Centre County to test new radio system in October

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HM1529

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Folks in/around Centre County should take a listen.

Centre officials to test new 9-1-1 system - Lockhaven.com | News, Sports, Jobs, Community Information - The Express

New system should be using the following frequencies:
854.98750
855.96250
856.21250
857.21250
859.96250

Maybe more.

We don't have control channel info in the database, yet, so the TRS is still listed as staged and not viewable on the database. I'll be up in the Howard area for work next week, but will have limited time to monitor, so reports are welcome. I'm not even sure if there's a control channel on the air, yet.
 

SlipNutz15

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The list of frequencies listed is only the outer region towers (Mingoville, Bald Eagle, Howard, Kylertown, Pine Glen, Rhodes, Rock Run, Sandy Ridge, and Woodward).

These frequencies are for the Centre Region towers (Center Hall, Ford Building on PSU Campus, Little Flat, Pine Grove Mills, Port Matilda, Pine Hill (Philipsburg), Purdue, and Rattlesnake)

855.7375
856.9625
857.4625
857.9625
858.4625
858.7125
858.9625
859.4625
859.7125
 

HM1529

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The list of frequencies listed is only the outer region towers (Mingoville, Bald Eagle, Howard, Kylertown, Pine Glen, Rhodes, Rock Run, Sandy Ridge, and Woodward).

These frequencies are for the Centre Region towers (Center Hall, Ford Building on PSU Campus, Little Flat, Pine Grove Mills, Port Matilda, Pine Hill (Philipsburg), Purdue, and Rattlesnake)

855.7375
856.9625
857.4625
857.9625
858.4625
858.7125
858.9625
859.4625
859.7125

What is going on with Penn State's TRS? I remember reading the radio report put together for Centre a few years back and I thought it recommended combining the county and university systems. Is PSU going to be on this new system or are they maintaining their old system?
 

n3obl

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I believe it is on the air. Was out that way and found a new P25 system out there that was not in the DB. Will see if I have my notes on it.

Frank
 

SlipNutz15

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Yes the towers are online but the talkgroups are not in the system yet. That should be in the very near future.
 

Twister_2

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I was in the library at Penn State last night and I noticed they all had radios. They were definitely digital and I never noticed them before. In fact, while I was talking to somebody at the front desk about an unrelated issue, her radio was being really annoying and she said she had no idea how to stop it. So I'm thinking these are new radios. They ARE digital, based on the audio. I believe they were motorola but I do not think they were P25. Well, they weren't the familiar XTS series. I took my scanner home last weekend to start up a live feed in Dauphin co so I can't do anymore research up here.
 

SlipNutz15

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You should not have noticed a difference on the audio quality of the radio because all the radios are still programmed analog. The new digital system is not even being tested yet. I am not sure what all radios were issued where but I know some of the radios are XTS2500s, some are APX6000's. From what I understand everyone across the board is getting Motorola Radios.
 

imported_bds2

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Has anyone verified that it's actually a P25 Phase I system? I'd like to buy a digital scanner but have been holding off until I knew that it's Phase I.

Thanks,
Brett
N3EVB
 

SlipNutz15

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There was some testing of outer region towers. I got to help from the center side. The director and assistant director and other individuals went out around 1000 hours and started the far eastern tip and into Clinton County and started testing. Seemed to work well.

All the outer region towers' timings were synchronized and operational as of noon when I left. I believe the center region towers' timing was next.

5 of 5 outer region frequencies were online and 4 of 9 center region frequencies were online as of noon. I'm guessing some of the center region frequencies will be last because of recycling frequencies from the old system.

Audio quality was great and very crisp. I'm excited for the switch!
 

SlipNutz15

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Yes the system is P25 Phase I digital trunked
 

imported_bds2

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Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 7_0_2 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/537.51.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.0 Mobile/11A501 Safari/9537.53)

Yes the system is P25 Phase I digital trunked

Great - thanks! I picked up the last digital scanner that the RadioShack store in the Nittany Mall had in stock. The sales associate seemed to be aware that the switch was occurring.

If I understand the display on the scanner (Pro-197), the signal strength in State College seems to be low. No audio heard yet.

Brett
 

SlipNutz15

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You won't hear a lot of audio just yet. The are testing October 14-25th. As of the other day only 4 of 9 frequencies were in use on the Center Region towers which I posted above because they are recycling frequencies from the old system and don't want to cause interference.

You should be able to catch the Control Channel for the Center Region though....859.7125
 

SlipNutz15

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There is also going to be a separate but integrated 5 trunked channels for PSU only. For events at BJC, Beaver Stadium, Food services, etc. The current UHF conventional system they are using will be switched over to the P25 Digital TRS for county-wide interoperations if needed. Unsure of those exact frequencies or when they are going online.
 

imported_bds2

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As of yesterday the scanner recognized the system as a trunked radio system, and the S-meter for the control channel was 4 to 5 (out of 5) bars. That's a good sign! I'll leave the radio on all day today and record the audio to see if there is any traffic.

Brett
N3EVB
 
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