Albany County P25

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sav1350

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Has anyone else noticed P25 control channels coming on line in the past week or two on frequencies assigned to Albany County? I've started picking up two faint control channels last week. One is on 854.5375 and the other 859.7125. From what I can tell in the FCC databases, these are assigned to Albany County. They are both showing and SID of 065. 859.7125 is showing as site 001-001 and 854.5375 is showing as Site 001-002. The callsign on 854.5375 is showing as "CHANGEME" and the NAC is 692. I have only seen one TGID (10003) and RID(2321) show up over the past few days and its only been in the form of joins. I have not heard any voice traffic.

Am I off base and assuming this is the new Albany Co system and has anyone else seen this? I am getting very poor reception in my area and so am having a hard time telling if not much is going on yet or if it's just operating under low power right now. My understand was that this was going to be a combination of City of Albany and Town of Colonie's systems. So, I'm not quite sure why there are two sites showing up.
 

Thunderknight

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If they both have the same SID but different site IDs, that implies two zones of the same system. It's very likely they will split the county somehow...given how much traffic is in the north/east corner (Albany, Colonie, etc) vs. the hill towns, it would be a lot more $$$ to put all those channels in the hill towns to support the Albany/Colonie traffic that doesn't need to be carried there. Colonie is currently a 2 site simulcast and the City of Albany is just 1 site, where as the County has a lot of sites licensed throughout the county.
 

Thunderknight

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Are you sure about that SysID? I see a SysID of 695 on both.
854.5375 is Site 2 and NAC of 692.
859.7125 is Site 1 and NAC of 690.
 

MFR465

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I know the county is making strides to transfer comms over to an 800 TRS but that being said, fire and EMS will continue to be at the very least simulcasted over the current VHF if not completely paged out on that solely.

Also... don't be surprised if you start hearing 8G61 through 8G65. These are SUNY units in Albany based out of the "castle". They'll be up on COMSEC.
 
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DaveNF2G

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Paging will probably remain on VHF until somebody solves the question of how to page affordably over P25 trunking. My sources indicate that all communications (dispatch, ops, tactical, EMS, fireground, and at least some local government/highway, etc.) will be migrated to the countywide system. It is unlikely to happen all at once, though.
 

sav1350

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Thunderknight,

You are probably right on the NAC. I am having difficulty receiving 854.5375 from my location. I may have been mistaken about that.

I also am now hearing some sort of continuous data transmission on 852.575. Unitrunker and my 996XT can't decode it. I thought it sounded like a control channel but I guess not. Anyone with better ears than me able to tell what that is? Perhaps some sort of data, maybe for MDTs?
 
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DaveNF2G

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I confirm SID 695 and the two NACs previously reported also. From Rensselaer on a PSR-600.

852.575 might be TRBO.
 
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DaveNF2G

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852.575 is smack in between two Saratoga County P25 channels - 852.550 and 852.600. Far enough off either one that it probably isn't splatter, but an interesting choice of frequency for a new system, given how much of the 852 MHz segment is unused in the area.
 

Thunderknight

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852.575 is smack in between two Saratoga County P25 channels - 852.550 and 852.600. Far enough off either one that it probably isn't splatter, but an interesting choice of frequency for a new system, given how much of the 852 MHz segment is unused in the area.

Actually in NPSPAC, there is a channel in between those, so they are second adjacent.
852.550
852.5625
852.575
852.5875
852.600
 
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DaveNF2G

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That WACN is the only one I've ever seen. Every system I have seen so far uses it.
 

ThePagerGeek

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Dave, you need to get out more....

- Almost all Harris P25 systems use unique WACNs
- A small portion of Moto systems use unique WACNs also.
 

Thunderknight

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I think the standard allows 4,096 sys IDs per WACN.
Motorola systems are usually BEE00 (although I don't dispute what ThePagerGeek says, just haven't seen it myself).
Harris systems are definitely a different WACN than Motorola uses.
 

Com-Tech51H8

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Ok so how do I go about programming these into my scanner so I can help monitor this on my down time
 
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DaveNF2G

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Well, whoever is setting up systems in New York apparently does not alter the WACN.

I can think of one plausible reason for this. NY is only funding regional interconnected systems. Perhaps the common WACN on the public safety systems that are being built facilitates such interconnections.
 

ThePagerGeek

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Well, whoever is setting up systems in New York apparently does not alter the WACN.

I can think of one plausible reason for this. NY is only funding regional interconnected systems. Perhaps the common WACN on the public safety systems that are being built facilitates such interconnections.

It doesn't really work that way. Not to mention, any P25 system regardless of WACN can be interconnected through ISSI.

And to blow your "Common WACN for NY" theory out of the water...

Genesee
Monroe/Ontario
Orleans

All have WACN 458AD
 
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