New Pennsville Police (Salem County) System

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KC2KQH

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Hey everyone,

Over the last 9 months or so I've been following a system migration for Pennsville Police. They had originally moved to their own DMR system. After quite a bit of back and forth they seem to have settled on analog FM audio on a new frequency. The local high school appears to be using one of the licensed frequency pairs as well.

I've been keeping the database updated as I go. I did a write-up about the migration on one of my websites and figured I'd share it here.
Pennsville Police Implement a New Radio System | Radio Tech Planet

Moderators, if this isn't allowed, feel free to dump the post.
 

Skypilot007

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Thanks for the heads up, I listen at work in Logan twp and program one of my co-workers scanners who lives down there. Some folks, including public safety just can get used to digital. I'm curious what their problems with DMR were. If the system works well in analog, DMR should perform equally if not better and have a simultaneous second voice path to boot.
 

KC2KQH

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I'd expect you'll hear the new system just fine up in Logan. The antenna is on top of an 8 story building here in Pennsville. The audio is good and loud, but I think the mic gain on the county side needs to come down. From time to time they sound too hot to me, and when a phone rings or another channel is active in the background you can't understand the dispatcher over it.

As far as the problem or problems they had with DMR, I don't have an answer on that directly from anyone who would know for sure. I've heard various answers, but the one that seems to keep coming up is that they were having trouble with volume inconsistencies due to the way digital reproduces the audio. Whether or not that is the case I can't really say. There were a few instances of low audio during the time I monitored the new system while it was still DMR, but I thought overall it sounded pretty good. I was monitoring with an SDR piped into DSD+, as I don't have a DMR capable scanner. I did also have the opportunity to monitor for a short time on a BCD536HP that I programmed for a customer. Both performed well enough and sounded good in my opinion. One of these days I'll finally pick up a 536 to call my own.
 

KC2KQH

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4 cars are Penns Grove. Pennsville units are 5 cars. 4 and 11 (Carney's Point) are the only two left using PD West and "Channel 2" on a regular basis.
 

Skypilot007

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KC2KQH, do you know if they are using Motorola equipment? If they are, audio inconsistencies have been mostly resolved in the latest firmware releases for Gen II DMR radios. Especially with the audio leveling entitlement available. I've heard plenty of low audio on P25 systems also, most due to poor operating practices.
 

KC2KQH

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Skypilot,

I'm not sure what they settled on for equipment. Based on an older thread here they went through a period of testing with various radios before going live on the system. I'd guess during all of the back and forth from their new system to the county system when they were having problems that they were either swapping out equipment or tweaking programming before going from the county system back to their new one to try again each time.

Either way, good info regarding later releases. I'm still learning when it comes to the digital side of things. And I too have heard plenty of low audio due to poor mic technique. I did a ride along with an officer for work once (not Pennsville or any other's discussed here) who wouldn't take the mic out of the clip in the car to communicate with dispatch. It was easily a full arm's reach away from his mouth.
 
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