Seminole County System Analog FM TG's?

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RFI-EMI-GUY

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We had some police action here yesterday and I turned the scanner on and scanned entire countywide talk groups.

I ran across a short conversation that I an 99.99% sure was in analog mode as the IMBE hurts my ears. Does Seminole County FL have analog TG's? Is that even possible? I thought they had changed over entirely to P25 Phase 2 already. I am only scanning the one P25 system.

If it was digital, it goes to prove the audio levels in the system are for most TG's, pretty much over driven.
 

trooper890

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We had some police action here yesterday and I turned the scanner on and scanned entire countywide talk groups.

I ran across a short conversation that I an 99.99% sure was in analog mode as the IMBE hurts my ears. Does Seminole County FL have analog TG's? Is that even possible? I thought they had changed over entirely to P25 Phase 2 already. I am only scanning the one P25 system.

If it was digital, it goes to prove the audio levels in the system are for most TG's, pretty much over driven.

There is no Phase II in Seminole County. P1 only.

It is not possible to have analog within the P25 trunked environment, except maybe patched in from conventional. I think the old smartnet system is gone by now. At one time there were analog TG's connected between new and old, but is likely gone now.

Very likely it was an image or scanner got handed a bad channel, which happens sometimes.
 

RFI-EMI-GUY

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There is no Phase II in Seminole County. P1 only.

It is not possible to have analog within the P25 trunked environment, except maybe patched in from conventional. I think the old smartnet system is gone by now. At one time there were analog TG's connected between new and old, but is likely gone now.

Very likely it was an image or scanner got handed a bad channel, which happens sometimes.
That would be weird if the radio misread the CC and briefly landed on some other systems analog channel. I will have to think about that.

It was probably just a nice happenstance of a TG with properly modulated radios.

In general, the system sounds quite processed. Some subscriber radios and dispatch sound overmodulated.

I don't blame simulcast for this crappy audio.



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AlphaFive

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Seminole County

The M 36 system was quite often, (once every two or three months) into Failsoft. I don't remember if the P 25 had been activated by the time I left in 2012.. But, I believe it also loved Failsoft. I do not have enough knowledge or understanding to know if Failsoft would send the system into analog, I REALLY don't know, but just a thought...
 

srich10

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Don’t overlook the possibility of them Patching in our Analog EDACS system here in Brevard. We’ve done it a couple times with other P25 system but that was with Orange and Osceola which are both encrypted systems and the audio was absolutely HORRIBLE! Every deputy working the incident complained openly over the radio because they couldn’t hear nor understand them when they patched in.

I’ve routinely heard St Johns and Flagler County unencrypted P25 come through an analog patch to PSIC1 and PSIC2 on our Analog EDACS Brevard system here in Brevard.
 

RFI-EMI-GUY

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Don’t overlook the possibility of them Patching in our Analog EDACS system here in Brevard. We’ve done it a couple times with other P25 system but that was with Orange and Osceola which are both encrypted systems and the audio was absolutely HORRIBLE! Every deputy working the incident complained openly over the radio because they couldn’t hear nor understand them when they patched in.

I’ve routinely heard St Johns and Flagler County unencrypted P25 come through an analog patch to PSIC1 and PSIC2 on our Analog EDACS Brevard system here in Brevard.

Patching noisy analog into an IMBE coder is going to be a garbage in, bigger garbage out situation. And patching two vocoders over an analog patch is asking for more trouble.

I think I simply overheard a talkgroup where the radios audio features were properly set. Most of what I hear has excessive gain. Some radios sound truly broken or the operator is using a bone conduction mike or has marbles in the mouth.
 

IMPRES2

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or the operator is using a bone conduction mike or has marbles in the mouth.

Both the primary and secondary communications centers in Seminole use standard Plantronics boom headsets.

Patching noisy analog into an IMBE coder is going to be a garbage in, bigger garbage out situation. And patching two vocoders over an analog patch is asking for more trouble.

The Astro system operating at 7.14 is not using “analog” patches. There is a native bridge between the P25 system and the EDACS system in Volusia. Very similar to the ISSI between Orange and Seminole.

I think I simply overheard a talkgroup where the radios audio features weren’t properly set. Most of what I hear has excessive gain.

I would check your scanner’s receive levels, or your “radio’s” audio profile as you are the only one out of the several dozen scanners that monitor Seminole to come forward with this complaint.

Radios in Seminole are sequentially batch-programmed; all radios of the same model and flash get the same configuration. So it wouldn’t be a case of one radio having an improper parameter set as that would mean all radios with that configuration would be the same way.



I would also seriously watch what you post regarding Seminole’s system. They are about to undergo another reprogramming to add the new Advent Health Oviedo ER, at which point they could very well add a little check mark under “Software Secure”. There have been several very notable conflicts of interest in the past two years since the last reprogramming for HCA Oviedo,
 

RFI-EMI-GUY

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Both the primary and secondary communications centers in Seminole use standard Plantronics boom headsets.

The Astro system operating at 7.14 is not using “analog” patches. There is a native bridge between the P25 system and the EDACS system in Volusia. Very similar to the ISSI between Orange and Seminole.

I would check your scanner’s receive levels, or your “radio’s” audio profile as you are the only one out of the several dozen scanners that monitor Seminole to come forward with this complaint.

Radios in Seminole are sequentially batch-programmed; all radios of the same model and flash get the same configuration. So it wouldn’t be a case of one radio having an improper parameter set as that would mean all radios with that configuration would be the same way.

I would also seriously watch what you post regarding Seminole’s system. They are about to undergo another reprogramming to add the new Advent Health Oviedo ER, at which point they could very well add a little check mark under “Software Secure”. There have been several very notable conflicts of interest in the past two years since the last reprogramming for HCA Oviedo,

1) By "operator" I meant the subscriber users. Mostly dispatch sounds good. But there are some subscribers that sound awful. Sometimes the subscribers are overdriven and muffled, sometimes weak and mufffled (like a bone mike) But sometimes the dispatch is overdrive.

2) Good to know about the ISSI. My comments about analog patching were in response to a different context.

3) I an using a BCD536HP feeding a Motorola Spectra mobile speaker as the internal speaker is tinny. The mobile speaker does enhance the bass. I have the 536's AGC turned off. My scanner (an antenna) is in a window facing the Oviedo tower directly to the south. On the analog system I had a radio that was further into the house and there was a slight perception of simulcast delay. The location I have seems fine. I am running the older 1.11.20 firmware before all the DMR and NXDN enhancements. I will probably upgrade now that the versions have stabilized.


4) I could be hearing a select group of radios from an older batch perhaps.

5) I am PM'ng you on the last item.
 

IMPRES2

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My scanner (an antenna) is in a window facing the Oviedo tower directly to the south. On the analog system I had a radio that was further into the house and there was a slight perception of simulcast delay.

The Oviedo Remote Site is receive only; which could be an explanation for the lack of quality your scanner is receiving.

Reference the below for site information:

Site-1: Five Points - Prime Site (Tx/Rx)
Site-2: Dike Road - Remote Site (Rx only)
Site-3: Oviedo - Remote Site (Rx only)
Site-4: Chuluota - Remote Site (Tx/Rx)
Site-5: Geneva - Remote Site (Tx/Rx)
Site-6: Landfill - Remote Site (Rx only)
Site-7: Yankee Lake - Remote Site (Tx/Rx)
Site-8: Sable Pointe - Remote Site (Rx only)
Site-9: Altamonte - Remote Site (Rx only)
 

RFI-EMI-GUY

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The Oviedo Remote Site is receive only; which could be an explanation for the lack of quality your scanner is receiving.

Reference the below for site information:

Site-1: Five Points - Prime Site (Tx/Rx)
Site-2: Dike Road - Remote Site (Rx only)
Site-3: Oviedo - Remote Site (Rx only)
Site-4: Chuluota - Remote Site (Tx/Rx)
Site-5: Geneva - Remote Site (Tx/Rx)
Site-6: Landfill - Remote Site (Rx only)
Site-7: Yankee Lake - Remote Site (Tx/Rx)
Site-8: Sable Pointe - Remote Site (Rx only)
Site-9: Altamonte - Remote Site (Rx only)

I should have known that. When I initially set up my analog "radio" in 2005 it worked fine with very strong signal so I figured the tower at Oviedo was TX/RX, and never bothered to investigate after the digital changeout. I can see by how my house is oriented I am getting signal from Chuluota and concrete and plaster are holding back the others. I can always put a yagi up and point it toward Chuluota. Maybe I can try one of those coffee can horns! I saved the last big Maxwell House can for that purpose. I have worked with simulcast in other systems in Florida (for work) and what I am hearing is not bad BER wise. Not hearing any artifacts. It is just a lot of variability on the audio sources .

The whole reason about my OP was that I heard a conversation crystal clear without any over modulation or muffling. Motorola has a bunch of settings for audio gain, AGC, noise cancellation etc and there is a lot of debate about which settings are correct for a given situation. There are also model to model variations in design. You would think that when designing a radio more attention would be spent on the audio intelligibility once the audio enters or leaves the VOCODER. The industry is pretty inconsistent about this.
 
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902

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The whole reason about my OP was that I heard a conversation crystal clear without any over modulation or muffling. Motorola has a bunch of settings for audio gain, AGC, noise cancellation etc and there is a lot of debate about which settings are correct for a given situation. There are also model to model variations in design. You would think that when designing a radio more attention would be spent on the audio intelligibility once the audio enters or leaves the VOCODER. The industry is pretty inconsistent about this.

There are a lot of patches going on in the east-central Florida area. Most sound really bad (like "How could you even work with THAT?!" bad), but maybe you lucked into one that was set up carefully?

The problem with P25 audio is that it was always in the ear of the beholder. What sounds great to one person might not to another, especially considering presbycusis, tinnitus, and other degenerative conditions we all experience as we get older. Maybe the best thing is developing a machine-read standard, like PESQ, and calibrating everything to that reference so that everything meets the baseline, then having user features in the receiver that tailor response individually without system or UE modification.

I had about 450 subscribers on a quasi-P25 system (it was WPA). The audio was problematic because any change required "touching" every single subscriber, including calling people in from vacations and retrieving equipment from people who were out sick. If there was an OTAP feature, I would have been able to make those adjustments and, I think, anyway, the system could have done much better with audio quality. I don't like the "gollywobbles" and other funkies in P25, but I don't struggle with P25 audio as much as I do with the heavy compression of cellular telephone calls. Anymore, I just turn down the ringer on cellular and not use voice.
 

RFI-EMI-GUY

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902 I will confess to having some problems with tinnitus!

My sister has an iPhone with a case on it that blocks the mike. She will sound great one minute, move the phone an inch and it sounds like marbles. I find that typical of other smartphones in general. The mike is positioned terribly and the callers get no feedback to indicate they sound weak.

I have tried to move all my phone calls to the "land line" whenever I can if the other party is on a smart phone. My ancient Razr V3m phone usually sounds great both ways IF I call a landline.





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