Toronto P25 Phase II

[VA3ADP]

I've been noticing over the last several months that Toronto Fire has been appearing on many of my scanners between Phase I and Phase II. I would assume that they are perhaps testing Phase II? The same goes for Toronto Paramedics as well. I know this has been discussed at length so I will not bother to rehash it here. Now, I've noticed Toronto Police is showing as Phase II consistently.

I will keep monitoring and potentially fire up DSD+ to get a better idea if the system has in fact gone fully Phase II and have the DB updated accordingly.

 

[Enjoi19]

It’s still mixed at this time overall. I think the flip flop for TFS and TEMS is more to do with certain radios pulling it back to P1 at times.

Running DSD this morning, TPS is a mixed bag as well.

 

[exkalibur]

Every FF and EMS radio I've seen in the last 6 months or so have been an APX. I would imagine you'd see those groups go full time Phase 2 once they weed out all the legacy XTS radios. I'll un-tag those groups as TDMA on DSD Plus and see what pops up over the next little while

 

[VA3ADP]

Every FF and EMS radio I've seen in the last 6 months or so have been an APX. I would imagine you'd see those groups go full time Phase 2 once they weed out all the legacy XTS radios. I'll un-tag those groups as TDMA on DSD Plus and see what pops up over the next little while

That was I was also thinking. Not sure if TFS or TPS has any XTS's lying around but I have heard and seen XTS's and XTL's on the Paramedic side of things.

Mind you, this was my first time seeing known TPS TG's using Phase II. The only others I've ever seen Phase II are some TG's in the 400 series range and a bunch in the 500 series range

 

[mjf]

I thought TFS was occasionally sounding bad lately. I really hope that Phase II sounds better on a real Motorola radio because it sounds pretty bad on my BCD325 P2 and even on the Unication G4. I can immediately tell when the Paramedics are talking because the audio is so hard to understand.

 

[VA3ADP]

II thought TFS was occasionally sounding bad lately. I really hope that Phase II sounds better on a real Motorola radio because it sounds pretty bad on my BCD325 P2 and even on the Unication G4. I can immediately tell when the Paramedics are talking because the audio is so hard to understand.

I actually found their Phase II audio on the TFS to not be so bad. However, it is a little noticeable when in TDMA mode. I think the reason the Paramedics sound so bad is something to do with their IMPRESS RSM that they are using. Back during COVID mask times they were even more "muffled" with their N95's on. Their mobiles sound fine to me. However YMMV with that.

 

[gary123]

Many services using TDMA have found the audio sounds distorted compared to analog or P25 P1. We must all bear in mind that the Vocoder is switched from IMBE(P25 P1) to AMBE(P25 P2). This is the primary cause of the difference heard by the end user.

 

[exkalibur]

I took a look at DSD+ on the South zone -- there were only a few instances of Phase 1 activity (aside from the TFS Dispatch group), so I would say it would be a safe bet to assume Phase 2 has been extensively rolled out.

 

[VA3ADP]

I did see a few transmissions last night on North Ops that were Phase I. However looks like everyone is Phase II, minus some Phase I traffic on the Paramedic TG's

 

[HiVolt]

Maybe this explains the decrease of activity I've been seeing in Scarborough over the past week on my BCD 996XT.

 

[pokey]

Maybe this explains the decrease of activity I've been seeing in Scarborough over the past week on my BCD 996XT.

Ditto with my XTS radios. Other than the dispatch talkgroup, I need to use my G5 if I want to hear much activity.

 

[VA3ADP]

Maybe this explains the decrease of activity I've been seeing in Scarborough over the past week on my BCD 996XT.

Might be time to upgrade to a P2 Model?

 

[gary123]

If I remember right the activity counter will be lower as it logs the frequency not the frequency plus slot. In effect treating the 2 timeslots as just one signal. As a quick reference DSD and the channel activity panel will show the use of the timeslots.

 

[HiVolt]

Might be time to upgrade to a P2 Model?

Yeah, I've been looking around, they sure haven't gotten any cheaper!

 

[foxtail]

That is where SDRTrunk may come in handy.

 

[Enjoi19]

That is where SDRTrunk may come in handy.

Totally this... I don't think I'd do a home scanner ever again over a nice SDR setup.

 

[VA3ADP]

Whether this related or not to the Phase II switch, I was also hearing TG 88 and 89 the other night with RID's 441022 and 441023 P2 clear traffic. I am not too sure what the traffic was about. Something to do with a PIR? Not sure what that is referencing.

Furthermore, TG's 98 and 99 have been popping up consistently, all Phase II Encrypted traffic RID's were in the 442xxx range

 

[kayn1n32008]

Many services using TDMA have found the audio sounds distorted compared to analog or P25 P1. We must all bear in mind that the Vocoder is switched from IMBE(P25 P1) to AMBE(P25 P2). This is the primary cause of the difference heard by the end user.

The bigger factor in the audio difference is that the phase 2 AMBE+ vocoder is half the bitrate of phase 1 AMBE+/IMBE vocoder.