Missing control channed. APD trunk system changes?

[n7jei]

Yesterday (Thursday) the APD/AFD trunk system (system 3) changed to an unkown control channel and I can no longer follow the traffic with my Pro-2067 scanner. (Before you tell me I can't, I listen all the time to APD dispatch, AFD dispatch, and some BCFD dispatch... kinda reminds me of the old days listening to simplex VHF PD/FD where you couldn't hear many of the mobiles anyway.)

I looked at some of the FCC license data and don't see any new 851/2/3 freqs.

So, who knows what the new control channels and LCN are?

Interestingly enough, I heard APD dispatch two weeks ago advising units to go get their radios "rebanded." It was odd because they were already talking on the 851/2/3 freqs.... well, surprise!

[n7jei]

Update... control channel 1 is back and things are trunking again... Don't know if any other freqs or LCN changes have occurred.

There was definately something going on yesterday and this morning because I could still hear voice traffic, digital noise, and beep beep beeps on other freqs in the system.

[ABQdigital]

are you able to hear both sides? Dispatch and the Officer? -- since i thought there was no scanner or the market to listen to the EDACS provoice system.

[abqscan]

Originally Posted by n7jei

Yesterday (Thursday) the APD/AFD trunk system (system 3) changed to an unkown control channel and I can no longer follow the traffic with my Pro-2067 scanner. (Before you tell me I can't, I listen all the time to APD dispatch, AFD dispatch, and some BCFD dispatch... kinda reminds me of the old days listening to simplex VHF PD/FD where you couldn't hear many of the mobiles anyway.)

I looked at some of the FCC license data and don't see any new 851/2/3 freqs.

So, who knows what the new control channels and LCN are?

Interestingly enough, I heard APD dispatch two weeks ago advising units to go get their radios "rebanded." It was odd because they were already talking on the 851/2/3 freqs.... well, surprise!

When your scanner went deaf, did you by chance happen to monitor the feed online to see if it was still up?

The units were advised to go back to the radio shop, because their radios have to be touched twice by the techs. Once to add the new set of freqs in the radio, and the second time to delete the old set of freqs.

[n7jei]

Originally Posted by ABQdigital

are you able to hear both sides? Dispatch and the Officer? -- since i thought there was no scanner or the market to listen to the EDACS provoice system.

Some of the transmissions are in regular analog mode. I can hear the Dispatcher side of the conversations on a limited number of talkgroups... basically the APD dispatch, Fleet call, NCIC (I have locked out), East/West/City Tac, AFD dispatch, some of the Bernalillo County fire dispatches, and the Patch talkgroups. Strangely enough, when they are on whatever digital talkgroup that is patched to 155.55, you can hear everything on VHF... kinda silly to keep that talkgroup all digital.

Again, you can listen to the dispatch side of the conversations from any scanner that does EDACS trunking. EDACS systems can still be tracked after rebanding... just put in the new freqs in proper LCN order... don't need a new scanner!

When I first got into scanners as a teen, my local PD and FD and Highway Patrol used VHF simplex so I often couldn't hear the mobile units anyway. You can still glean enough info to make listening worthwhile.

<rant on: gee, since they were all on the same band and didn't completely rely on fixed infrastructure (repeaters, etc.) they were already "interoperable" and didn't need a bazillion $ for it. rant off>

[n7jei]

Originally Posted by abqscan

When your scanner went deaf, did you by chance happen to monitor the feed online to see if it was still up?

The units were advised to go back to the radio shop, because their radios have to be touched twice by the techs. Once to add the new set of freqs in the radio, and the second time to delete the old set of freqs.

Streaming media is blocked at work along with forums like this... but if I link directly to the thread :-)

However, listening to the individual freqs in conventional mode I could still hear the digital buzz AND the regular analog dispatch stuff along with the GE anti-scanner tones beep-beep-beep. So, I don't think the system went into some "fail-soft" mode. I was also in ABQ at the time and have a very strong signal and the control channel just wasn't there on any of the 15 or so freqs listed on RR.

Unfortunately, I didn't have time to get out the manual and program a search range to scan through 851-854 or so. When I checked back, the system was back up to normal (unless the LCNs have changed. It would be really difficult figuring that out by just listening to partial traffic.)

[n7jei]

Update! Monday, the normal control channel on 851.2500 was gone again, but I found a new one on 851.1125 and put it into LCN01 and started tracking again. I don't know if any other LCNs have changed, but this is what I found. Also, at the time, 851.2500 had a steady carrier... no voice or digital noise.