2012-MOSWIN-Missouri Statewide Interop Network-Sites/Talkgroups

[kruser]

Originally Posted by jayres

I'm pretty sure this is the antenna...

Interoperable Tactical Antennas | Sti-Co

I'll check that out. Your link looks much more like a conventional discone that will cover VHF and up unlike the AOR link and pictures that have been posted in this thread. The AOR discone is tiny in comparison to the Stico model and looks more like what is used by the military for High UHF and up. The small ones like the AOR do not work on VHF so now I'm confused!
Did the op really see the smaller discones in his travels or was it really a larger discone like the Stico.
The Stico model makes more sense being as most of MOSWIN is VHF.

The ops picture of the UHF discone is what made me think that maybe they had some type of UHF control link being as his picture is a UHF discone that would not work for VHF.

A discone like the Stico will have drooping radials about 30 inches long each and the top hat elements will be about 8 inches long each.
The AOR discone's drooping radials are under 6 inches in length each and the top hat driven elements are just over 3 inches each.
According to AOR, the entire discone is just one foot tall. That's a HUGE difference when compared to the Stico!

If the op (kpoe_28) sees this post, how tall were the discone's you saw about? If they looked more like 3 feet tall then they are going to be the Stico model as jayres said, if they are only about a foot tall then they will be more like the AOR model and would only be good for the upper UHF range. I doubt the state would use an AOR brand antenna also. I think you were just using that picture as an example but similar models from commercial vendors would be similar in size if they are indeed only about one foot tall. All the high UHF models I've seen also have more horizontal elements than a conventional discone has as can be seen in the AOR picture. That AOR model is pretty typical looking for a discone that has a low frequency of 700 MHz.

wbigcount, you commented also that the AOR model is the one, did you actually go and look or are you just reposting what kpoe_28 posted?

I'm just trying to figure this out as the Stico model and the AOR model are totally different in size and very easy to see the difference by eye alone, even from a distance!

I'll take a drive out to Weldon Spring and see what they have if it is visible but my money is on the Stico mainly from the fact that a high UHF discone does not make sense on a system that is almost all VHF.

[kpoe_28]

Originally Posted by kruser

I'll check that out. Your link looks much more like a conventional discone that will cover VHF and up unlike the AOR link and pictures that have been posted in this thread. The AOR discone is tiny in comparison to the Stico model and looks more like what is used by the military for High UHF and up. The small ones like the AOR do not work on VHF so now I'm confused!
Did the op really see the smaller discones in his travels or was it really a larger discone like the Stico.
The Stico model makes more sense being as most of MOSWIN is VHF.

The ops picture of the UHF discone is what made me think that maybe they had some type of UHF control link being as his picture is a UHF discone that would not work for VHF.

A discone like the Stico will have drooping radials about 30 inches long each and the top hat elements will be about 8 inches long each.
The AOR discone's drooping radials are under 6 inches in length each and the top hat driven elements are just over 3 inches each.
According to AOR, the entire discone is just one foot tall. That's a HUGE difference when compared to the Stico!

If the op (kpoe_28) sees this post, how tall were the discone's you saw about? If they looked more like 3 feet tall then they are going to be the Stico model as jayres said, if they are only about a foot tall then they will be more like the AOR model and would only be good for the upper UHF range. I doubt the state would use an AOR brand antenna also. I think you were just using that picture as an example but similar models from commercial vendors would be similar in size if they are indeed only about one foot tall. All the high UHF models I've seen also have more horizontal elements than a conventional discone has as can be seen in the AOR picture. That AOR model is pretty typical looking for a discone that has a low frequency of 700 MHz.

wbigcount, you commented also that the AOR model is the one, did you actually go and look or are you just reposting what kpoe_28 posted?

I'm just trying to figure this out as the Stico model and the AOR model are totally different in size and very easy to see the difference by eye alone, even from a distance!

I'll take a drive out to Weldon Spring and see what they have if it is visible but my money is on the Stico mainly from the fact that a high UHF discone does not make sense on a system that is almost all VHF.

They look just like the Stico Antenna,,,, If I had found that picture to compare to in the beginning, That would have been the one. I do know for sure thats what it is being used for MOSWIN base antenna....dispatcher told me himself.

[kpoe_28]

Sorry guys about the AOR antenna....But thats not what they are using. This is it, it's been confirmed by the dispatcher, Interoperable Tactical Antennas | Sti-Co

[wbigcount]

Thanks for the picture of the right antenna.

I was just going by the first picture, to me it looked just like the AOR antenna, I was way off.

Edit: Thant is an expensive antenna!

[kpoe_28]

Originally Posted by wbigcount

Thanks for the picture of the right antenna.

I was just going by the first picture, to me it looked just like the AOR antenna, I was way off.

Edit: Thant is an expensive antenna!

My God!!! Look at the price on that antenna. STI-CO Industries, Inc IOAK-TB-V/U/C 150-174/380-512/760-896MHz Antenna with Coupler | TESSCO

[kruser]

Originally Posted by kpoe_28

Sorry guys about the AOR antenna....But thats not what they are using. This is it, it's been confirmed by the dispatcher, Interoperable Tactical Antennas | Sti-Co

Quite alright! It's an easy mistake to make.

Originally Posted by kpoe_28

My God!!! Look at the price on that antenna. STI-CO Industries, Inc IOAK-TB-V/U/C 150-174/380-512/760-896MHz Antenna with Coupler | TESSCO

No wonder these new systems cost so darn much! There's no way a discone antenna should cost that much. I'd imagine the Stico models do meet some testing certifications that someone like a public safety organization or the government may require but still, over a grand for a simple discone is unreal.

[mgolden2]

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Since we now know what the antennas look like, does anyone have a picture of the inside of a Troopers car so we can see how the radios are set up?

[kruser]

Originally Posted by mgolden2

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Since we now know what the antennas look like, does anyone have a picture of the inside of a Troopers car so we can see how the radios are set up?

I had several troopers at my work today but I was too chicken to go out to the lot and snap photo's!
They will be back again soon though as we have several meetings scheduled with local and state law enforcment over the next few months for an upcoming golf tournament. I'll see if I can snap some pics during the next visit.

[WA0CBW]

Once you see a Stico discone you will know why they cost so much. The radials are made out of solid 1/2 and 3/8 inch aluminum rod. The hubs are solid machined aluminum. The splitter is a real machined cavity. All of the hardware is stainless steel. They are solidly built.
BB

[kruser]

Originally Posted by WA0CBW

Once you see a Stico discone you will know why they cost so much. The radials are made out of solid 1/2 and 3/8 inch aluminum rod. The hubs are solid machined aluminum. The splitter is a real machined cavity. All of the hardware is stainless steel. They are solidly built.
BB

Sounds like it is well built. I do have a spare discone (Icom I think) that does have solid elements. They are still smaller diameter though. Maybe 3/16th. It's built much better than the hollow tube radioshack model.
For the Stico splitter, is it just full of tuned bandpass filters that seperate out each band do you know?
I did not realize it came with the splitter so that alone explains a lot of the cost along with the construction you explained.
Good bandpass filtering can also add cost especially when those splitters can handle RF power. I've used single band bandpass filters before on my discone and it really did cut down on the out of band paging type crud and what not.
I use paging band notch filters these days though so I don't hold an wideband antenna to a single band.
I tried to find a bit better detailed specs on the Stico but failed. What they had on their site was pretty basic.

[kb0rpj]

I recently got me a new digital scanner a PRO-2096 and I programmed in the Princeton and Avalon Towers and most of the day today the Princeton tower was off the air. It came back up today about mid afternoon and my scanner now has a pretty steady 86-92% decode rate and the info line is now displaying

96: T0124 BEE00 SY1CE

i think if google is correct the T0124 is the Tower #, BEE00 is the connect tone, and SY1CE is the system ID.

Im not sure why im getting no information from Avalon. however my Avalon decode rate is only 66-80%.

now, the only thing left to do is figure out this base freq. offset and steps thing.

[nd5y]

BEE00 is the WACN (Wide Area Communication Network) identifier.

[kb0rpj]

playing around more with my scanner today, I can hear Milan, Avalon, and Princeton here in Trenton. Decode rate on Princeton is about 90-92% Milan is 54-72% and Avalon is 60-88%

Princeton and Milan programmed into my PRO-2096 are showing across the bottom
96: BEE00 SY1CE and T0124 for princeton and T0122 for Milan. nothing for avalon? perhaps Avalon isnt fully on the air yet?

[KC0CSE]

Originally Posted by hkrharry

This is from a friendly MHP radio tech....

Top center spring loaded is a 1/4 wave, 18.5" long.

Behind it on the roof is a phantom whip less for the 148.600 low-band repeater

On the chargers, passenger side trunk is either a VHF or an 800 MHz 1/4 wave for the scanner.

Center of trunk is base loaded 1/4 wave for 42 MHz, trunk drivers side is a 1/4 wave for VHF mobile radio.

On hood is a 700 MHz 1/4 wave for the 700 side of the MoSWIN radio, and back trunk deck is another 700 MHz 1/4 wave for the mobile repeater for the MoSWIN extenders.

HH

well do we have any inside pic's yet??? Don't want to have to get arrested to find out.....all though you could get some good pictures from the back seat...then again maybe not with handcuffs on...

[kb0rpj]

Been watching the system today with pro96com monitoring the princeton site, saw a couple of things today.

"02/05 15:14:58","CWID","05-2514","154.99500","","WQOH863","","" at 1514 the CWID started transmiting with the WQOH863 TG when it transmits the ID.

"02/05 16:05:06","Group","04-2067","161.83750","30001","T: 136 DT: 2/5/13@8:02","1090001","TG: 30001 DT: 2/5/13@16:05"
If the table at the top of the moswin page is correct that should be Putnam County - All talkgroup.

there was also a couple of radios that affiliated with the talkgroup of 20263 which should be DNR Park Rangers?

[kruser]

Originally Posted by kb0rpj

Been watching the system today with pro96com monitoring the princeton site, saw a couple of things today.

"02/05 15:14:58","CWID","05-2514","154.99500","","WQOH863","","" at 1514 the CWID started transmiting with the WQOH863 TG when it transmits the ID.

"02/05 16:05:06","Group","04-2067","161.83750","30001","T: 136 DT: 2/5/13@8:02","1090001","TG: 30001 DT: 2/5/13@16:05"
If the table at the top of the moswin page is correct that should be Putnam County - All talkgroup.

there was also a couple of radios that affiliated with the talkgroup of 20263 which should be DNR Park Rangers?

I saw the same thing for Weldon Spring today with the CWID changing from CHANGEME to the actual call sign. I think I also saw it on another site but by then I was involved in solving a reception problem for the Warrenton site 315. I sent you a PM about my findings there but to sum it up - my Pro96 will not decode the CC on that site for anything. In fact it will not even acknowledge the CC data unless I install two filters inline.
It works fine for the other local MOSWIN sites though with or without the filters or traps. I do see an improvement with Weldon Spring when I use a 152 MHz notch filter but the 96 still decodes that sites CC without it. Not sure how voice may be affected by the paging crud until they really start using the site. I did not try the 96 when they did zone testing for that site.
An FM Broadcast band trap and a PAR 152 MHz notch filter made for killing paging signals. Without just one of the two, my reception quality of that site drops off greatly. Without any filter, I get an absolute ZERO for decode. That is on the scanners display or what Pro96com reports when I put the scanner into CC decode mode for Pro96com.
So, if anyone is using a Pro-96 or 2096 for VHF P25 systems and have high power FM Broadcast stations near you, an FM trap may help if you seem to be having reception issues. It seems the 96 is worse for rejecting FM broadcast than the current models like the 106/197 or GRE PSR500 and 600. I did not test the PSR800. Same goes for paging signals in the 152 MHz band, you may need a 152 notch filter. The majority of users with VHF overload or desense problems seem to cure it with a simple FM Broadcast band trap though. I'd imagine a simple home brewed coaxial stub filter would also work fine for the FM broadcast band. Stubs do not work very well for the paging band though as stub filters are pretty wide in bandwidth and will wipe out a lot more than the 1 MHz chunk of the 152 range. A stub cut for FM broadcast may still wipe out some of the civil air band so keep that in mind if you do airband monitoring also. If so, a FM trap from PAR would be the better choice as their filters have nice and sharp skirts at the band edges so they will work better than a simple stub filter would. I tried a stub for the 152 paging band before and it ended up wiping out about 6 MHz of bandwidth so it was no good. I never tried one for the FM broadcast band but I bet they would work fine for that.
If you are not familiar with stub filters, just Google "coaxial stub filter" and you should find plenty of info about building one with a short hunk of RG-58 and a BNC T fitting. They can be open stubs or shorted stubs. I only tried an open stub and don't know if one is better than the other. Maybe the shorted design has a tighter bandwidth.
Or you can do like most and just go to RadioShack and purchase their FM Trap and the adapters needed to get from F connectors back to BNC. I myself do not like that as you are adding several connection points which all cause a small amount of loss that adds up plus you are inserting a 75 ohm device into a 50 ohm feedline. The radioshack method is the quickest though and if it does not work, you can take it all back!
Be warned though that not all FM Traps from RS are the same. I've seen many that do not trap anything in the FM band. They are so badly tuned that they trap the civil airband instead or the TV band below the FM broadcast band. They must just throw them together and never test them as I've found them with center frequencies far away from the FM broadcast band. If an FM trap does help, I'd still take it all back and purchase a high quality trap from PAR Electronics. They work much better and have deeper notches plus they will be on frequency! They also have the correct connectors and you can even order them with N connectors if needed. Plus they are 50 ohms by design.
PAR Electronics | Filters for the commercial 2 way market, MATV, FM broadcast, laboratory, marine industry, amateur radio, scanner and short wave listening enthusiasts

Anyway, just thought I'd share my findings with my 96 as it is worse than the newer GRE models including the radioshack clones when it comes to in band desense or overload from the commercial FM broadcast band. The Uniden's are mostly immune to the same problems so filters or traps are usually not needed with a Uniden. Of course adding an FM trap before a Uniden will not hurt anything if you feed both models from a single antenna and a multicoupler like my setup. Sometimes I'll filter just one radio but I usually leave the filter in place before the multicoupler especially if I'm going to be running several GRE models. All traps or filters will cause some attenuation outside of their design range but with quality traps or filters, the added attenuation is minimal and often <1dB loss. Keep that in mind if you are working with some really weak signals. It may be better to place the trap at the radio with the overload or desense issues instead of trapping or filtering everything if using a multicoupler.

[N2JDS]

Any chance we can have a sub section off of this one, where people can post known Unit ID, most scanners allow that, so we can convert UID14215 to Ranger 18. Maybe another google doc or something.

[AC0RV]

We could use the wiki page. so that other people could place know IDs for their area as.

I started a section on LWIN Page for the known IDs for the Washington Parish area that I collected during a recent visit to my sister's

[kruser]

Originally Posted by N2JDS

Any chance we can have a sub section off of this one, where people can post known Unit ID, most scanners allow that, so we can convert UID14215 to Ranger 18. Maybe another google doc or something.

As said, a wiki section would be the best and you could create that.
The only problem is radios do change hands or break so the RID's will change over time. The same cars are not always used by the same user etc.
For those departments that offer take home cars, an RID list should stay pretty accurate you would think.
I'd started a RID list for the city of St. Louis P25 system but gave it up quickly when I realized others were using the same radio.

Many will stay the same like your example of Ranger 18 though. I'd imagine it would take that radio going bad for the RID to ever change.
Portables would be the ones that are going to change hands more often than anything. I think that may be what I was seeing with STL City. An officer would just grab any portable when his shift started and he'd assign that radio number to his DSN. They did not grab the same radio each day. Same went for the mobiles in the city as some did not always drive the same car. The users without take home cars were the problem UID's.
I think it would be a neat idea though as long as we don't find the radios changing hands so often that the list is inaccurate.

[kb0rpj]

are the radio's assigned by subsets? Ie. radio 10100001 is DNR Ranger 18, 1010002 is ranger 19 and 10200001 is trooper 1 from troop c?