The 352 is an "optimized" FM discriminator setup, so it doesn't handle simulcast well, where as the SDS is an I/Q receiver that handles the simulcast just fine. The results should be night and day!
Just some quick comments on the towers, until you have actually done the TSB88 propagation studies, never assume where a tower should be, especially in a simulcast system. Higher is usually not better when simulcast is involved. There are numerous factors when siting radio sites and evaluating coverage all of which have to be balanced in the design. The design comes together like a giant puzzle.
For the record, the County office building is on the microwave ring and is used for a receive site, Star Hill will be a trunking site, There is a tower to the East of the Zoo on the same hill, Tilden Hill. That is a better site as it is farther back on the hill allowing coverage into Chadwicks. Smith Hill would actually cause too much simulcast interference all over the place, not to mention the noise floor at VHF is atrocious up there. The Floyd site is actually less a coverage fill and more a simulcast interference fill site. It lands in the middle of several sites to clean up the simulcast, the one on Pine Hill (Taberg) is doing something similar.
Also, just because something is licensed at a site does not mean it's actually active. In a simulcast design if 5 towers are planned and only 4 are constructed, using 4 instead of 5 can actually make the system not work over a large area. You normally need all sites to be operational for the system to "work." TDMA has much tighter tolerances for simulcast.
Just some quick comments on the towers, until you have actually done the TSB88 propagation studies, never assume where a tower should be, especially in a simulcast system. Higher is usually not better when simulcast is involved. There are numerous factors when siting radio sites and evaluating coverage all of which have to be balanced in the design. The design comes together like a giant puzzle.
For the record, the County office building is on the microwave ring and is used for a receive site, Star Hill will be a trunking site, There is a tower to the East of the Zoo on the same hill, Tilden Hill. That is a better site as it is farther back on the hill allowing coverage into Chadwicks. Smith Hill would actually cause too much simulcast interference all over the place, not to mention the noise floor at VHF is atrocious up there. The Floyd site is actually less a coverage fill and more a simulcast interference fill site. It lands in the middle of several sites to clean up the simulcast, the one on Pine Hill (Taberg) is doing something similar.
Also, just because something is licensed at a site does not mean it's actually active. In a simulcast design if 5 towers are planned and only 4 are constructed, using 4 instead of 5 can actually make the system not work over a large area. You normally need all sites to be operational for the system to "work." TDMA has much tighter tolerances for simulcast.
