396xt and 996xt dropping custom bandplans

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kjczarzasty

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I have experienced problems with a 996xt and a 396xt that lose the custom band plan for a MOTO P25 system in my area. These radios are in operation 24/7 not being turned off or unplugged for any reason as they are dedicated to monitor this trunk. Occasionally I will notice that the one of the radios is not receiving or decoding the trunk. checking the bandplan I find the base frequency and step are either erased or totally incorrect, at which point I reenter the proper bandplan info and all is good sometimes days, weeks or even months before the problem reoccurs. Both radios are programmed with butel ARC XT. Just wondering if anyone else has experienced this problem and if anyone might know of a fix.

Kevin C

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R8000

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Just throwing this out there....have you loaded the latest firmware ?
 

kjczarzasty

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Yes both have the most recent firmware. I also have a 396T programmed on the same trunk but have never experienced this problem on the older radio
 

ks_scan

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W8RMH, while the P25 systems are supposed to tell the scanners what they need to know, I have experienced better reception with a custom band plan, especially on Simulcast systems, versus just letting the scanner recieve what it wants. KJC, I have not experienced teh loss of the bandplan though.
 

kjczarzasty

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The system in question is he Waterbury,CT EF Johnson Atlas if you run it without the custom band plan all you receive is garbage if you are able to track it at all. Have a friend of mine who just purchased a new 996xt which had to be sent back for a processor failure. When they repaired it they also updated the firmware on that radio and he experiences the same problem
 

ka3jjz

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It's possible that the EFJohnson version of P25 is not carrying the offsets as you would expect it would (I know it's supposed to, but the OP's experience says otherwise). Here's the entry in the database...

Waterbury Trunking System, Waterbury, Connecticut - Scanner Frequencies

Taking a look at the frequencies in the system, it resembles a rebanded system - so have you defined it as a rebanded system, then override the standard rebanding bandplan with this one? Did you query the folks in our Connecticut forum as well as on Scan New England (which specializes in this area of the country)? They may have better suggestions since they're local...

Mike
 

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Actually, all P25 systems use band plans. 99% of them include the band plan information on the control channel. For those that don't you will get 0 reception until you manually enter the band plan. For the others, even if you input an incorrect band plan, the scanner will overwrite that with the information sent on the control channel.

Summary: For those that don't transmit band plan, you must enter it. For those that do, even if you enter something, the scanner's going to use what is sent on the control channel.
 

KevinC

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Actually, all P25 systems use band plans. 99% of them include the band plan information on the control channel. For those that don't you will get 0 reception until you manually enter the band plan. For the others, even if you input an incorrect band plan, the scanner will overwrite that with the information sent on the control channel.

Summary: For those that don't transmit band plan, you must enter it. For those that do, even if you enter something, the scanner's going to use what is sent on the control channel.

To add to that, some systems don't use the "standard" bandplan AND don't broadcast it. So you have to figure out what it is, otherwise you will either hear nothing or be steered to the wrong voice channel on call assignments (and still hear nothing).
 

jercov

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Kevin,
I have the absolute same problem with the Waterbury system. I have both a 396 and 996 and about every three weeks they lose the band plan. The 996 is on 24/7. The 396 is not. I notice they only lose them when they are on. The 996 lost it last night at about 6:45 pm. The band plan seems to always switch over to 335.xxx with a different spacing. Very strange. I thought it was just me.
 

jercov

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Band Plan

I have lost the band plan about four times in the last week or so. It seems to be happening more than usual for me. I was curious if anyone else was experiencing this issue.
 

firerick100

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It's happened to me a couple of times in the past on me to and I live in the same area as jercov and kjczarzasty,not as often but it happens I don't understand why either.
 

chipsgto

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Waterbury, CT PD/FD

Good evening.

I have had my 996XT about 4 months now and just got around to using FreeScan and RR to download conventional and trunked systems. There has been success with all but one which I was hoping to get , the Waterbury, CT PD/FD. I downloaded everything from RR, Waterbury FD, Waterbury PD and the Waterbury Simulcast with no reception success.

When I reviewed the RR information it seems there is information missing as compared to other trunk
systems. The CT SP downloaded fine and the reception is great.

I have to read more about the band plan situation and will check out the websites listed within this thread.

Looking forward to anyone posting successes and process to receive Waterbury.

Thanks,

Jeff
 

KevinC

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This "seems" to be isolated to EFJ infrastructure. I bet the scanner is interpreting something on the CC incorrectly as a "bandplan", which causes you radios to rewrite the internal bandplan.
 

chipsgto

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This "seems" to be isolated to EFJ infrastructure. I bet the scanner is interpreting something on the CC incorrectly as a "bandplan", which causes you radios to rewrite the internal bandplan.

Thanks Kevin for the quick response. Reading some of the websites that are posted with in the thread. Trying to understand the band plan modifications for Wtby.
Jeff
 

KevinC

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Actually, all P25 systems use band plans. 99% of them include the band plan information on the control channel. For those that don't you will get 0 reception until you manually enter the band plan. For the others, even if you input an incorrect band plan, the scanner will overwrite that with the information sent on the control channel.

Summary: For those that don't transmit band plan, you must enter it. For those that do, even if you enter something, the scanner's going to use what is sent on the control channel.

Paul,
Question for you. I presume their is no way to manually set the P25 bandplan on a Uniden and have it ignore the OTA bandplan info completely? I'm really leaning toward Uniden interpreting something in the EFJ CC data incorrectly as a bandplan.
 

chipsgto

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Thanks folks. I found on one of the websites a lot of information about the WTBY, CT frequencies. One thing I did find was the TGID numbers that are posted do correspond to what was downloaded from RR. Success in that regard. The problem is there is no audio or other information in the download. I am very confused how to place the information manually from the thread into F.S. so I can upload to the scanner. So, I am doing some more research. The other thing is I want to be sure I won't lose what I have uploaded so far as the stations are being received and the scanner is working fine. There are also some air frequencies I want to upload but can't find them in RR yet. Thanks again Jeff
 

firerick100

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This "seems" to be isolated to EFJ infrastructure. I bet the scanner is interpreting something on the CC incorrectly as a "bandplan", which causes you radios to rewrite the internal bandplan.

I'm willing to bet on this theory to, it makes a lot of sense,but seems to happens to jcov more than me and I have my 396 on a good portion of the day and has not happened to me in a few months but to him a few times in the past month.real weird
 

KevinC

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You guys need to find someone with a GRE-based scanner and set it to "P25 Manual", enter the bandplan and see if it exhibits this issue...I bet it doesn't.
 
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