Monitoring Wethersfield P25

Kriwoam · Sep 26, 2017

Hopefully someone here can shed some insight on what I'm doing wrong, or maybe not.

I have a BCD352P2 scanner with the latest firmware and I am unable to get it to lock onto the control channel.
As a sanity check, I programmed New Britain in with just the channels and ID Search to see if my scanner would work and there are no issues.
I live in Cromwell and get plenty of signal if I stop the scanner on a CC, but it just doesn't recognize it while scanning.

Any ideas?

SVFC462 · Sep 26, 2017

What are you using to program it? By hand or with software?

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doctordialtone · Sep 26, 2017

Wethersfield

Kriwoam said:
Hopefully someone here can shed some insight on what I'm doing wrong, or maybe not.

I have a BCD352P2 scanner with the latest firmware and I am unable to get it to lock onto the control channel.
As a sanity check, I programmed New Britain in with just the channels and ID Search to see if my scanner would work and there are no issues.
I live in Cromwell and get plenty of signal if I stop the scanner on a CC, but it just doesn't recognize it while scanning.

Any ideas?

I am hearing them. I also have a 325P2.

Control Chanel right now is 857.0625

FYI, this morning they were operating on RAFS for a while. Not sure if they were having troubles or not.

WA1QWH · Sep 27, 2017

doctordialtone said:
I am hearing them. I also have a 325P2.

Control Chanel right now is 857.0625

FYI, this morning they were operating on RAFS for a while. Not sure if they were having troubles or not.

They were on RAFS twice yesterday. Funny thing, dispatch and cars could not hear each other on P25, but I heard them both fine on my HP2. So, it wasn't an RF problem, rather a computer issue I suspect, related to the talk groups assignments. In these cases, the Fire Dept. reverts back to their old analog 460.625 freq.

After an hour or so, they sorted it out and were on P25 the rest of the day.

WA1QWH · Sep 27, 2017

Kriwoam said:
Hopefully someone here can shed some insight on what I'm doing wrong, or maybe not.

I have a BCD352P2 scanner with the latest firmware and I am unable to get it to lock onto the control channel.
As a sanity check, I programmed New Britain in with just the channels and ID Search to see if my scanner would work and there are no issues.
I live in Cromwell and get plenty of signal if I stop the scanner on a CC, but it just doesn't recognize it while scanning.

Any ideas?

How tight is your squelch set? I accidentally set mine to maximum once, and had the same problem. Is the signal strength bars indicator showing 3-4 bars while scanning, not just when you stop it? Have you ever received Wethersfield from your location? Are you using the Sentinal file for Wethersfield from Radio Reference, which we know works?

Kriwoam · Sep 27, 2017

I have tried manual programming with just adding a site and the channels, and I have tried using ARC-XT as it is the best way to add talk groups. If I stop on the CC I can see the site ID and active talk groups. The issue I have is when scanning. I do not see any signal bars. If I manually go to a talk group, the display says "Finding Control Channel".

This is the only P25 system I have issues with.

WA1QWH · Sep 27, 2017

Kriwoam said:
I have tried manual programming with just adding a site and the channels, and I have tried using ARC-XT as it is the best way to add talk groups. If I stop on the CC I can see the site ID and active talk groups. The issue I have is when scanning. I do not see any signal bars. If I manually go to a talk group, the display says "Finding Control Channel".

This is the only P25 system I have issues with.

I'm still leaning towards a signal strength issue. Take a trip up here to Wethersfield and see what happens.

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Kriwoam · Sep 27, 2017

I tried all the suggestions including squelch. I have full signal bars, so unless there are simulcast timing issues where I am, which should show up on the CC, then nothing stands out.

The next step I tried was deleting the system manually, and then re-sent it with the latest ARC-XT program.
For some reason this fixed the issue this time. All talk groups show 0 errors on the display too. It's FM like we say in the radio business.

Thanks for all of your input.

Monitoring Wethersfield P25

Kriwoam

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SVFC462

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doctordialtone

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WA1QWH

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WA1QWH

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Kriwoam

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WA1QWH

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Kriwoam

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