vicpol mmr

[newtomotorola]

Hi all, just was thinking about vicpol recently and the lack of information floating around, does anybody have some freq, talkgroups and info on wich flash the vicpol xts5000's are running. I was also wondering if anybody had tried to read a vicpol xts5000 codeplug and what results it yielded. So any valuable info at all about the vicpol mmr network is welcome.

Thanking You

 

[newtomotorola]

anybody?

 

[Comint]

Hi all, just was thinking about vicpol recently and the lack of information floating around, does anybody have some freq, talkgroups and info on wich flash the vicpol xts5000's are running. I was also wondering if anybody had tried to read a vicpol xts5000 codeplug and what results it yielded. So any valuable info at all about the vicpol mmr network is welcome.

Thanking You

As far as I am aware, VicPol on MMR is totally encrypted, so knowing the contents of a codeplug wouldn't be of any use.

--

 

[grant]

There is some information here on the MMR

http://vicscan.org/mmr_sites.php



Grant

 

[newtomotorola]

Thanks

 

[commscanaus]

I would have chimed in earlier but it's been a busy time for me work wise-

All talkgroups used by the Victoria Police in metropolitan Melbourne are using crypto full time.
Last time I looked there are around 200 talkgroups available on MMR for Police use.
When the network took over from analogue, the 468Mhz allocation was re-farmed into 12.5khz channels and are exclusively available to the Police ie: they have their own use of those channels allocated by the trunking controller.

The control channels are common to all services- currently Metro Fire Brigade and Ambulance services along with the Police. Thankfully both the Fire and Ambulance talkgroups are not encrypted- allowing a digital scanner to decode the activity.

For those not familiar with MMR- it is a Phase I P25 digital trunked network (SYSID 0164h) primarily residing in the permanently borrowed 420-430Mhz 70cm band. Many voice channels also reside in the 467.8-469.425Mhz band as described earlier. The old MFESB analogue channels around 465-467Mhz are also used as part of the system.
There are literally dozens of sites- many sharing tower space with cellular telephony and there are a number of receive only sites around to fill in black spots.

www.vicscan.org has the best information on the network with contributions from some hard working monitors who really did a great job of sorting out the network as it became a working concern.

I monitor the goings of the fire and ambulance using Uniden 396T and 996T with a Radioshack PRO96 thrown in for it's superior P25 audio.

Commscanaus.

 

[newtomotorola]

Very informative post there, thanks

 

[grant]

Is anybody using Unitrunker on the MMR ?
That would be the best way of monitoring usage, irregardless of encryption

Grant

 

[commscanaus]

G'day Grant,

When the MMR first started to come on air (around early 2005 if I remember correctly) the only way to reliably decode the 9600 baud control channels was using the Radioshack PRO96 along with PRO96COM. An excellent piece of shareware that allows all activity on the control channel to be displayed and even user edited once a talkgroup user has been identified.

Given the unique 400Mhz allocation- it was necessary to determine the bandplan used by MMR in order properly program the scanner.
PRO96COM also shows any voice traffic that is encrypted. It was useful then to listen to the Police when simulcasting on MMR and the old analogue network as it became easy to determine which digital talkgroups were affiliated with the old analogue channels even though the digital traffic is encrypted. It is also interesting to see how loaded certain sites become when there is a major incident or busy period. You can also tell when it is time for a shift change- as affiliations to the network increase at certain times.

I have not tried Unitrunker as I found PRO96COM to be adequate for what was needed.

BTW- PRO96COM works by decoding the raw data from the PRO96's data jack- which is output from the CPU. It saved having to do the usual discriminator tap and 4 level demodulator trick. I have had mixed results doing this with EDACS.

Commscanaus.

 

[grant]

Unitrunker can display talkgroups and radio ids on 9600 baud systems (which if you like can be tagged with a callsign on decodable channels).
Really depends on how the 9600 baud data channel has been set up by the MMR


Grant