It's weird, My guess would be no, Just the ft. smith one but I'm not 100% sure on that... Just a though.

[jdink]

dont know if it helps i hear FT. smith on the mountainberg tower all the time from southwest wash co

[poppafred]

What talkgroups are you listening to?

The AWIN page lists 31201, 31203, 31205 for PD and 31261 for fire.

Have they changed?

[poppafred]

Folks,

Have you ever overlooked the obvious while looking for a miniscule problem? Couldn't see the forest for the trees?

While sitting here listening to the Pro-197, I noticed a "G" and an "A" on the display. Curiosity caused me to scoop up the manual and investigate. I knew that a "T" meant it was listening to a trunking system, that an "S" meant the squelch had been broken and a signal was coming through. You cannot imagine my disgust when I realized that "Global Attenuation" had been engaged and was "Active"! What in the world? I didn't set that! Then I realized that the previous owner (the scanner is a return) must have engaged global attenuation at some point before I bought the scanner and I didn't realize it until just a few minutes ago.

When I would download from the web, it just kept the global settings that were already set and it propagated through all the frequency lists I have downloaded. Seeing it every time I worked with the scanner, I was considering it normal and was ignoring it.

That has been corrected!

I am hearing a LOT of towers now! Even the towers in Ft Smith! Maybe, being Saturday night, I will hear some chatter from Ft Smith PD.

BUT....

I still am wondering what the new frequencies are going to be used for and will listen to them on occasion.

And I am still interested in those talk groups!

[poppafred]

My reception of area towers has greatly improved but I am still not hearing very much from Ft Smith PD and FD. When I do hear them, it is on the 700 MHz towers in Ft Smith, not on the outlying towers. Apparently, the control channels on the area towers refer any listening radio to the 700 MHz towers in the Ft Smith area and do not relay any audio through the 800 MHz systems.

Is this normal for AWIN or is this an abberation?

I have also dug out an old short mag-mount cell phone antenna and it works very well for listening to trunking. Too bad they are hard to find any more. If you see one at a ham fest or yard sale, grab it.

I have ordered an active antenna kit from Ramsey Electronics that offers a preamp and covers 20 MHz to 2000MHz (2 GHz). I am hoping it will allow me to monitor from indoors and not require connection to an external antenna to hear these systems. I've already taken one lightning hit and now I disconnect EVERYTHING when even small storms come through. Once bit, twice shy kinda thing, ya know? But relying on indoor antennas leaves me a little deaf on AWIN.

I also shortened my AWIN list in a different TSYS to just 3 towers (10 frequencies) and it has really sped things up a LOT. The full AWIN list is still programmed in but the short list is nice for listening at night.

No, I don't realy have a life. Just computers, ham radio and scanners!

:-)

[wrr20891]

Fred,
It is normal. AWIN only activates the towers that have a radio receiving that tower. It would make sense that most of Fort Smith PD and FD units would be receiving a close tower in town, therefore outlying towers would not activate to transmit. The radios automatically search for the strongest signal. If one of the radios was receiving an outlying tower stronger, the outlying tower would activate also.

[chrish04]

I have no problem hearing all the Fort Smith TG's on all the troop H towers. I hear FSPD and FSFD on the Waldron tower all the time. I have a Pro-96 so I cant trunk the new Fort Smith tower, but when I am in Fort Smith I can hear them on Cedarville and Mountainburg tower. And when I travel to Ozark or Clarksville I pick up Fort Smith TG's on the Cass, and Waveland tower. The TG's have not changed they are still the same