Jefferson County Entergy system

[N5LPT]

I recently went on a transmitter site tour at Entergy's main radio control center. It was very impressive and I must sayquite complex. I have a friend who works in the Radio Comm/Fiber Optics Dpt, and he is really not sure in answering some of my questions. I am interested in monitoring the activity on their state wide/Multi state system and I particularly am interested in monitoring the radio comm group. He could not tell me what their ID actually was until one day I recognized him on the radio and locked on the ID. I then programmed it into the system. That is the only ID that I have entered and the rest I just catch during ID search mode but have no idea what group I may be hearing. I wonder if anyone has any information or some sort of system layout detailing the different ID's.

He asked me if I can hear any of their Private Calls and I have not. Today, I set the I-Call to on and went to add a new TGID of 700000 for the Motorola 800 type II system. That is what I read in a post earlier so I wanted to check and see if it works. I chose an alert so I would know when I am receiving an I-Call.

Anyway, in the RR database, I located the Entergy system and there are alot of frequencies and control chanels. Since I did not see one listed specifically for Jefferson County, I was not sure which ones to use. I tried entering a few and they were obviously not local or at least I did not hear them so I did a custom search between 851.000-861.000 and saved the control channels I did pick up and after adding them to the frequency list, I started receiving various TG's.

Sorry for this long post but I am new to scanning and just recently joined this group so I am a newbie. I have the new BCD396T handheld and I think I love it if I can ever get it set up correctly.

Thanks,
N5LPT

 

[loumaag]

Have you looked at the Emtergy System entry here in the Database?

 

[N5LPT]

Checked Entergy Site

Yes Lou, I had been to that site and saw all of the frequency listings for the different areas. I was not quite sure which ones I should program, but I figured that all I really neded are the control frequencies (highlighted in RED). I know that I don't need all of then particularly those out of state or at least out of my locar radio range. I did find one that appears to be the most active CC at 851.71250MHz. I am getting some of the (Private) I-Calls now that I have programmed the ID to search for 700000 numbers. I just wanted to try and figure out which group is what. I guess I can look at the frequency list while monitoring the radio and see which control frequency it is using, and that should tell me which area is active. I pick up some frequencies that are very weak as opposed to the main channel which is close to my location and is full scale. The weak ones tell me that they are not local. For instance, when I am using my 5db mobile roof mount antenna, I pick up a lot of distant channels. I let the radio do a "Search and Store" and it added all of the found ID's into one group. I guess that it would be difficult to know exactly what is going on just by monitoring since the Entergy system is so broad scaled. I sure would like to see a diagram of how everything ties together to the central stations. I know that my friend can on his Motorola radio, dial in a code and actually talk to New Orleans (Pre-Catrina), so they have the capability to link up with other systems within the whole network.

Thanks for your suggestion and if you have anything else that may help, I sure would appreciate it.

Mark-N5LPT

 

[loumaag]

Mark,

If you are thinking of systems as sites then I guess you have an understanding of it, but in fact the entire Entergy system is just one trunking system. It is like any other SmartZone system, that is any radio is capable of using any site (there are exceptions, but lets not get too technical). If you buddy were to travel to Jackson, MS, he would of course be able to talk back to TX, both on private call and his regular talkgroup. I am not sure what you mean by how it is all "mapped out", if you mean what TG handles what specific area, then that is what we all listen to TRS's to find out. :lol:

The only thing is that most folks don't make a habit of monitoring the utility companies, so there is not a lot of TG detail available. Too bad, because when the weather moves in, it can be pretty interesting.

 

[N5LPT]

Entergy System

Lou,

Thank you for your help. I am still trying to figure out the trunking system all together. This scanning other that conventional, is very confusing to say the least. You I think you are correct in that what I am calling a system, I am meaning sites instead. I see what you are saying in that the complete network is ons system. What is meant by smart zone? Should I just enter or program all of the red control channels listed on the page you referred me to? I have alot to learn and understand about trunking and I will then be able to figure out other systems that I might run across. I have alot of questions I guess and sure would find it useful to be able to talk to someone in person or telephone who understands this stuff. Lou, would you mind if I called you at a time that is convienent to you? I will give you my email address and you can email me your telephone number so I can call you. Or mabe you might have another recommendation that I might find helpful at least at this point.

Thanks

Mark-N5LPT
marklow@mac.com

 

[loumaag]

Mark,

You can indeed enter all the control channels, but remember the frequencies are licensed with a consideration to other users, so if you put all of them in, you may get interference. For example, a CC from Bridge City, LA for Entergy could be used by someone else in your area of TX, hence causing you interference. It probably would be best for you just to enter the frequencies for the sites in your area and forget the rest of the system. Real radios (not scanners) use the System ID (0x2d16) to identify what control channels to use as they roam around the system. BTW, I just noticed that at some point the description of this system was changed from SmartZone to a SmartZone Omnilink system, I am not sure that is correct as I have never encountered more than one System ID on this in my travels.

For further info in regard to Trunking Systems and how they work, try reading through the documents on the RR Wiki (link at top of page.)