Alachua County P25 System?

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SRSP2282

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While doing some exploring with my RTL SDR I came across a P25 control channel on 853.1875. (A quick FCC search shows the Alachua County Sheriff's Office does have a license for this frequency WPTC649) I found this to be interesting since currently the county uses a Motorola type II SmartZone system. Gainesville / Alachua County Trunking System, Gainesville, Florida - Scanner Frequencies

For kicks I ran a copy of unitrunker on the newly discovered frequency to see what was going on. The system consists of 3 frequencies (at least that I was able to log):

853.1875 P25 Control Ch
852.2750 Alt Control Ch
852.1875 Voice Ch


While monitoring unitrunker I parked my PSR500 on the voice ch for a little while to see what if any voice traffic was being sent across the system.

The CWID is transmitted every 30 min across the Voice Ch. When decoded it reads “CHANGEME” Interesting....

From what I could see and hear they system was simulcasting ACSO and GPD primary talkgroups. Not full time, and there was some other traffic that unitrunker had listed as encrypted. Im going to listen to the system more and try and map out the talkgroups.

Im trying to figure out what this system is set up for. Why does it have simulcasted talkgroups from the main system? At this point my best guest is that this might be setup to allow for interoperability. However with the FIN system and 8TAC/CALL it doesn't seem all that necessary. Perhaps its an experiment in P25... Something the folks over at GRU are playing around with.

Anyone have any thoughts or insight on this system?
 

Thunderbolt

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Im trying to figure out what this system is set up for. Why does it have simulcasted talkgroups from the main system? At this point my best guest is that this might be setup to allow for interoperability. However with the FIN system and 8TAC/CALL it doesn't seem all that necessary. Perhaps its an experiment in P25... Something the folks over at GRU are playing around with.

Anyone have any thoughts or insight on this system?

Alachua County and city of Gainesville decided to upgrade their old Motorola Type-II TRS, to a fully Project 25 compliant system nearly two years ago. This way they can be on the same platform as their neighboring counties; thus, creating a truly interoperable communications environment. Currently, several of the talkgroups are patched together, to allow for transparency, as they changeout the old two-way radios with the new ones. When this process is completed, and the dispatch consoles replaced, the old Type-II system will be permanently deactivated. This radio project should be finished within the next several weeks.

73's

Ron
 
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SRSP2282

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Alachua County and city of Gainesville decided to upgrade their old Motorola Type-II TRS, to a fully Project 25 compliant system nearly two years ago. This way they can be on the same platform as their neighboring counties; thus, creating a truly interoperable communications environment. Currently, several of the talkgroups are patched together, to allow for transparency, as they changeout the old two-way radios with the new ones. When this process is completed, and the dispatch consoles replaced, the old Type-II system will be permanently deactivated. This radio project should be finished within the next several weeks.

Wow, thanks for the great info Ron. Ill definitely be keeping a close eye on the system. Although Im excited that Ill have a new project when this goes live, I’m also kinda bummed out. I put a few years into tagging radios and hunting down new talkgroups with Unitrunker. Im guessing with a new P25 system the TGIDs and RIDs will be different. (That was the case when I heard the simulcasted talkgroups the other day.)


Jay, were you able to obtain a System ID and WACN for this system via Unitrunker?

Indeed I did. Sorry that might have been helpful info to put in my initial post. Unitrunker gave me WACN-ID of BEE00-4D9.

From a few google searches it looks like the WACN of BEE00 seems to be a "default" for Motorola systems. Honestly, I don't have much experience with using the WACN and ID to pin down a system. Its now on the top of my "things to google" list :)
 

Thunderbolt

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Wow, thanks for the great info Ron. Ill definitely be keeping a close eye on the system. Although Im excited that Ill have a new project when this goes live, I’m also kinda bummed out. I put a few years into tagging radios and hunting down new talkgroups with Unitrunker. Im guessing with a new P25 system the TGIDs and RIDs will be different. (That was the case when I heard the simulcasted talkgroups the other day.)

Yes, all of the talkgroups will change with the new P25 radio system. However, sometimes the Motorola techs. will simply take a talkgroup from the old system and divide it by 16 on the new TRS. For instance, Alachua FIRE 1 is talkgroup 33616. You take 33616 ÷ 16 = 2101 on the new system. Likewise, C TAC 4 is talkgroup 112. You take 112 ÷ 16 = 7 on the new system. However, you will have to listen and see if this is programming format they have chosen to follow.

I know that several agencies across the nation have retained their old radio templates, and just changed systems. This way for all users the transition from an older Type-II, to a P25 trunking system is completely seamless; hence, the channels remain the same to users, but the system infrastructure completely changes, which will require scanner users to reprogram their radios. Only time will tell how this will all pan out.

Indeed I did. Sorry that might have been helpful info to put in my initial post. Unitrunker gave me WACN-ID of BEE00-4D9.

From a few google searches it looks like the WACN of BEE00 seems to be a "default" for Motorola systems. Honestly, I don't have much experience with using the WACN and ID to pin down a system. Its now on the top of my "things to google" list :)

Excellent information. You might want to download Pro96com, and see if this system is a P25 Phase 1 or 2 trunking system. If it's the latter of the two, only the GRE PSR-800 can follow this new format at the current time.

73's

Ron
 
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SRSP2282

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Excellent information. You might want to download Pro96com, and see if this system is a P25 Phase 1 or 2 trunking system. If it's the latter of the two, only the GRE PSR-800 can follow this new format at the current time.

Ok so when I got home this morning I ran pro96com on the system. I attached a screen capture of the packet dump. There are references to “Phase 2 TDMA” in some of the packets but I'm not sure if this is actually an indicator of they system's type. What do you make of this? Is there anywhere else in the program I should be looking? I'm a unitrunker guy so this software is brand new to me. (Seems pretty cool though, I'm having fun playing with it. It will be a lot more interesting when the system becomes more active)

I'm really hoping that it's phase one. Monitoring the system shouldn't be a problem for me. Although I don't have a PSR800 I could easily let unitrinker do the leg work of tracking and add my PSR500 to the config to handle the audio portion. Really I would miss being able to use David Hitchner's software “ID Tracker III”. The ability to log and record audio in separate files based on TGID has been instrumental in pinning down new and rarely used talkgroups. According to his website, the software does not support the PSR800. I guess if its going to be a Phase 2 system Ill have a new logging/audio recording project to dig into...

Yes, all of the talkgroups will change with the new P25 radio system. However, sometimes the Motorola techs. will simply take a talkgroup from the old system and divide it by 16 on the new TRS.

Thanks for the talkgroup conversion tip. I looked at my P25 Unitrunker Logs and applied the math. The “divide by 16” method is looking promising. Ill keep checking as new P25 talk groups pop up.
 

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whooey

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Jay, thank you for posting this thread. While all of this chatter is over my head, I seriously hope that my PSR-600/500 and PRO-2096/96 will still scan the system!! I do have 2 PSR-800's so I am good to go if it is phase II.

I just hope the new system is not encrypted.... I'm fine with the few GPD channels that use encryption, just not main dispatch. ;)

I will be following this thread with a watchful, and concerned eye. :(
 

whooey

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Alachua County and city of Gainesville decided to upgrade their old Motorola Type-II TRS, to a fully Project 25 compliant system nearly two years ago. This way they can be on the same platform as their neighboring counties; thus, creating a truly interoperable communications environment. Currently, several of the talkgroups are patched together, to allow for transparency, as they changeout the old two-way radios with the new ones. When this process is completed, and the dispatch consoles replaced, the old Type-II system will be permanently deactivated. This radio project should be finished within the next several weeks.
73's

Ron

Ron, do you mind sharing where or how you know this will wrap up in the next several weeks??
 

jhal94

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According to this county acquisition document: http://meetingdocs.alachuacounty.us...BE95-28ACF0D2-5BE0-47B6-9266-6E7088AAAFC1.HTM

The county of Alachua on April 10, 2012 has payed $191,999.95 to Motorola solutions for the acquisition of 47 APX6500 Radios for the fire department to use.

This means that the county is buying phase 2 equipment and showing how SRSP2282's unitrunker is showing TDMA references, it is only indicative that phase 2 TDMA will be used.
 

whooey

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Wow, thanks for your reply. I guess 5 of my 7 digital scanners will be paper weights LOL.

So bummed.... But at least for now its not going to be fully encrypted. Glass is half full.
 

jhal94

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Wow, thanks for your reply. I guess 5 of my 7 digital scanners will be paper weights LOL.

So bummed.... But at least for now its not going to be fully encrypted. Glass is half full.

Hey, that doesn't mean that it will be all Phase II. The Utility people still use MTS2000's on the old system and there's no way they're going to purchace APX radios for every city employee an APX or some other brand's phase II radio.
 

Thunderbolt

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Ok so when I got home this morning I ran pro96com on the system. I attached a screen capture of the packet dump. There are references to “Phase 2 TDMA” in some of the packets but I'm not sure if this is actually an indicator of they system's type. What do you make of this? Is there anywhere else in the program I should be looking? I'm a unitrunker guy so this software is brand new to me. (Seems pretty cool though, I'm having fun playing with it. It will be a lot more interesting when the system becomes more active)

Sadly, after looking at the packet dump you displayed, this new P25 TRS will fully support both Phase I and Phase II talkgroups. For example, if two or more Phase II radios are engaged in a conversation on one of the talkgroups, then the talkgroup will be in Phase II mode. However, if a radio that is only Phase I capable joins the conversation, then that talkgroup will automatically revert to Phase 1.

73's

Ron
 

Thunderbolt

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Ron, do you mind sharing where or how you know this will wrap up in the next several weeks??

The original proposed go live date was September 30, 2013. However, as history has shown with other radio system installations, deadlines don't always happen on schedule. So it might actually be closer to the end of year before everyone is switched over.

73's

Ron
 

Thunderbolt

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Hey, that doesn't mean that it will be all Phase II. The Utility people still use MTS2000's on the old system and there's no way they're going to purchace APX radios for every city employee an APX or some other brand's phase II radio.

The MTS2000 radios are not P25 capable, so they will all have to be replaced with new units. It will be interesting to see what radios they purchased. It could be possible they went with the older, Motorola XTL or XTS series radios that are Phase I only, which cost less money.

73's

Ron
 

Thunderbolt

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Thanks guys, I guess we will just have to wait and see. :)

EDIT: I thought I read Sept 30 2012.

When I wrote down some notes about the system upgrade, the subsequent newspaper article gave September 30, 2013 as the date. This was back in early 2012.

73's

Ron
 

jhal94

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The MTS2000 radios are not P25 capable, so they will all have to be replaced with new units. It will be interesting to see what radios they purchased. It could be possible they went with the older, Motorola XTL or XTS series radios that are Phase I only, which cost less money.

73's

Ron

That's what I was getting at. They use MTS2000's still because they're poor... they'll probably use the hand-me-down XTS5000/2500 units from the cops and fire fighters.
 

SRSP2282

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I have attached a couple of windows from unitrunker for review. Im curious about the bandplan that unitrunker generated. Does this look right? The current system uses a custom band plan. Does such a thing exist for P25 systems? From what I have read it seems like most people agree P25 systems broadcast their bandplan so finding/programing a custom one is not needed.

Whooey, Ill be interested to see how well your PSR800 preforms on the new system. Keep us posted when this goes live. Im not really comfy dropping another $400 something bucks on a new radio just yet. In the meantime I'm going to be looking into using unitrunker with a RTL SDR dongle and DSD to handle the audio decoding.

Never would have thought stumbling across that signal a couple of days ago would lead to a new mega project. I guess thats why this hobby can be so fun!
 

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Thunderbolt

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Jay, Yes, the band plan looks correct. You might want to compare it to the reading you obtained by using Pro96Com. If it shows the same thing, you're on the right track.

73's

Ron
 
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