County went digital

[Gumerk]

So, my county in Mississippi "Lauderdale" has switched over to digital. Will I still be able to listen to law enforcement in my county if I buy a digital scanner or will they all be encrypted or something, making the hobby useless here? Thanks

[milf]

If Lauderdale County goes to an P-25 format, such as joining MSWIN, and does not encrypt then yes. But this now opens the door for this: We now need confirmation that LC has gone digital. We have not recieved ANY submissions stating thus, and there is NO FCC data showing ANY digital format, be it P-25, TRBO, or NXDN/iDAS. Anyone that can confirm Lauderdale County/City of Meridian has indeed gone MSWIN, or any other digital format, please do so.

[MississippiPI]

I spoke with a man last week at Comm South that programs the radios for lauderdale as well as several more agencies around there and Lauderdale swithced to the MOTBRO or whatever it's called..


Be safe

[Avery93]

See this post. The county is leasing radios on the CommSouth MotoTRBO trunking system, and the city of Meridian has (or are building out) their own system of the same type. Unfortunately, current scanners can't monitor MotoTRBO systems.

[Gumerk]

Oh man, this isn't good news at all. I just started to really pursue this hobby and now it looks like I wont be listening to the scanner for my county anytime soon. Well, thanks for the info

[milf]

Asl long as they are NOT running Enhanced Encryption, you can monitor TRBO using DSD software and iether a tapped scanner, or one of the newer scanners vias the data port, which is a direct feed from the tap point.

[Avery93]

Originally Posted by milf

Asl long as they are NOT running Enhanced Encryption, you can monitor TRBO using DSD software and iether a tapped scanner, or one of the newer scanners vias the data port, which is a direct feed from the tap point.

It is not possible to monitor a system that uses Enhanced OR Basic privacy (encryption). Also, as far as I know DSD doesn't have the capability of using a second receiver to monitor the control channel, so all of the voice channels would have to be scanned conventionally. This would make it very difficult to follow traffic on a system like CommSouth's, which is presumably quite busy.

[KE5TLF]

Exactly. There is nothing that can track TRBO trunking.

Since you have to use a computer anyway, just drop 20 bucks on a DVB-T dongle, and save the trouble of, and possible risk to, hacking up a realatively expensive scanner.

Don't know who "we" are, but this was in the news a year ago, almost to the day, and discussed here a few times as well since then. (iow confirmed long ago)

[KE5TLF]

You know these private comms companies aren't just trashing LTR service and altogether switching to TRBO(or IDAS) only. They still operate both types simultaneously in many cases, though I've no recent experience with Comsouth (Meridian). This is very much how it is with some of the Telecom/Hurricane/Team One commercial radio systems near me though.

That is/was quite possibly still valid information you just completely wiped out...

[milf]

OK so another new type of system to add. We just got the combo NXDN/LTR in the db types a couple of weeks ago after a confirmation that it was being used that way vias DSD and a PSR series scanner using the data jack. (Love that the new scanners have a direct TP jack you can just plug into.) If anyone can submit confirmation of an LTR/TRBO hybrid, we can add that also. We is the whole admin team. There have been no submissions about Lauderdale County going digital. As for scanning the forums, for over a year, I was homeless and had very little access to computers with enough time to get anything done. Now that I am in housing, and have more access to computers, including my own laptop *once I send the non compatable HD back and replace it with the right HD that is*..... I can keep getting things updated, and maybe actually get caught up again. If confirmation was submitted by that lovely little SUBMIT INFO tab then not only would the local admins see it, the globals would also, and it would be at least a notation already. Sometimes it seems like only a couple of us actually try to read the forums and find tidbits. Even I do not have the time to go back a year in the forums for the 4 states I mod/admin to search for things. As it is right now, until I get my laptop up and running again, it takes over an hour to do an admin function, and ten minutes to reply on forum using this dino PC we have in the office. (256 MB RAM, 50 GB HD, HP Pavillion MX70.... Still working somehow)

[KE5TLF]

LOL Yikes think that may predate dinosaurs.

Takes all of 10 seconds(maybe 30 on the dino):
To click "Search this Forum" and type in Lauderale +enter.

Don't think I memorize all this stuff, I just use the same tools available to all to refresh my memory.

Also Google (Bing/Yahoo/whatever) "Lauderdale MS digital radio". Brings up the aforementioned news stories also within a matter of seconds, (maybe a bit more for dino) Point being, the change going on with this particular situatioin is pretty easy to find info on, as opposed to some others.

Not real sure about the hybrid thing, just that from my local observations the LTR stuff remains pretty much unchanged, and that if any digital alternative is added then that involves either other previously licensed but idle freqs, or newly added ones. After all why in the world would they completely disrupt their likely long time LTR customers by completely abandoning it. These networks span some large areas, with customers that also traverse those areas, especially in Comsouth's case.

As far as any confirmation goes, you know as well as I do that people with the skills or access to document stuff this far off the beaten path are far and few in between.

Anyone in the area willing to take a whack at it though, start with loading all the freqs from this license:
WPPU723 (COMMERCIAL COMMUNICATIONS LLC) FCC Callsign Details
and listen for TRBO digital noise on them. It will be obvious once you hear it a few times.

For the LTR side of things, if it remains unchanged, as I suspect it does, 452.0875 should be the home channel with a LCN of 9. Park on it for a minute or two, and listen for the momentary LTR data bursts or actual voice traffic on it.

Most every scanner also has a wonderful, and powerful, search feature that most seem to overlook, but shouldn't.

BTW, all that info you deleted was confirmed personally by me while I was there for the air show in 2011. Probably the last time is was looked at by anyone too.

[Avery93]

Originally Posted by milf

OK so another new type of system to add. We just got the combo NXDN/LTR in the db types a couple of weeks ago after a confirmation that it was being used that way vias DSD and a PSR series scanner using the data jack. (Love that the new scanners have a direct TP jack you can just plug into.) If anyone can submit confirmation of an LTR/TRBO hybrid, we can add that also...

While IDAS trunking (and NEXEDGE trunking in certain configurations) operates similar to LTR; they are very different, incompatible technologies. MotoTRBO Capacity Plus also operates vaguely similar to LTR, but once again they are two entirely different, incompatible systems. In other words, there is no such thing as a "hybrid" NXDN/LTR or MotoTRBO/LTR system. It is likely that the one "system" you are talking about is actually two separate systems, perhaps ran in parallel by the same company/agency.

FWIW, the few LTR systems in my reception range were apparently replaced completely by MotoTRBO Connect Plus systems, operating on the same frequencies.

[MississippiPI]

The radio tech at Commsouth told me that they webt to that system..That's my story and I'm sticking to it...


Be safe