Philly Going Phase 2

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Septa3371CSX1

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Got word from a couple reliable sources that the City of Philadelphia will soon flip the switch and go P25 Phase 2 on their system. Apparently the roll out of APX radios to city agencies is now complete and the Philadelphia Second Alarmers (they support PFD and PPD at working fires and other incidents) are among the last system users to be getting them. Once all those new radios are in place the changeover will happen within the next 6 weeks.

I do not know if they'll just go Phase 2 on the current 800 simulcasts or if the new 700 MHz sites (which are reportedly active) will be where everything goes. My understanding from a few years back is that when Phase 2 is activated the system will become 4 geographic simulcasts instead of the 2 citywide simulcasts - we shall wait and see.

For those in the city and surrounding area still using radios that only do Phase 1 now is the time to make your upgrades.
 

radio3353

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Thanks for the heads-up. I can't receive the current Philly system from my location. Anxious to see if my Unication G4 will receive the P2 system. Probably not, but one never knows until it happens.

I would expect police to be encrypted.
 

Septa3371CSX1

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I'm getting some mixed signals on this as to whether or not it will be going Phase 2. It does sound like the encryption on the police district channels may come to fruition. Like everything with the city and this system I have to take everything no matter the source with a grain of salt until I actually see it happen.
 

Danny37

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There are a lot of rumors always going around with regards to encryption and they're usually incorrect. :roll:

Well even radio reference states it on the philly database page but it has yet to be implemented. I think the rumor here holds some weight to say the least compared to the others.
 

soberbyker

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~snip~

For those in the city and surrounding area still using radios that only do Phase 1 now is the time to make your upgrades.

I'm one of those guys, RS Pro-197, hear the city just fine from the Lansdowne area.

I've been holding for for two basic reasons, price & a user friendly radio. Although my Pro-197 isn't exactly user friendly my WIN500 makes it so. (I'm from the old plug in a crystal days)

So I have a question, is there a Phase 2 radio that is similar to the Pro-197 in that a program like WIN500 makes it easy to use? ... and won't put me in the poor house?

I like to be able to easily choose what frequencies I listen to, the zip code populated radios seem very confusing to me. I dread the day when DELCO finally comes out of the dark ages, now there is an easy system to monitor.
 

bk117

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Got word from a couple reliable sources that the City of Philadelphia will soon flip the switch and go P25 Phase 2 on their system. Apparently the roll out of APX radios to city agencies is now complete and the Philadelphia Second Alarmers (they support PFD and PPD at working fires and other incidents) are among the last system users to be getting them. Once all those new radios are in place the changeover will happen within the next 6 weeks.



I do not know if they'll just go Phase 2 on the current 800 simulcasts or if the new 700 MHz sites (which are reportedly active) will be where everything goes. My understanding from a few years back is that when Phase 2 is activated the system will become 4 geographic simulcasts instead of the 2 citywide simulcasts - we shall wait and see.



For those in the city and surrounding area still using radios that only do Phase 1 now is the time to make your upgrades.



I don’t really know how to comment on this other than to say that of the several hundred APX6000’s I have programmed, NON of them had QA00580 TDMA Operation purchased in the radio. In order to go Phase2 there needs to be a whole lota Flashing going on(which isn’t)!
 

radio3353

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I sure do miss the old UHF days, could monitor Philly clearly from many different counties

When I got my first radio as a kid back in the late 60's they were on VHF! If I recall correctly, North Band was 154.235 MHz. It was a small portable with a small round tuning dial and telescoping antenna (I believe it was a Lafayette brand.) Hit and miss tuning, but Philly was very busy back then so they were easy to find. Pre-scanner days. But, their signal came in fine in the Philly northern suburbs (Willow Grove.) Yeah, I'm old :lol:
 

captaincab

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monitoring delco pa with gre psr300 pro2053 and b
Fire was vhf 154.235 was south fire 154.145 north fire 170.150 was medic later on they added a 2nd north medic then a central medic and two channels were for subway if I recall correctly. Pd was all 453 mhz except sheriff they were 460mhz and ppa was 500mhz. Ohni forgot haste channel was low band


When I got my first radio as a kid back in the late 60's they were on VHF! If I recall correctly, North Band was 154.235 MHz. It was a small portable with a small round tuning dial and telescoping antenna (I believe it was a Lafayette brand.) Hit and miss tuning, but Philly was very busy back then so they were easy to find. Pre-scanner days. But, their signal came in fine in the Philly northern suburbs (Willow Grove.) Yeah, I'm old :lol:
 

jcardani

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I remember Philly PD having 2 VHF repeaters and 2 simplex in the early 1970's along with their UHF system. I believe the UHF system was installed sometime in the mid-late 1960's.



As for the VHF channels, they were used for court beat units and special events like the Christmas holidays in Center City. Repeaters were located at 1) Harner St. & Harner Rd and 2) City Hall.

You can check out the expired license KEX-220 for more info.

Frequencies

154.650 (input 155.625) CW-1 *
155.655 (input 154.770) CW-2

154.890 simplex F-1 used by detectives
155.250 simplex F-2 used by detectives

* Since there was no PL tone on the input or output York County Police repeater on 155.625 would be rebroadcast on CW-1 during tropo ducting :)
 

jcardani

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I would love to know what Philly PD used before the UHF system. Was it just the 6 - VHF KEX-220 frequencies or more? A real old-time would need to reply to that. I started listening around 1972 or so.
 

soberbyker

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When I got my first radio as a kid back in the late 60's they were on VHF! If I recall correctly, North Band was 154.235 MHz. It was a small portable with a small round tuning dial and telescoping antenna (I believe it was a Lafayette brand.) Hit and miss tuning, but Philly was very busy back then so they were easy to find. Pre-scanner days. But, their signal came in fine in the Philly northern suburbs (Willow Grove.) Yeah, I'm old :lol:


Growing up in DELCO I remember my first scanner was a plug in the crystals type. Upper Darby was 159.090 IIRC, What is now basically "Sector 4" was on low VHF maybe 39.78 & 39.50? and sector 5 was 44.xx
 

trap5858

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Thinking back to the good old days when Philly fire was on VHF and the police were on UHF you could keep the whole system in your head and when the first programmable handheld came out you could change things on the fly. I believe it was the BC-100 that had 10 programmable channels in one bank. And on top of that you could hear them pretty much everywhere in the Delaware Valley.
 

whsbuss

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Fire was vhf 154.235 was south fire 154.145 north fire 170.150 was medic later on they added a 2nd north medic then a central medic and two channels were for subway if I recall correctly. Pd was all 453 mhz except sheriff they were 460mhz and ppa was 500mhz. Ohni forgot haste channel was low band

Actually before duplexing, only 170.150 was used for all PFD communications. And I believe 166.??? was the transmit freq in the radios (circa 1966)
 
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