TxWARN P25 Walker County site issues, help? :D

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intuity

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Maybe someone can shed some light on a problem that is most likely my fault... I have a PRO-668, and up until last week some time, I have been able to hear traffic on the East & West Walker County sites, but either I changed something, or they changed something, and now I am not getting any calls on any TG's... Used to hear TGs 1475 and 1134 but no more.

Looking at the serial output from my 668 when tuned to 853.9000 shows the system having two 6.25khz and two 12.5khz/11.25khz channels allocated, a total of four - and occasionally I believe a call being processed, but if I understand the data dump correctly, those channels are TDMA-allocated.

The 668 is Phase II compatible, I can hear TDMA channel calls when monitoring HPD when I'm down in the city, so what happened? Did I twiddle something wrong, and bork something in my site/TG config on the scanner?

I have a system set up for TxWARN P25 with both East & West Walker County sites the only sites listed, and the only TG's I have set are 1475 and 1134, so does the TG ID change for phase II TGs?

I'm surprised that I only get a reasonably strong signal from the East site and not the West - the 668 has some really finicky signal quirks I think. Sometimes with the rubber ducky whip that came with it, I get strong, solid signal on 853.9000, sometimes it's weak and patchy. 852.4000? Psh. On a good day, with my discone, up 20 feet or so, I can pull in one or two bars on the meter, but it's not steady.


** Something I forgot.. Scanning using the 668 used to show up NAC 1A0, 1A1, and nowdays, most of what I hit is NAC 640? Coincidental?

Ideas, anyone? :D
 

mfn002

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I don't know if this may have something to do with this or not, but have you noticed the bursts of static at the end of the transmissions? From experience, this usually indicates that a digital channel is being simulcasted from an analog channel. Since Walker County SO/FD/EMS used VHF, it's possible that they have completely abandoned (either temporarily or permanently) primary operations on TxWARN and are instead patching the VHF channels to TxWARN. I suspect that this might be the case because all traffic (including dispatch) seems to be patched. If this wasn't the case, the traffic from dispatch would not have a "squelch tail" at the end of the transmissions.

In case you're wondering how I know this, someone here in Bryan (or College Station) has a radio with Walker County SO/FD/EMS channels on it affiliated with one of the sites here.
 

tunnelmot

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No multicast squelch tails heard here. Of course Im monitoring Walker Co affiliated units from the Mont.Co simulcast side(XTS3k). Do they even still have VHF mobiles installed?
 

mfn002

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No multicast squelch tails heard here. Of course Im monitoring Walker Co affiliated units from the Mont.Co simulcast side(XTS3k). Do they even still have VHF mobiles installed?

I haven't heard a single transmission that doesn't have a multicast squelch tail afterwards. I suspect they might be using APX7000/7500s, since all of the agencies that use the system here in Brazos County have been issued them (and I've even seen some Harris County SO deputies using them).
 

motorola_otaku

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I haven't heard a single transmission that doesn't have a multicast squelch tail afterwards. I suspect they might be using APX7000/7500s, since all of the agencies that use the system here in Brazos County have been issued them (and I've even seen some Harris County SO deputies using them).
What are you using to listen with? I know early trunktracker scanners could disable automatic squelch and revert to manual... wondering if you may have done something similar.

When I passed through in early October everything sounded normal. Historically coverage around the north side of the county has always been bad on TxWARN. No VHF is left except for the Fire and EMS freqs.
 

mfn002

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What are you using to listen with? I know early trunktracker scanners could disable automatic squelch and revert to manual... wondering if you may have done something similar.

When I passed through in early October everything sounded normal. Historically coverage around the north side of the county has always been bad on TxWARN. No VHF is left except for the Fire and EMS freqs.

I'm using my 536HP, and I just noticed that the squelch tails have mysteriously disappeared.
 
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