Bucks TRS Question

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radio3353

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I started downloading the Bucks system into Win500. Question on North and South sites:

I know the recommendation for Montco is to program the West and East systems into separate TSYS objects (I think I have the terminology correct.) Should the same be done with Bucks' North and South sites? Right now I have North and South in the same TSYS object. If they should be separate, how do I know which talkgroups go in each? Montco appears to have East and West talkgroups which makes it easy to assign them to the proper object. I don't see that with Bucks. I do notice Bucks' North and South sites are shown as 'simulcast'. Does this mean I just program in one and any talkgroups I choose no matter where they are in the county will come through? Hope this makes sense.

Thanks for your help.
 

W2SJW

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You can set them up in the same TSYS & then set the system for multi-site 'roam' mode if you travel around the county a lot - that will have the scanner regularly checking the CC signal strength & moving to the stronger one of the two sites it hears.

If you don't move around the county much, put it as multi-site 'stationary' - it will lock on to the strongest CC it hears and stay there.

Both sites carry exactly the same traffic, you are correct about it being different from MontCo (their system has TGID's that are only heard on the one site & not the other).
 

ocguard

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You can set them up in the same TSYS & then set the system for multi-site 'roam' mode if you travel around the county a lot - that will have the scanner regularly checking the CC signal strength & moving to the stronger one of the two sites it hears.

If you don't move around the county much, put it as multi-site 'stationary' - it will lock on to the strongest CC it hears and stay there.

Both sites carry exactly the same traffic, you are correct about it being different from MontCo (their system has TGID's that are only heard on the one site & not the other).

Actually, your description of the two multi-site mode options is inaccurate:

In ROAM mode, the scanner will sample the control channels until it finds a signal that meets the high threshold setting. If it doesn't find a CC that meets the high threshold setting, it will select the strongest signal. Then, if the signal drops below the low threshold setting, it will again start sampling controls channels until it finds a stronger one. If it doesn't find a better signal, it will stick this the strongest signal. This option is good for someone who is monitoring a multi-site system but only wants to monitor the site with the best signal as the user moves. If a call occurs on the system, but not on the site that the ROAM has selected, the call will be missed. This is the only disadvantage.

In STAT mode, the scanner will sample EACH control channel for a moment and carry traffic from that site. This is a good setting for someone who is stationary (but not NECESSARILY) and wants to hear traffic from multiple sites in the system. It's almost the same as having each site programmed as it's own TSYS and scanning them all, except your talk group list remains the same and only needs to be entered once. This is particularly good if the scanner user wants to hear calls that may only occur on one site at a time.

If you want the scanner to lock on the first control channel is finds and stay there, this would be done by turning multisite off.


ADDED: Based on the descriptions of how the two different systems (Bucks and MontCo) handle calls, there is no disadvantage in using multi-site ROAM for Bucks, since both sites (systems) carry all calls. The only thing that confuses me about this is that, if both sites carry all calls, why didn't they just go with a full simulcast. And why does one site have more channel capacity than the other. This leads me to question whether both systems will carry all calls.
 
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ocguard

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I started downloading the Bucks system into Win500. Question on North and South sites:

I know the recommendation for Montco is to program the West and East systems into separate TSYS objects (I think I have the terminology correct.) Should the same be done with Bucks' North and South sites? Right now I have North and South in the same TSYS object. If they should be separate, how do I know which talkgroups go in each? Montco appears to have East and West talkgroups which makes it easy to assign them to the proper object. I don't see that with Bucks. I do notice Bucks' North and South sites are shown as 'simulcast'. Does this mean I just program in one and any talkgroups I choose no matter where they are in the county will come through? Hope this makes sense.

Thanks for your help.

The reason that the north and south sites are titled as "simulcasts" is because the individual sites (a better term would be SYSTEMS) has more than one actual tower site location, which are simulcasting the same signal. In other words, the "North System" may actually have 5 towers, each transmitting the exact same signal which makes the fact that there is more than one tower transparent to users and scanner listeners.

For more info on the multi-site modes, go to PSR-500/600 Getting the most out of Multisite - Powered By Kayako SupportSuite
 
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