P25 Amateur in Palm Beach County

[N4DES]

Just in case anyone is not following the tread in the P25 area I'm in the process of migrating a number of County maintained repeaters in Palm Beach to mixed-mode P25 capable. I just finished 147.390 and the next one is 147.36 (West Palm/Loxahatchee) and then 146.88 (Riviera Beach).

They are all being set to carrier squelch NAC of $F7E which means that any in-bound NAC will activate the repeater. The outbound is 293 by default.

The PL's are currently at 103.5 and will stay there until Jan. 1 2007 when I will migrate them to 110.9 to conform to the Florida Repeater Council recommended tone.

 

[xml]

Very cool!

How's the portable coverage on these repeaters anyhow? I'm going to be visiting Juno Beach in a couple weeks... speaking of which, anyone know what the ocean rescue/fire is dispatched out on? I'm a little confused, I read it was on pagers?

Thanks!

 

[N4DES]

Lets just say there is no static in the marginal analog areas. ;-)

Fire is still paging on Fire Main with an automated voice. They do not
dispatch ocean rescue, but ocean rescue does have the capabilites to
communicate directly with PBCFR when they are called for assistance.

 

[visegrip72]

Bit of a beginner still in here, does this mean I have to get the chip for my scanner now for PBSO/PBFR? Like how I cannot listen to boca or a few other cities since I do not have the digital card? Everyone that does not have digital capabilities will need another scanner upgrade? Thanks.

 

[sflmonitor]

I think that it was a two-part answer by Mark. He is talking about a few amateur/ham repeaters having digital capability.

The PBSO/PBFR is still analog.

 

[N4DES]

That is correct, I was referencing amateur repeaters, not the Palm Beach County TRS.

 

[visegrip72]

ok, thanks.

 

[N4DES]

147.360 was completed yesterday and is now capable of P25.

 

[fl-dj]

Mark who's equipment are you running on the infrastructure side and other than Motorola, EFJ and Kenwood, who makes a non-commercial P25 product that will do the ham bands. Thanks...

 

[N4DES]

The repeaters are 125 watt Motorola Quantars. I went out for competitive bid
and Moto. was the only responder even though I sent out the bid info to all the
infrastructure manufacturers.

No one makes a non-commercial P25 radio. They are all type accepted for Part 90 and all the bandsplits I have seen are capable of the VHF and UHF amateur band. Add Yaesu, Icom and M/A Comm to your list and you have most of the major manufacturers. There are others popping up every few months and now we just have to get Icom, Yaesu, and Kenwood to advertise P25 radios in QST.

The used market on e-bay is filled with Astro Saber and XTS3000 P25 capable radios for reasonable amounts as well...usually between $200 and $800 depending on the Model.
I recently picked up a working VHF Astro Spectra mobile with all the accessories for $175.00. All I had to do is to program it.

 

[fl-dj]

Man I wish I was down your way, I'd love to work 2m with an XTS in the digital mode, that would be really sweet and NO STATIC AT ALL!!! I'm trying to get something going out my way with some of my co-workers, but they seem to be leaning to DStar.

The repeaters are 125 watt Motorola Quantars. I went out for competitive bid
and Moto. was the only responder even though I sent out the bid info to all the
infrastructure manufacturers.

No one makes a non-commercial P25 radio. They are all type accepted for Part 90 and all the bandsplits I have seen are capable of the VHF and UHF amateur band. Add Yaesu, Icom and M/A Comm to your list and you have most of the major manufacturers. There are others popping up every few months and now we just have to get Icom, Yaesu, and Kenwood to advertise P25 radios in QST.

The used market on e-bay is filled with Astro Saber and XTS3000 P25 capable radios for reasonable amounts as well...usually between $200 and $800 depending on the Model.
I recently picked up a working VHF Astro Spectra mobile with all the accessories for $175.00. All I had to do is to program it.

 

[N4DES]

Tell them them that a D-Star repeater is not capable of an analog default (a.k.a. mixed-mode) like a P-25 repeater is capable of. This turned off a couple of hams that were interested in it and weren't aware of it. Combined with the large lack of activity on ham repeaters this will only make it worse by locking out the non-d-star capable hams.

With a P25 repeater properly programmed it will pass both analog & digital, which I'm sure you know. ;-)

 

[stewpidity]

West Palm Beach Newbie !!!

I am moving to West Palm Beach in the next month, can anyone recommend a good scanner in the 100-300 dollar range that will pick up most emergency bands. Also are there any bands that cannot be picked up ?

Thank you...

Stew

 

[N4DES]

Any of the analog trunking capable scanners will pick up most of the larger agencies in the County. If you will be in southern West Palm (towards Lantana/Boynton) you could get a digital capable scanner and also listen to Boynton, Delray, & Boca.

 

[stewpidity]

will the UNIDEN BR 330T 2500 CHANNEL do the trick ?

Thanks again for your help....

 

[APX8000]

Mark,

Quick question...why is PBC public safety analog ? Cost ? I see from posts that the digital amatuer repeaters sounded great, so why is it not being used for public safety ? (I personally like analog better myself).

 

[mancow]

Probably cost.

It's the difference between changing out one repeater as opposed to possibly many and all the mobiles and portables.

 

[N4DES]

When we were designing the system back in 99/00 we felt that we should stay analog due to the ability to put more emphasis on the infrastructure (i.e. 10 sites instead of 9, 28 channels instead of 26, and larger shelters for future growth) which will prove to be very valuable in the long run.

In addition, the MTS2000 and MCS2000 were a tried and true subscriber base as well and we felt very comfortable in the technology and didn't feel the need to spend over $1,000 more per subscriber more for a zero net gain to the end user.

We do have 7 digital channels in the system that are sepecific to the specialized operations of the full time users that require encryption, so the capabilities are there, just not used for regular dispatch traffic.

 

[N4DES]

Just in case anyone is not following the tread in the P25 area I'm in the process of migrating a number of County maintained repeaters in Palm Beach to mixed-mode P25 capable. I just finished 147.390 and the next one is 147.36 (West Palm/Loxahatchee) and then 146.88 (Riviera Beach).

They are all being set to carrier squelch NAC of $F7E which means that any in-bound NAC will activate the repeater. The outbound is 293 by default.

The PL's are currently at 103.5 and will stay there until Jan. 1 2007 when I will migrate them to 110.9 to conform to the Florida Repeater Council recommended tone.

The project is complete and the following are the repeater configurations:

146.880 - PL 110.9 NAC 293 Palm Beach Gardens/Riviera Beach at 280'
147.360 + PL 110.9 NAC 293 Center of the County in Loxahatchee at 350'
147.390 + PL 110.9 NAC 293 West Boca Raton at 330'

If you in the area and licensed feel free to stop by on the freq and say Hi.

 

[pcmike]

To Mark:

Whats the chances of a fellow local amateur getting with either you or Dave and getting a P25 capable radio programmed? I would love to pick up a radio off ebay (or even locally) capable of utilizing the new "features" on your repeaters, but I don't know anyone who could program the radio.

I'll try to get ahold of you on 39 sometime this week. I'm definitely interested, but I just don't see how us locals who don't work in public safety or for you in some capacity can justify getting the equipment if we can't get it programmed.

EDIT: I forgot to ask, what handheld would you recommend picking up off ebay to take advantage of your repeaters? I'd like to get something fairly modern and feature packed.

Thanks Mark.

--
K4PCM