NHP talkgroups in vegas

[BJ_NORTON]

the other day I heard an NHP officer complaining that he had been paging dispatch and he thought channel 4 wasn't working. He was using (I think) 05-123 LV3 NHP WIDE AREA when he said this.

Now I have noticed today that some of the talkgroups seem to have shifted. 05-127 NHP TAC 3 now seems to be a dispatch channel (I just heard someone ask Disp. for a spanish translator at I-15 and Sahara) and 05-130 seems to be new.

I think 05-130 is a tac channel, because things seemed informal. the conversation I heard here sounded like someone talking to "sarge" about going to vegas this weekend and did he have to fill out some paperwork still.

anyone else notice this too?

 

[TOUGHLIFE]

LV NHP Talk Groups

LV 3 is 05-123 and LV 4 is 05-124. But what is important is that NHP does a lot of talk group patching within dispatch so if 05-124 is patched to 05-123 the dispatcher might be talking to a unit on one of them but make a reference to the other. Patches can last a few minutes to a day based upon their manpower and radio traffic requirements. 05-130 is a car-to-car talk group normally, but like the others can be patched just about anywhere. Lastly, any of the talk groups can be linked to the other dispatch centers in the State, Reno and Elko.

Speaking of NHP and conventional systems there are times that 154.680 (Multi-Net 1) and 154.695 (Multi-Net 2) are used. They are programmed in the VHF radios which are still in the NHP units and sometimes used. The State Mutual Aid Channel, 155.655 can also be used for unit-to-unit communications. This frequency also lets you hear Mohave County AZ SO just south of the Dam, a repeater frequency. Just places where units can hide out at and worth monitoring.

 

[BJ_NORTON]

The case I mention was the first time I had ever heard reference to a channel 4, so that is interesting to nte. I think I have been calling 05-124 ALLIED, because so many other agencies pop up on that channel.
I thought it might be a patch at first, but, I thought patches were supposed to be "invisible" to users, so "4" should still work, and just include the voice traffic from what ever it might be patched with.

I will listen some more today (I just got up) and see if dispatching is still occurung on 05-127. I first thought that maybe everything had just shifted a bit, and 05-127 was the new wide area dispatch, and 05-130 was its new car to car channel. But if that were the case why would they be talking about going to vegas? they would already be here?

 

[TOUGHLIFE]

NHP Talk Group 05-130

As a car-to-car TG (usually) it has been used in both Northern and Southern Nevada and is easily linked to the opposite end of the State. Down here in LV I have heard Reno car-to-car traffic on it.

 

[CW-Nevada]

I was unable to get any hits on NHP (NSRS-EDACS/WB) tonight. When I tried a Trunk Scan, the scanner would jump to ch#2 (LCN_02 855.4625) of the bank. I guessing that was a Control Channel. I do have all 15 channel numbers in LCN order, and (7) Talk Groups (05-121 . . . 05-127) for Sunrise Mtn.

Could it be that the Sunrise Mtn. site is down? I though about programming in the Rio Hotel LV site, but I'm not sure if an EDACS system would allow that. Because the first LCN channel of the Rio site wouldn't be in the first channel of the bank.

Was that last sentence a correct understanding of how EDACS works? If so, then would I have to used-up another bank just to have a back-up repeater sit for NHP?

CW

 

[BJ_NORTON]

Its definantly working right now.

basically this is how trunking works:

CC Control Channel is constantly listening for people who want to talk to each other. When the User keys the mic on the radio in a split second the radio talks to the computer on the CC. Then the CC tells the radio which repeater to use. At the same time all other radios are listening to the CC. Other radios in the same talk group hear this and also switch to the assigned repeater.

So NHP officer wants to call dispatch. He pushes the button on the radio; the radio checks in with the CC; the officer and anyone else with their radio tuned to the talkgroup are told to go to repeater 01. Now all NHP officers are listening to the same repeater. This happens each time the mic button is pressed and happens in the blink of an eye.

Now Motorola systems are easy. All possible channels are pre programmed (at the factory) into the radio, so the CC says go to channel 8 and all the radios go to 855.XXXX. In EDACS the channels are not pre numbered. When CC says go to chanel 8 it goes to whatever has been programmed by the tech as channel 8. On one site CH8 could be 853.YYYY and another site could have CH 8 be 859.ZZZZ. That is why LCN is soooo important. If you incorrectly program the LCN when the scanner decodes go to CH8 and you have the freqs in the wrong order then the radio goes to the wrong channel and you miss what was said. Also the scanner is only going to look for system frequencies in the same bank as the CC.

I think you have to have a seperate bank for each trunking site. I have 3 NSRS sites programmed in my pro95, and tonight I have been programming in every site in the valley, just to see what works best where.

I would advise you to try Sunrise and Sloan for sure, and maybe Potosi too. I have had trouble with the Rio site and I have been told that the Rio is mostly repeating NV power traffic. 06-141 has been active lately with radio techs doing coverage checks. They were talking about having numerous complaints up and down I-15 from NHP. I have noticed that I frequently lose the CC when listening to Sunrise here. This confirms to me that the Rio is not repeating NHP traffic. If it was they shouldn't have complaints at all :!:

Hope this helps, if not I'll try and explain better.

 

[CW-Nevada]

Thanks BJ for that explanation.

I should of gave you some more information on my post. The night before, NHP was coming in fine. The scanner would trunk-scan the channel and display the TG ID's. Last night, it would scan only the repeater freq's of the Sunrise site. I would catch some one-way activity. Mostly if would lock-in on 855.4625. The scanner never displayed any TG ID's even though it was in trunk-scanning mode.

CW

 

[CW-Nevada]

Never mind that last post. I found the reason for not receiving any traffic on NHP (Sunries site). It was my programing error that caused it. Somehow between reading and sending data back to the scanner using the ARC898T I managed to change the Mode from NFM to AM.

In theI found a item under the "Options" menu called "Check Table using Bandplan". When I selected that option I noticed that the mode colum change to NFM. After uploading that bank to the scanner NHP w/TG ID's worked again

CW

 

[edgeman]

BJ. You mentioned in your post from 05/07 that you had 3 of the NSRS trunked groups set up in your Pro-95 scanner. I tried to do this and none of them worked correctly. I know that this scanner only scans 2 trunked groups at a time. Some I would only enable 2 of the trunked groups that I wanted to listen to. How successful have you been with 3 groups programmed into the Pro 95.

The only group that I am getting the best reception from is Sunrise Mt.

Does anyone know if the NDF is going to start using this system soon?

Thanks and have a great day everyone.

John

 

[BJ_NORTON]

you can scan 10 trunked systems at a time; 1 in each bank. I have 3 entire banks devoted entirely to NSRS right now. BJ.

BJ. You mentioned in your post from 05/07 that you had 3 of the NSRS trunked groups set up in your Pro-95 scanner. I tried to do this and none of them worked correctly. I know that this scanner only scans 2 trunked groups at a time. Some I would only enable 2 of the trunked groups that I wanted to listen to. How successful have you been with 3 groups programmed into the Pro 95.

I would say more than anything it has been rather frustrating. I have a hard time keeping channels locked out (NV POWER) and remembering which bank I have made changes to. Also, I find something I want to listen to, and then it skips to the next bank, and by the time it gets back around to the intersting TG the conversation is over. I have switched to comparing 1 site in the 95, Potosi, Sloan, with a direct comparison to reception to Sunrise on my 780. Resuslts have been interseting, and somewhat predictable. Coincidentaly that is how I stumbled onto 05-101. I was scanning Sloan on my 780 in a closed scan mode and Sunrise on my pro 95 in open Search mode.

I find that a lot of the patched TGs come in only on Sunrise, and are not patched to some of the "satallite" sites

I'll try and post a copy of the win 95 file of the 3 sites

 

[edgeman]

Thanks for the reply. Excuse this question, but why does the scanner say Dual Trunking if all the banks can scan in the trunked mode? I have keyed the frequencies into various banks in a non-trunked mode, but I didn't find it benificial. I am about ready to give up on the NHP. Either that or move,lol, as i really believe that I am in a dead spot for the NSRS sytem.

I don't know if you scan the SNACC system. It is very active. In fact, my Pro 95 doesn't have enough space to store all the group id's for the system.

 

[Gilligan]

I'm pretty sure that dual-trunking refers to the ability to track motorola and edacs systems. Also, a trick to scan a system w/ a lot of talkgroups is to put the system frequencies into two banks and load the talkgroups into both banks. At least you have a 50% chance of the talkgroup being identified/recognized, depending on what bank it is currently on. Also, try putting the more common talkgroups into one bank and the less common ones into a secondary one. Then just scan the second bank when you are paying attention to the scanner display. That's my two cents worth.