New Scanners New Metro System

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737mech

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If anyone in the Las Vegas area happens to buy one of the new Uniden scanners please program the new metro system right away and let us know if they are encrypted phase 2 tdma or not? It's the only reason I haven't ordered one yet. OBTW it's not in the rrdb yet, search the forums here there are links to the freqs based on fcc license requests. Maybe too early to tell since the system isn't operating yet? Maybe catch some radio maintenance guys? I'm just asking if you guys over AES have one yet let us know.
 

bfperez

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I've been up and down the 769-775 range and can't find a control channel. Tons of Opensky, nothing else. A Phase 1 scanner dumping to Unitrunker should be able to enumerate the capabilities of the system should a control channel come up.

All the new SY licenses have the same 12 channels by 9 sites. Should be one heck of a simulcast.
769.10625
769.60625
770.05625
770.50625
770.80625
771.01875
771.16875
771.29375
771.43125
771.58125
771.70625
771.98125
 

spencer2223

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vegas

hey i was wondering what system is vegas on still simcast to open sky or using harris p25 700
and is it tdma ecrpyted if any body knows cuz i looked at site to see if i can find it but cant hope to here something im thinking of going so i wanna here police
 

bfperez

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Still OpenSky as far as I can tell. I can't verify a single P25 control channel for it.
 

spencer2223

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oh k maby they are still test mode for p25 i know it always take forever for them to actully get on radio so hopefully thell get off that open sky i lot side it puts public saftey in danger
 

br0adband

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Well at least now that we've got the frequencies all we can do is punch 'em into our receivers/scanners/SDR frequency managers and hope to detect - or better yet hear something as they begin testing at some point. I just added them to a group in SDR# so I'll check in on it from time to time. Can't handle Phase II obviously but in time hopefully the author of DSD+ will be able to add Phase II support to that most awesome application they created and I'll be able to monitor this new 700 MHz system.

That is, unless the LVMPD encrypts everything which is entirely possible at this point. If it happens, it happens, and at this point I almost expect it so I'm not going to get my hopes up that much in this situation. It's not like there isn't a lot of other stuff to monitor still readily available.
 
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br0adband

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Dadgummit, guess you only have so long to edit a post around here nowadays... ?

Was doing more research into this because I hadn't/haven't spent much time learning much of anything about the specifics of P25 Phase II and it's pretty interesting stuff. I don't know much about Phase I or X2-TDMA to be honest since P25 is a pretty "rare" thing here in the Vegas area in terms of popularity I suppose. I know the TSA uses it (purely encrypted end to end) so that's a wash. Nellis AFB uses it and I can monitor it with the 1-2-3 setup of Unitrunker-SDR#-DSD+ but since I can't hold on a given talkgroup it gets a bet tiresome in some respects just hearing snippets of stuff all the time.

I also know that S.N.A.C.C. has two talkgroups (College of Southern Nevada and the McCarran Aiport Marshalls) in testing for their P25 side of things (Phase I apparently is all they use as I've yet to notice DSD+ kicking into any X2-TDMA decoding).

And that's pretty much it for P25 so I never bothered to get a digital trunking scanner over the years and now I'm pretty jazzed about this SDR stuff which so far has been absolutely fantastic overall in my experience and only going to get better.

But what I noticed in my research tonight was funny, at least to me, about how things just continue to get more and more complicated. The emission designator for P25 Phase II transmissions is 9K80D7W and according to the FCC that means:

P25 Phase II fixed-end 2-slot TDMA (Harmonized Differential Quadrature Phase Shift Keyed modulation - H-DQPSK)

What I find funny about it is if you were to try and say that correctly a few times reminiscent of the old "say that fast three times" joke. I mean geez, that's a mouthful, another mouthful, and a heap of another, good lord. :D
 

crazynova

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Well at least now that we've got the frequencies all we can do is punch 'em into our receivers/scanners/SDR frequency managers and hope to detect - or better yet hear something as they begin testing at some point. I just added them to a group in SDR# so I'll check in on it from time to time. Can't handle Phase II obviously but in time hopefully the author of DSD+ will be able to add Phase II support to that most awesome application they created and I'll be able to monitor this new 700 MHz system.

That is, unless the LVMPD encrypts everything which is entirely possible at this point. If it happens, it happens, and at this point I almost expect it so I'm not going to get my hopes up that much in this situation. It's not like there isn't a lot of other stuff to monitor still readily available.

I would suggest to start looking around July, which is when real world testing is supposed to start. The entire department is expected to be fully switched over by the end of 2014. As far as encryption, I wouldn't count on it. Encryption costs money, and money (especially for a new radio system after all the wasted money on OpenSky) is scarce around Metro.
 

br0adband

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Encryption costs money, and money (especially for a new radio system after all the wasted money on OpenSky) is scarce around Metro.

This isn't like the good old days of old when using a voice scrambler or even some of the earlier privacy/encryption technology actually was a considerable additional expense for the circuits/daughterboards/etc - nowadays encrypting P25 is basically checking off a box with the programming software and that's that. It's part of the spec and completely capable; in other words, it's already in the price out the door. ;)

I hope they don't choose to encrypt everything because I started in the scanning hobby by monitoring police and fire activity and pretty much nothing else so I somewhat miss being able to find out what's going on when I hear a unit screaming by with the lights and sirens in full swing.

But as stated if they do it's no skin off my nose I guess. I still say those boneheads would have been infinitely better just joining into the S.N.A.C.C. system. I can find no practical reason why they decided to make such horrible choices in the past few years with their comm systems, let's hope with this Motorola Phase II roll-out things are nowhere near as bad in terms of all the problems OpenSky has caused for them.

Regardless, it'll be an interesting year with respect to all the happenings, new scanners, and SDR moving into the forefront of our hobby with some serious traction. I for one am 100% hooked on SDR-style monitoring and there's no going back now.
 
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737mech

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" I know the TSA uses it (purely encrypted end to end)"
What makes you say that? I can hear TSA all the time on my PSR-500 and my tapped BCT-15 thru DSD 1.6. Clear as can be. 172.9
 

br0adband

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" I know the TSA uses it (purely encrypted end to end)"
What makes you say that? I can hear TSA all the time on my PSR-500 and my tapped BCT-15 thru DSD 1.6. Clear as can be. 172.9

Ok, my mistake then, I was under the impression that the TSA has a system in place that's P25 encrypted at McCarran - I saw mention of it here in the past and that's what I was going on. I never put a lot of interest in it overall because of the P25 nature; I'm just now getting into being able to monitor that kind of traffic since I've never owned a digital capable scanner. I still don't own one but I've got RTL sticks now for SDR and can decode that stuff with DSD+ but even so, there's just not much here in our area using P25 that matters even now.

I've been listening in on the range from 163 to 174 here in Vegas for years now and I swear I've never picked up a single transmission of any kind, ever. Since I got into this SDR kick I've put time into that range and I'm still getting Jack Squat in there, absolutely nothing (ok, I get an image of a lower frequency from time to time but that's about it). I can't believe we live in a "dead zone" with respect to Federal activities so I just chalk it up to me not being able to receive a damned thing, go figure.

If you have any specifics I should be looking for and wouldn't mind dropping them into a PM or whatever I'd appreciate it. I see plenty of lists with "Federal frequencies" and stuff listed for our area as well as general frequencies in use by some agencies in that range but, again, no matter what I'm doing with respect to antennas I'm just deaf in that area. Right time at the right frequency I suppose. That's one thing I figured SDR and the spectrum display might help instead of just scanning a range hoping to get a hit - kinda hard to do that since I don't own a physical scanner at this point. :)

I'll punch in 172.900 and go from there. My location in downtown Vegas + having a huge brick and steel building blocking my direct LOS to McCarran could be a big part of it more than likely. I built one of those 1/4 wave VHF groundplanes using an SO-239 chassis mount and radials made from coat hangers and it's been exceptional in terms of yanking in stuff for the most part, still planning on building an OCFD here when I can get the parts together too, might make a difference.

EDIT:

Well I'll be damned, it works... :D Punched in 172.900, brought up DSD+, gave it a minute or so and wham, W00T!!! Awesome, and it sounds great through DSD+ too. Signal peaks around -25 dB so it's fairly strong, guess it really was being in the right place at the right time (and with the right hardware, of course).

Ok, so... guess I need to focus on that 163-174 range a bit more now so again, any frequencies that I should specifically target would be appreciated, thanks for the tip on 172.9. I'm not new to scanning in general as I've noted before, but I can honestly say I've never bothered with that range in all my years, the "Fed files" and Federal monitoring has never even been a hot topic for me.

Now it seems that was probably a mistake so, now I'm going to get into it just a wee bit more. ;)
 
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crazynova

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This isn't like the good old days of old when using a voice scrambler or even some of the earlier privacy/encryption technology actually was a considerable additional expense for the circuits/daughterboards/etc - nowadays encrypting P25 is basically checking off a box with the programming software and that's that. It's part of the spec and completely capable; in other words, it's already in the price out the door. ;)

I hope they don't choose to encrypt everything because I started in the scanning hobby by monitoring police and fire activity and pretty much nothing else so I somewhat miss being able to find out what's going on when I hear a unit screaming by with the lights and sirens in full swing.

But as stated if they do it's no skin off my nose I guess. I still say those boneheads would have been infinitely better just joining into the S.N.A.C.C. system. I can find no practical reason why they decided to make such horrible choices in the past few years with their comm systems, let's hope with this Motorola Phase II roll-out things are nowhere near as bad in terms of all the problems OpenSky has caused for them.

Regardless, it'll be an interesting year with respect to all the happenings, new scanners, and SDR moving into the forefront of our hobby with some serious traction. I for one am 100% hooked on SDR-style monitoring and there's no going back now.

Fair enough on the encryption aspect of things. As for why they went with the system they did, things like that are motivated by a lot of factors that overrule what is actually the best way to go for a functional system. The new P25 system is supposed to work very well. In the process, Metro is updating a number of other things, including the CAD program being used.
 

SCPD

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I listen to federal natural resources law enforcement on 172.600 every time I drive through and have copied something each time. These agencies include the National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 169.4000 and 169.8750, the BLM and Humboldt Toiyabe National Forest are active, mostly in the summer. Lake Mead National Recreation Area has one of the highest law enforcement and search and rescue workloads in the National Park Service. The "park net," which includes everything but law enforcement and other "protection ranger" type functions is on 166.3000. Also I'm told that the law enforcement net for Lake Mead NRS is 170.050, although I've never copied anything on it.

You should also try monitoring the federal UHF band, 406-420. Many agencies, whose main workload is in metro areas, use this band quite a bit.
 

spencer2223

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yea i think if u got certin computer software it does unscrmable phase 2 i think thell make something to do it but i think the person who side encrpytion is high they done spent alot money throwing open sky out window i can see certin talk groups such as swat but do like what police dept here do they put scanner live on there page lot them see its good thing not hide what cops do and lot cops are shady as hell
 
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