Crappy sounding public safety repeaters - Bergen & Passaic Counties

Ever wonder why some public safety agencies put up with crappy sounding repeaters?

My list of the worst sounding repeaters in the area:

1) Washington Township PD, Bergen County - not a day goes by that the dispatcher doesn't complain about not being able to hear a patrol officer/supervisor

2) HoHoKus PD

3) Hawthorne PD

I wonder if the poor audio quality is related to narrow banding, or if something just isn't adjusted correctly?

railtrailbiker said:

Ever wonder why some public safety agencies put up with crappy sounding repeaters?

My list of the worst sounding repeaters in the area:

1) Washington Township PD, Bergen County - not a day goes by that the dispatcher doesn't complain about not being able to hear a patrol officer/supervisor

2) HoHoKus PD

3) Hawthorne PD

I wonder if the poor audio quality is related to narrow banding, or if something just isn't adjusted correctly?

Click to expand...

So it can't be you &/or what you use to monitor?

Its not just Bergen County.....its all over.
Bunch of reasons........narrow banding didn't help, FCC relaxed the technician license requirements way back, people using the radios are set in their ways, everybody and their brother owns radio programming software and plays with the audio settings, etc, etc, etc

A few systems have compandered audio. The transmitter compresses the audio and the receiver expands it. If your receiver doesn't support compandering (scanners don't) the audio will sound bad.

Let's not forget the hear clear option if it's a /\/\ radio.

nd5y said:

A few systems have compandered audio. The transmitter compresses the audio and the receiver expands it. If your receiver doesn't support compandering (scanners don't) the audio will sound bad.

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Still does not explain why a dispatcher would be asking units to repeat themselves over and over.

Wow, what a mess...

Add the New Milford PD dispatch and Englewood FD dispatch to the list. I'm in Dumont and just barely hear Englewood (until the leaves went down). New Milford is less than 500' away and some days it's ok and other days cannot hear them. I can hear FDNY and NYPD as well as Newark PD and Paterson perfectly. Using a 396xt w/a Diamond 77 antenna.

Just to add, I haven't heard Englewood in days. They're busier than that. Chuck.

railtrailbiker said:

Ever wonder why some public safety agencies put up with crappy sounding repeaters?

My list of the worst sounding repeaters in the area:

1) Washington Township PD, Bergen County - not a day goes by that the dispatcher doesn't complain about not being able to hear a patrol officer/supervisor

2) HoHoKus PD

3) Hawthorne PD

I wonder if the poor audio quality is related to narrow banding, or if something just isn't adjusted correctly?

Click to expand...

Hackensack PD is horrible, humming all the time.
Fairlawn sounds pretty poor.
Teaneck got a lot better recently.
Wyckoff was good
Paramus is good fire and pd.
Mahwah sounds good.

A lot of these poor sounding systems are ESS nightmeres.

Its 2015 if your system is not IP based yet, it needs replacing. Leased telephone lines are done and techs are getting harder to find making it a longer time to get it fixed.

T1, Optical or Microwave get with program or join a trunk system.

Hawthorne PD has been horrible since they left Lowband and went to 460.1125, very bad deviation. That system was done by ESS as was Wyckoffs Old VHF system. Ho-Ho-Kus is not great, but not as bad as Hawthorne. Ho-Ho-Kus was done by B&C and now I believe Goosetown has it. Franklin Lakes Fire on 154.2500 is also horrible and hangs up many times "Communications call ESS, the repeater is sticking again" is heard. Didn't Englewood apply for P25 emmissions on their repeater? And New Milford as someone stated is not good either, Although they added a site at their HS last year and seemed to improve but I have not listened lately. I think New Milford may have been done by ESS also. Its not just on scanners either that the audio sucks. Hawthorne PD sounds horrible on my Kenwood TK3180, as did New Milford. Add to that list Ramsey PD on 460.3750, B&C used to have them and it sounded great. They narrowbanded and went to ESS cough cough, and now their repeater has terrible squelch tail. They are using XTL2500s and claimed in a newspaper article when they upgraded their system is digital capable... seems dumb to use Analog if you have a Quantar and XTL/XTS radios.

Well if Franklin Lakes wasen't on the same repeater output as FDNY Manhattan, they wouldn't sound like they do. Different PLs don't do crap on the same frequency because once the receiver is open, you're going to hear everything within listening distance. I blame FLFD for their own problems.

As far as some of the other problems, half of these systems don't bother to implement band pass filters followed by preamps before the signal hits the receiver. Same goes with adding a single pass resonator to supplement the directivity passband of your transmit isolator. Poorly designed systems yield poorly sounding radio systems.

Agreed the coordinator and Franklin Lakes were not to smart on that one.

Alarmguy said:

Hawthorne PD has been horrible since they left Lowband and went to 460.1125, very bad deviation.

Click to expand...

You do realize Hawthorne is narrow band deviation. Would explain the "crappy deviation" you are hearing.