Comprehensive list what citie/sites

Does anyone on here have a comprehensive list of all trunking sites and which site a particular city woud use. Such as for El Mirage PD, all you would need is sim. G, that way you could delete the other 14 sites that the programmer puts when programming.It seems like there's alot of sites that don't need to be programmed in the scanner. It has to slow things down??

Below are the primary users of each site on the RWC:

-Simulcast A - Phoenix PD & Phoenix City Services
-Simulcast B - Phoenix Fire & Phoenix Public Works [Secondary Roaming for neighboring Agencies]
-Simulcast C - Chandler, Maricopa (City), Phoenix PD 400
-Simulcast F - Tempe
-Simulcast G - West Valley Agencies (Avondale, El Mirage, Glendale, Goodyear, Peoria, Surprise, Tolleson) [Secondary Roaming for Phoenix PD & Fire]
-Simulcast H - Scottsdale
-Simulcast J - Buckeye
-Sky Harbor - All Sky Harbor Airport operations
-New River - Outlet Mall & Anthem area
-Quintero - Quintero Community
-High Sites (South Mountain, North Mountain, Far North Mountain, Sacaton Mountain, Thompson Peak, Towers Mountain, White Tanks Mountain) - Backup for Simulcast Sites, "Ocean Deck", and Roaming for Outlying coverage area

Some other notes:
-Simulcast A&B are co-located on the same transmitter locations. This provides a complete coverage backup radio system for Phoenix PD & Phoenix Fire. This also provides for additional capacity in the Phoenix area.
-Users can "Roam" between sites when they are outside the coverage areas of their primary coverage area. (Therefore, we often hear Glendale on Simulcast B, and Phoenix PD 200/800/900 on Simulcast G)
-Talkgroups are only active when there is a system user that "affiliates" to the site. (Therefore, if there are no El Mirage PD officers near Phoenix, El Mirage PD talkgroup will not be carried on Simulcast B)
-RWC System Admins control what talkgroups have access to what sites. (Therefore, we do not normally hear Sky Harbor Dispatch on Simulcast A/B even though there are Simulcast A/B transmitters at the airport. This is also why we don't hear Phoenix PD on the Sky Harbor IR).
-Phoenix Regional Fire agencies can use K Deck talkgroups across all Simulcast sites.

You can use what is above as a loose guide. Where we hear talkgroups can change if there are system transmitter outages, planned maintenance, changes in agency coverage requirements, large events in the valley, etc.

For scanning, certainly lockout or avoid sites you cannot receive, or have interest in hearing. On my primary antenna from home, I can only receive 5 of the 17 RWC sites. Say it takes my BCD996XT about 500 miliseconds to scan a site that I cannot receive. It would be inefficient to have the 12 sites that I cannot receive unlocked and in the scan list. There will be about 6 seconds of NOTHING every 15 seconds it takes my radio to complete a scan cycle. 40% of the time, my scanner would be silent! That is a lot of wasted scan time. If I listen for 8 hours while working, that turns out to 3.2 hours of hearing nothing!

The newer Uniden scanners like the Uniden BCD436HP & BCD536HP do not take as long as a BCD996XT to scan a site that it cannot receive so, it is not a big deal. Even with the newer scanners, it still adds up to time listening to nothing.

Thanks Joe !

A link to this thread has been added to the Regional Wireless Cooperative (RWC) RR Wiki page, so more people can learn about this.

Thanks for sharing.

Many thanks to Joe for the info and to "lwolf1313 for thinking to ask it! This really helps figure out what sites are needed.

Simulcast J has both Goodyear and Buckeye PD (Buckeye being fully encrypted), as well as Phoenix FD K-deck TG's.

Peoria and Surprise PD's are carried full time on the White Tanks IR. Buckeye PD is carried at least part-time on the White Tanks IR, but again, they are fully encrypted.

Peoria PD and the Phoenix FD K-6 TG are carried part-time on the Towers Mtn IR.

The Quintero IR is only active if a subscriber radio (Peoria PD or FD) is within range of the gated community.

Phoenix FD K-2 appears to be carried full-time on both the Thompson Peak and White Tanks IR's.

John
Peoria

Questions on Simulcast A & B. Is there only one site or are they scattered but on the same frequencies? When programming for them, is it sufficient to put in only the control frequencies listed for A & B in the radioreference database?

Simulcast A&B are transmitted from 12 tower locations around Phoenix. All Simulcast A&B towers transmit on the same frequencies. When programming a scanner, you will only need the control channel frequencies that are documented in the DB. Program one site for Simulcast A and one site for Simulcast B with the corresponding control channel frequencies.

Simulcast G & El Mirage PD

"Cellphone" listed below that RWC Simulcast G covers El Mirage, Peoria and Surprise, etc.

I've been scanning Surprise PD using Simulcast G and White Tanks Regional, and getting all hits on White Tanks.

I've been scanning Peoria PD using Simulcast G and Towers Mountain High, and getting all hits on Towers Mountain.

Should I eliminate Simulcast G from Surprise and Peoria PD sites?

I want to scan El Mirage PD but don't know what site to use out of the 17 RWC sites in the Database.
Can someone suggest a good site to use for El Mirage? I'm in Sun City West.

Glendale PD is carried on Simulcasts B & G.
Peoria PD is carried on Simulcasts B & G, as well as the White Tanks and Towers Mtn IR sites full time, and the Quintero IR site part time.
El Mirage PD is carried solely on Simulcast G.
Surprise PD is carried on Simulcast G and the White Tanks IR site full time.

If you're not getting any of the PD's above, or Avondale or Goodyear PD's, or Phoenix FD, or anything else on Simulcast G, it is most likely because of multi-path issues, and you'll need to invest some money and time on a better, most likely directional antenna, and experiment with which direction to point it in, in order to pick up Simulcast G, and El Mirage PD.

John
Peoria

sorry

I am receiving the following:
SCW Posse on White Tank
MSCO on White Tank, Central Court, Thompson Peak
Surprise PD on White Tank
Phoenix FD on Towers Mountain
Peoria PD on White Tank

I have never heard a Simulcast Transmission using my table top whip antenna In Sun City West
using my new BCD536HP scanner.

A common problem with simulcast systems such as the RWC, the TOPAZ RWC Mesa simulcast, and other simulcast systems across the country, is that receiving the same signal from two different transmitter sites at the same time, but slightly out of phase by a fraction of a second, is that the signals cancel each other out.
On a conventional, analog FM system, if two people try to transmit and talk at the same time, unless one is significantly stronger than the other, both will be unintelligible. On an AM system, you get a high-pitched whine.
But in a digital system, you get nothing.
That is why you're not receiving anything off of Simulcast G. With multiple transmitter sites, you're receiving two or more at *almost* the same time, and they cancel each other out.
Expensive, professional grade radios have much better circuitry, and better mircoprocessors, and can handle this problem much better. Our much cheaper consumer grade scanners don't have this, and we suffer by not being able to easily listen to what we want to.
One of the ways we can attempt to improve our reception, is to purchase a directional antenna for our base station scanner(s), and take the time to experiment with what direction to point it in, in order to get the best reception.
As for mobile and portable use, we're pretty much out of luck.

John
Peoria

I guess I need to find a very directional 700 MHz band vertical antenna, I'll start looking around.
I was thinking of putting up a discone for Scanner and for Amateur use on 2m and 0.7m.
(Taking my license tests next week.)
Perhaps I could put the 700 MHz antenna on the same mast just below the discone.

Is there a map of Simulcast towers in Phoenix? I'd probably want to aim at the one closest to me.

My scanner stops alot at Simulcast sites, I see strong signals but the squelch never breaks. Radio must be confused.

Thanks for the advice John,

RFWel has a nice yagi and it is a bargain at $40. RFWel has a location in the East Valley if you want to pick up and save the shipping cost.

http://shop.rfwel.com/746-787-mhz-lte-band-13-7-dbi-lte-yagi-antenna/

Use some high quality, coax since there is a lot of loss at 770mhz. This antenna helps me get some Simulcast G signal from Ahwatukee.

For maps of transmitter locations, Radio Reference has a couple of nice links in the DB. When looking at a site, you can see associated callsigns. Click the callsign to see the locations on the map. Unfortunately we don't have a nice map of all transmitters for a simulcast site, but click through all the callsigns and you can find the closest transmitter.

Example RWC Simulcast A
http://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?siteId=27349

Another options is to view all transmitters for a system, then match freqs/callsign with the site.
http://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?action=siteMap&sid=2508&type=fcc

Click on the "Site FCC Licenses" links, and it will give you a map of all the sites for Simulcast G.


Simulcast G: West Valley Site Details (Regional Wireless Cooperative (RWC))



Be aware that the closest site may not be the best site to aim at. The reason is, if there is another site in the same direction, or even slightly off to the side, but still within the beamwidth of your antenna, you may still receive transmissions from two or more sites at the same time.
This is why you may have to take some time to experiment with the best direction to point your antenna in. But, that's part of the fun, right?

John
Peoria

Thanks for the info. The Yagi looks nice, inexpensive, and with small horizontal beamwidth. I'm not sure how to aim it on a mast I can't reach when installed. I need some way to rotate 30 deg at a time. I guess I could pre-score the mast for rotation indexes.

I'm trying to locate the best tower to aim at for Simulcast A & G. Thanks for showing me the way to do it.

Jim

cellphone said:

For maps of transmitter locations, Radio Reference has a couple of nice links in the DB. When looking at a site, you can see associated callsigns. Click the callsign to see the locations on the map. Unfortunately we don't have a nice map of all transmitters for a simulcast site, but click through all the callsigns and you can find the closest transmitter.

Example RWC Simulcast A
Simulcast A: Phoenix PD and City Services Site Details (Regional Wireless Cooperative (RWC))

Another options is to view all transmitters for a system, then match freqs/callsign with the site.
Site Map: Regional Wireless Cooperative (RWC) Trunking System, Phoenix, Arizona

Click to expand...

Also, Find the locations of the repeaters here:

TRWC: https://www.easymapmaker.com/map/d97e54e660686e188938b58fb904625f

RWC: https://www.easymapmaker.com/map/93cc274a657243e1d1d710d565894424

Hope this is what your looking for. BTW all the information in these maps is taken from the license links off the FCC database which were shared on RR forums a while back.

73's
N7AFD

Wow, great maps and information! Thanks for your hard work.