Bell County EDACS Unknown ProVoice talkgroups

[SCPD]

As reported in this thread, talkgroups 1185 and 1186 are ProVoice talkgroups on the Bell County EDACS system.

http://forums.radioreference.com/te...n-bell-county-pro-voice-coming-very-soon.html

I have seen very little voice activity on 1186 (enough to know it's digital). However, today I see 1185 is busy. 126 calls in a 28 minute period.

You already knew the bad news - it's a Provoice talkgroup. Here's the good news. It is not encrypted. To follow this talkgroup you'll need a frankenstein rig to decode it. That means a computer and two radios - one to provide control channel data ("signal") and another radio that must support computer control and provide a discriminator tap for voice. The computer will need to run two programs: a control channel decoder like Unitrunker and a digital voice decoder like DSD. The windows version of DSD is probably the easiest route for decoding Provoice. See wiki for details.

With this set up, you'll be able to hear the voice traffic and - getting back to the point of this post - finally identify the talkgroup. I don't know enough about Bell County to distinguish Belton, Temple, Harker Heights, Salado, and so on. Someone with local knowledge will need to do this.

Operators are standing by to answer any questions.

 

[StatuSChecKa]

OMG, I really thought it was P25.
If I could hear audio I can tell by badge numbers what agency it is.
I dont know about that decoding rig tho. I'm better off not being obsessed with scanner chatter.
I'll re-read this in the morning and see whats going on.

 

[StatuSChecKa]

Dang Uni you have some madd radio knowledge. I dont know what else to say; I may be of little help.
I have my GRE-500 and a Pro-164 that I have not sold yet, and of course a computer. But I dont what my new $400 radio tethered to a computer at all times.

 

[SCPD]

Maybe the crew in the newsroom can justify a pair of PSR410s.

 

[K5TYN01]

Bell County won't be switching to Pro-Voice until Nov. or Dec. of 2014. This info came from the system admin himself. We will be moving to narrowband in Aug. of this year.

 

[StatuSChecKa]

So why did Temple make the jump alone?
And will bell county be the same EDACS just narrowband with new frequencies. I've sadly given up on Temple Police. I'm learning how to use my scanner to do other things like you hobbyists.

 

[K5TYN01]

Re: Bell County EDACS System

For the record Temple PD uses the county TRS. When the county switches everyone will switch. Temple PD does NOT have a system to themselves. The system is not even set up on Narrowband yet. Bell County might be using Pro-Voice with ESK. I stress MIGHT. We have the Over The Air Provisioning option so when everything gets going we will not have to take our radios in. Again, Sometime this year we will be moving to Narrowband and on or shortly before Jan. 1st of 2015 we will move to Pro-Voice. If you have a scanner you will be able to monitor the system until the switch to Pro-Voice. The only way you will be able to monitor after the switch is to buy a Pro-Voice capable radio. But you might not find anyone who will program it.

 

[loumaag]

Re: Narrowband

Maybe Rick can jump in here and comment, but how can the Bell Co system go narrowband without changing the type of system it is? It was my understanding that EDACS Standard required wide band to handle the 9600 baud control channel. Now I do know that LCRA used to use narrow band voice channels with a wide band control channel but they still had wide band for the CCh and hence was considered a "standard" type system. Indeed, with the requirement that the 9600 baud control channel requiring the band width, how can any EDACS standard system go narrow band?

 

[K5TYN01]

I guess I should clarify. The system and all the radios are fully ready for Narrowband and Pro-Voice. It is just a matter of when the county deadlines are concerning the switching. The system admin has been very very busy this year alone regarding the system upgrade and getting everything programmed. I was told that 2012 would be the move to Narrowband and just before Jan. 1st of 2015 would be the move to Pro-Voice.

 

[K5TYN01]

LCRA is EDACS Narrowband Networked. Which if I my thinking is correct the entire system is completly Narrowband. I could be wrong on the control channel aspect. I know they are in the works of either a P25 system or an Opensky system. I will have to recheck

 

[loumaag]

I guess I should clarify. The system and all the radios are fully ready for Narrowband and Pro-Voice. It is just a matter of when the county deadlines are concerning the switching. The system admin has been very very busy this year alone regarding the system upgrade and getting everything programmed. I was told that 2012 would be the move to Narrowband and just before Jan. 1st of 2015 would be the move to Pro-Voice.

Okay...but my question still remains. And ProVoice brings another aspect to it, as I am sure I monitored a discussion here (I think in one of the professional/commercial forums) about ProVoice (the digital footprint) not being able to fit in a narrowband channel.

LCRA is EDACS Narrowband Networked. ...

No, LCRA is EDACS Standard Networked, but, using narrowband voice channels. EDACS Narrowband is a type of system and the control channel is slower and uses a 4800 baud speed, which is why it fits into a narrowband channel. A 9600 baud CCh will not fit into a narrowband channel. As for the move, they are doing both, they are using a P25 layer and establishing an OpenSky system. The OpenSky solution also, just for information, is the way CenterPoint Energy is going.

 

[K5TYN01]

Ok. I'm not too savy when it comes to the EDACS systems. But my info concerning the Bell County TRS are accurate. The system admin has been working his tail of getting everything ready to move narrowband and Pro-Voice. I recently bought a Jaguar 700P and asked him if it would work on the system after the changes went into affect and he said it would work. The oldest radio he said would work is the 1 meg LPE 200. If I am correct I believe they are or haven't released any info for Pro-Voice to any scanner makers.

 

[texasemt13]

I believe Lou is correct here, the 9600 baud CC is too wide for narrowband.

K5TNY, you seem to have a good "in" with the SysAdmin, and hopefully your info regarding PV conversion is correct, as it will give the hobbyists a little time to jump the gun. PV can be monitored a few ways now, not just with a capable radio, but with digital speech decoding software (search our Forums for "DSD").

What about taking a PV capable handheld, programming the different LCNs as individual frequencies, and setting the handheld to "scan?" This won't allow anyone to truly track a talkgroup, but on a system that isn't too busy it works well. I say "too" busy, because even in San Antonio I've seen this done with an LPE and it worked decent. Again, you couldn't trunktrack one talkgroup, but it does pass all the PV audio on the LCN, then scans to the next LCN carrying voice traffic (and most of the talkgroups trunk to the next LCN anyways), so it does allow you to follow conversations somewhat. In San Antonio it worked okay, but was difficult to follow conversations during high voice call volume. But I bet it'd work better in Bell Co.

Besides that, with a little searching, you can find "Programmer" online and program your LPE up yourself, if you're careful to not allow it to "affiliate" with the trunk site.

 

[SCPD]

EDACS and ProVoice were published back in the 90's as a candidate for P25. It's been known to the scanner makers for over a decade. They chose not to license it.

I don't understand the association between ProVoice and narrowband.

The emission mask for 9600 bps EDACS and ProVoice is the same. It's 20khz. The mask for EDACS narrow is 11khz. There is no form of ProVoice that operates inside a 12.5 kHz channel.

The only narrowband upgrade paths offered by Harris are Opensky and P25.