PSR-500/600 on VHF P25

[Unitrunker]

I've found a quirk in the PSR-500's firmware when decoding a VHF P25 system.

Normally - when you can enter a control channel frequency in Tune mode, the radio displays essential site information like WACN, SysID, RFSS and site number. On a VHF control channel, I only get the NAC. The other fields are blank.

The control channel messaging is different for VHF. Near as I can tell, the radio does not understand the following "extended" messages.

Originally Posted by Parker County, TX P25 system

37 FD 00 00 11 A7 81 3A 00 00 BF B8 RFSS Status Broadcast (Extended) Sys 1A7 Site 01-01 TX 0-55C RX 0-F74 Class 60
01 01 05 5C 0F 74 60 00 AB DF 0D 2C

37 FD 00 00 01 A7 81 3B 00 00 92 0C Network Status Broadcast (Extended) WACN BEE00 Sys 1A7 TX 0-55C RX 0-F74 Class 60
BE E0 00 05 5C 0F 74 60 55 B8 38 AD

As an RR DB admin, I find the Tune mode display very useful. It would be nice for the PSR-500/600 to support VHF systems too.

I assume the PRO-106 and PRO-197 behave the same.

[semo]

Tune mode shows sysid and other info on some of the new MOSWIN (Missouri Statewide) Vhf P25 sites on both my PSR500 and Pro106. Some sites show this info some don't, its about 50/50 right now. I assumed its in the sites setup as some of the sites that show sysid at one time did not. When I run Pro96com on the control channel I get the info for sites that tune mode doesnt show.

[redhelmet13]

Same on the 197... It doesnt display multiblock info. It will spit out the multiblock control packets but it does not understand what they are...

[semo]

For me some Vhf p25 sites show:

37 FD 00 00 01 CE 81 3B 00 00 23 AC 07/08 11:30:24 Multi-Block Network Status Broadcast 1 - SysID: 1CE Follow: 1
BE E0 00 5A BF 5C D2 60 B9 F0 0D 1B 07/08 11:30:24 Multi-Block Network Status Broadcast 2 - WACN: BEE00 Control tx: 5-2751(156.18000) Control rx: 5-3282(158.83500) Cap: Voice,Registration

=no info on a GRE or PSR

other sites on the same system show:

E7 70 75 67 07/08 11:35:29 Network Status Broadcast - WACN: BEE00 Control: 5-2023(152.54000) Cap: Data,Voice,Registration
3A 00 00 11 CE 03 07 57 E7 70 E4 3F 07/08 11:35:29 RFSS Status Broadcast - SysID: 1CE Status: Connected Zone: 3 Site: 7 Control: 5-2023(152.54000) Cap: Data,Voice,Registration

= info on a GRE or PSR

[redhelmet13]

Like I said, it will spit out the packets, the radio does not understand them... Pro96com can decode and interpret the packets and display the meaning of them.

[gewecke]

I suppose I should be glad I don't have any P25 on VHF around here, other than TSA

73,
n9zas

[Jay911]

I've never been able to get my PSR-500 to display or dump anything in tune mode. Has to be in analyze mode from within a TSYS.

I have a VHF P25 system not too far away and I don't think it sends any extended TSBKs, just regular "single block" messages. It's very idle, so it may still be in test/build state.

I did monitor a VHF P25 system last year with multi-block messages. Would looking at those logs give you any more insight or do you have all you need at this point (to determine GRE has a flaw)?

[Unitrunker]

The TSBKs above came from the radio's CC dump so it is certainly able to decode extended messages. As others have said, it just ignores them.

[IrvingtonVFD43]

Originally Posted by semo

Tune mode shows sysid and other info on some of the new MOSWIN (Missouri Statewide) Vhf P25 sites on both my PSR500 and Pro106. Some sites show this info some don't, its about 50/50 right now. I assumed its in the sites setup as some of the sites that show sysid at one time did not. When I run Pro96com on the control channel I get the info for sites that tune mode doesnt show.

Nebraska SRS is the same way on my Pro106. So far I have not seen any site info except for the NAC on the sites near me. The statewide system is largely complete, but I don't know if any additonal tower information is going to show up in my Pro 106 the future.

[datainmotion]

Originally Posted by Jay911

I've never been able to get my PSR-500 to display or dump anything in tune mode. Has to be in analyze mode from within a TSYS.

Jay - do you mean on VHF P25 or any P25? My PSR-500 and Pro-197 won't show any P25 info in tune mode at all. Wondering what I'm doing wrong?

[Jay911]

Originally Posted by datainmotion

Jay - do you mean on VHF P25 or any P25? My PSR-500 and Pro-197 won't show any P25 info in tune mode at all. Wondering what I'm doing wrong?

I've never been able to get any P25 info on-screen in tune mode regardless of the band. Perhaps it sends the data out the PC/IF cable "behind the scenes" with no visual indication. I'll have to try that the next time I am in range of my local P25 system.

[DaveH]

I have two large VHF P25 systems nearby, Hydro-Quebec and RENIR
(both in Quebec). On H-Q, some sites report system/site info in Tune
mode on my PSR600C; no rhyme or reason why, as one non-reporting site is
100% (OK 99% ) decoding. On RENIR, no info is shown for any site.
The PSR600 front end on VHF is bad, which doesn't help. Sometimes I
can't get rid of interference with either the attenuator or a narrow BPF
(cavity), which seriously limits its usefulness on weaker sites, especially
with newer systems like RENIR with site channels spread virtually
from 140MHz to >170MHz in some cases.

Tune always shows system/site info for 800MHz systems (Gatineau)
and a UHF system.

I'll need to check f/w revision, that may have a bearing on this anomoly.

Dave

Note: getting Tune mode to display info is sometimes finicky. If the mode is FM,
it sometimes switches to "auto" and displays, but may be a delay. I try
to force it to "auto" (au) mode but sometimes requires coaxing. With weak
signals, it's even more tempermental, flipping back and forth. And, you need
to be in the right mode for Pro96Com to decode.

[mtindor]

Although it's hard to expect any firmware update to resolve this issue, I'm posting to bump this thread in case somebody at GRE wants to notice rofl.

If I didn't have UT / Pro96Com I'd be up a creek. Very tedious to sleuth new sites on the First Energy P25 TRS unless I have my laptop with me to get the site IDs of any new sites I find.

It has to be a simple enough fix. You guys have already determined what the scanner isn't doing but should be doing.

Mike

[DonS]

Originally Posted by Unitrunker

The TSBKs above came from the radio's CC dump

Not directly, they didn't. The "decoded text" at the end of all of those messages was not generated by the scanner.

For example, the bold text in the TSBKs quoted below was NOT generated by a GRE-made scanner:

37 FD 00 00 11 A7 81 3A 00 00 BF B8 RFSS Status Broadcast (Extended) Sys 1A7 Site 01-01 TX 0-55C RX 0-F74 Class 60
37 FD 00 00 01 CE 81 3B 00 00 23 AC 07/08 11:30:24 Multi-Block Network Status Broadcast 1 - SysID: 1CE Follow: 1
BE E0 00 5A BF 5C D2 60 B9 F0 0D 1B 07/08 11:30:24 Multi-Block Network Status Broadcast 2 - WACN: BEE00 Control tx: 5-2751(156.18000) Control rx: 5-3282(158.83500) Cap: Voice,Registration 

EDIT:

so it is certainly able to decode extended messages

It does receive the several parts of multi-block messages and dumps the 12-byte blocks to the serial port. However, it does not parse/decode anything that does not fit into a single 12-byte block.

[Jay911]

Originally Posted by DonS

It does receive the several parts of multi-block messages and dumps the 12-byte blocks to the serial port. However, it does not parse/decode anything that does not fit into a single 12-byte block.

Don, I think what you're saying here is the screen on the radio itself will not show decode results if it's receiving a multi-block message. Is that the reason we don't see decode rates, WACNs/sysids, etc., on some systems? I think that was the original question.

[DonS]

Correct. The radio itself will not display decode results for multi-block message - on the LCD, via PC/IF serial data, or elsewhere.