Franklin County VHF System, Question.

I can't monitor this system ! I have a home patrol and a BCD436HP. Both scanners are updated with the RR database recently. I live less than 10 miles from the Wake / Franklin Co. line. Last week I went to Louisburg, I had no signals on the Franklin County System? I was able to grab a control channel in conventional mode 155.4300. I can listen on my smartphone to the feed so someone is able to monitor it with a scanner. Any help or advice is welcomed.

Franklin County's vhf TRS system is difficult to receive, primarily because it's a simulcast system (which most digital scanners have trouble receiving) with their antennae are phased to maximize coverage within the county.

As a result, receiving the county's TRS is pretty much a hit and miss endeavor. I've has varying degrees of success, notably along the US 64 corridor in the county. The best success I've had is in Franklinton. I've been in Louisburg not too long ago but don't remember how successful I was in receiving.

Whether you're in northeast Raliegh or Garner (your QRZ address), your chances or receiving Franklin County TRS is going to be slim to nil. Mobile in county, I'd try activating the attenuator on your scanner for best results.

thank you, Steve

I still have no luck monitoring this system. It's killing me ! Even tried all channels in a conventional p-25 radio. No luck, it's baffling me.

Any suggestions, HP-1 with updated database, firmware & ext upgrade. Deaf to the system. picks up every other system.

Jim

Any chance it's Phase II ?

jimboyle said:

Any chance it's Phase II ?

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Run something like unitrunker pr procom96 and see

jimboyle said:

Any chance it's Phase II ?

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Don't believe it is P2 TDMA.

I do believe it is P1 FDMA. I just believe that anyone outside of Franklin Co has issues with it because of it's unique simulcast configuration.

I hope to have some time over the Holiday weekend to take my radios and laptop up to Franklin Co and run UT & Pro96Com on it to see what (if anything) we are missing.

Marshall KE4ZNR

jimboyle said:

Any chance it's Phase II ?

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Definitely not phase 2.

KE4ZNR said:

Don't believe it is P2 TDMA.

I hope to have some time over the Holiday weekend to take my radios and laptop up to Franklin Co and run UT & Pro96Com on it to see what (if anything) we are missing.

Marshall KE4ZNR

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On Pro96com, what would you be looking for? I'm going to in Zebulon Thanksgiving night. I doubt I'll receive anything from there but I'll try to run Pro96com if I can get a data signal. I haven't used it enough to really know what would be different or unusual.

Let me know when you go we could meet up at the Sheetz in Youngsville and I could get my Harris Unity back from you and we can try to crack the mystery behind the Franklin P-25 sys. I hear the SO patch on viper all the time.

I'll bring a suitcase full of radios, HP-1 & 436HP.

jimboyle said:

Let me know when you go we could meet up at the Sheetz in Youngsville and I could get my Harris Unity back from you and we can try to crack the mystery behind the Franklin P-25 sys. I hear the SO patch on viper all the time.

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I will. I have had a couple of family things going on but I will reach out to you soon enough

Marshall KE4ZNR

As expected, I couldn't get Pro96com to decode this system from my current location in Zebulon. Decode rate peaked no more than 15%.

Franklin County Interoperability

For what its worth, the system does work however as others have mentioned, it is very range limited.
I recently moved from the north central part of Wake County over to almost the Franklin County line near NC96/NC98 and even now, there are times that it does not always work well despite being only a mile or less from the Franklin/Wake line. I have access to both a Unity and an APX and both work about the same with a slight edge going to the APX for audio clarity and signal quality. Franklin County 911 staff have worked very hard with the Wake County VFD's that provide mutual aid responses with Franklin County (Wake Forest, Rolesville, Hopkins and Zebulon) to improve interoperability. These fire departments have implemented additional talk groups in their respective radios that are on the VIPER system, not the Wake system, and that the same talk groups also exist at Franklin County 911 and can be patched across to the Harris VHF P25 system. Indeed the Harris system is FDMA and NOT TDMA but as to future plans, I cannot advise.

M

Thanks, mike

I have been baffled as to my lack of reception with the HP-1 when driving through louisburg a few months ago. But others provide scanner feeds of the system. I'm curious, wouldn't VHF give you better range than 800 ? Why might they elect to use VHF over 800? any thoughts ?


Jim,

I moved to Louisburg back in September and was having the same problems you were with your 436. In the other Franklin County thread, it was mentioned that the feed is being broadcast with a RS PRO-197. So I bought one, along with the scanner to pc cable, and imported everything from the RR database had on Franklin County into the scanner. I now can hear most everything that is transmitted in the county. This probably doesn't help you much, but I am just sharing my experience. I am personally not sure why the 197 picks it up and the 436 doesn't, maybe someone can chime in on that.

Ive heard it's how the firmwire/hardware deals with the simulcast. I can't remember which it was but its better at the Harris simulcast systems

Franklin

Jim, indeed VHF frequencies have better range and the old adage for the most part holds true...the lower the frequency, the longer the range, the higher the frequency, the better the building penetration....the issue however with using VHF frequencies is that the service contours have to be very, very tight. This is to prevent interference and when using the frequencies in simulcast, it can be even harder to work with.I have been doing some testing and for example, I have an RSSI of 49 in Rolesville and about a 50% ability to transmit into the system once the RSSI drops below 50.....driving towards Youngsville on either Averette Road or Hwy 96 (both essentially run northbound and parallel) I find myself going out of range in low spots. Once I get into Franklin County on 96 the RSSI has risen to around 67 and I can get into the system however received traffic is still garbled at times. If I travel up 401 towards Royal, I get slightly higher RSSI values and overall improved performance. Same is true going out Halifax Road off NC96 towards Pilot.

As to why Franklin used VHF, I seem to recall it was driven by the fire service feeling that since they were used to VHF simplex and repeated conventional channels and were concerned that switching to a different band might result in a loss of coverage they chose to stay with VHF for the trunked system. This may or may not be the actual reason, just what I remember hearing at the time.

jimboyle said:

Thanks, mike

I have been baffled as to my lack of reception with the HP-1 when driving through louisburg a few months ago. But others provide scanner feeds of the system. I'm curious, wouldn't VHF give you better range than 800 ? Why might they elect to use VHF over 800? any thoughts ?


Jim,

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