VSP Appomattox Division Going live?

[prthorsenjr]

So,

It appears that according to information here that the Appomattox Division of the Virginia State Police is supposed to go live here this month (May). Any idea of when that will happen seeing that the month is almost over and there is no update for that (STARS) here yet?

Just curious and probably anxious to start listening,

Thanks,

Pete

 

[Nitsud]

pete, unfortunatly with all these budgets cuts and shortfalls over the past few years, div 3 along with all the other divs who are supposed to be online at this point are not. Fairfax and Culpeper divisions are set to go online next month on the 10th of June, which that is certainly subject to change, but we are set up for going online the 10th with training for the transition occuring on june 8,9,and 10th. I have no idea when div 3 will come online and I would stretch that out to say that as far as I know there isnt a set date for any of the other divisions.

I havent been active here for a while, but I am back now. I see you from charlottesville, I live 15 miles north on ruckersville. feel free to shoot me a pm and we can exhange numbers and info, maybe even a meet up

dustin

 

[N4FTN]

Following Divisions 2 & 7 coming online next month; Division 3 is right behind. Issues with finalizing some tower locations and finalizing some of the backbone and connections is all that remains. I suspect from what I know that Div 3 will follow within 45-60 days of Div 2 & 7.

Then Div 4 and 6 will straggle online as the end of the year approaches. There is still an intention to be operational statewide around the first of the year +/- a bit depending on how the build-out progresses.

It is slow for those of us anxiously waiting for the system to be active, but there is steady progress in that direction..........

 

[gcgrotz]

Hi Pete, greetings from another C'villian, near downtown here.

Hi Dustin, I've been kinda scarce here for a while. We'll have to catch up some time soon.

I guess I finally have to get the '396 set up for local STARS. This is good news.

 

[Nitsud]

from the horses mouth, div 3 should be online by late september, or early october. Entire system operational by end of the year, with wythville going online on december 24, in time for those Christmas scanners!!

div 2 WILL be online either 10 am or 12 noon tommorow (the 10th) and div 7 will go online 2 weeks later on the 24th.

 

[N4FTN]

Dustin..... You're the man!!

 

[HankFrank]

Hearing Testing on the Culpepper division talkgroups this AM.

 

[dtscho]

The dispatcher on 159.1650 [127.3] advised at about 10 AM that the STARS switch for Division 2 was not happening then, due to technical difficulties.

Dave

 

[HankFrank]

I am hearing normal dispatch traffic on VSP Cul 1 and VSP Cul 2

 

[Nitsud]

rough start to the day. we were all told 10 am. at 10 am we were told by the techs and motorola that there was paper work in richmond that was not complete. around 1245 we got the go ahead to flip over, and by the time we got the consoles going it was around 1300.

in the next few days or beginning of next week, I will have alot of new info including newer tkgps as well as new and different cc freqs that are missing or wrong in the database. Who is the VA db admin?

 

[tglendye]

I think the admin is "dtscho" (his name is Dave). I believe he's over toward Spotsylvania. I've been listening some. The audio is sounding good in Rockingham. I think STARS on my PSR-500 is sounding better than our Pro-voice system on my M/A-com fire/rescue radio.

Thanks for your info. It's nice having guys like you and Motorhead aboard!

Todd

 

[Nitsud]

thats interesting that you are hearing it well in rockingham. the only area in the division that the techs have mentioned as a trouble spot was rockingham county. But they say the trouble area is northern rock/southern page; for that reason conventional channel 11(the old channel) is still going to be actively patched into Culp-2 until the beginning of next year when they can figure out what they are going to do. At this point they are looking into putting up a repeater or something on a tower that is owned by rockingham in that area.

I sadly do not own a digital scanner at this point, but I will be getting one early next week if things go well, and would like to maybe exchange a phone number with someone around here (div 2) that has been playing around with STARS for a while and has some tips and tricks. And like I said before, getting actual info from the techs is like pulling teeth but I am doing what I can. Right now I am concerned that there are alot of tlkgrps that are missing.

pretty sure that I will pick up a pro-197 next week, has there been good luck with that model so far? Unless anyone knows of a nice used digital scanner in the area??? lol Its nice to be back on here after a couple monthes of not being able to!

 

[dtscho]

Yes, I'm the admin for Virginia.

Nitsud, just sent you a PM.

I'm seeing Culpeper 1 and 2 on the Thornburg and Hogback Mountain sites.

Dave

 

[freqhopping]

In Loudoun I'm hearing Div 2 well on the Mt Weather and Hogback Mtn sites. As a bonus I'm hearing comms I can't hear conventionally i.e. the dispatcher.

 

[Nitsud]

In Loudoun I'm hearing Div 2 well on the Mt Weather and Hogback Mtn sites. As a bonus I'm hearing comms I can't hear conventionally i.e. the dispatcher.

Yes thats quite a nice feature huh!? The good news is, is that you will continue to hear that from now on; the bad news is, is that eventually (sometime next year) they are planning on "isolating" the divisions so that we wont nesecarily be able to listen to div 5 or div 1 as we can(or at least could back when I was heavily into scanning). There are actually 8 or maybe 9 sites that are affilliated with div 2, and the good news is these sites corralate with other divisions, meaning that even after the isolation we will be able to monitor the closest units in the other divisions as long as they are hitting the sites that are on the outskirts.

Everyone I talked to today was surprised and impressed with the quality of the audio. Now if we could just get them to use those terminals LOL

 

[dtscho]

In Loudoun I'm hearing Div 2 well on the Mt Weather and Hogback Mtn sites. As a bonus I'm hearing comms I can't hear conventionally i.e. the dispatcher.

On the Hogback site, is your scanner having trouble trunking to one or more voice frequencies? My 396XT correctly goes to 161.8500 and 161.9000, but occasionally it looks like it's trying to go to another frequency, but can't "lock on" to it. (The other frequency may be 161.8875.) I didn't mess with the band plan that was read from the control channel or anything like that.

Dave

 

[freqhopping]

On the Hogback site, is your scanner having trouble trunking to one or more voice frequencies? My 396XT correctly goes to 161.8500 and 161.9000, but occasionally it looks like it's trying to go to another frequency, but can't "lock on" to it. (The other frequency may be 161.8875.) I didn't mess with the band plan that was read from the control channel or anything like that.

Dave

I'm consistently getting 161.8875 for a voice channel. Never 161.85 or 161.9.

1622- Just now saw 161.9 as a voice channel. 159.3825 preceded it. 161.8875 has been the primary voice channel, better than 90% of the time.

 

[dtscho]

Wow, something must be different in my programming, as the 161.8500 and 161.9000 are pretty much the only two voice frequencies I see.

Here's what I've got for the band plan:

0:851.00625/6.25
1:762.00625/6.25
2:136.00000/2.50
3:146.00000/2.50
4:156.00000/2.50
5:166.00000/6.25
6:136.00000/6.25
7:161.59375/6.25

Control channel: 151.3925

Would you mind comparing this to your setup?

Thanks,
Dave

 

[freqhopping]

0:851.00625/6.25
1:762.00625/6.25
2:136.00000/2.50
3:146.00000/2.50
4:156.00000/2.50
5:166.00000/6.25
6:136.00000/6.25
7:161.59375/6.25

I have the same. I'm listening with my 396XT and 996T.

 

[dtscho]

Thanks for checking. I'm seeing 161.8875 a lot more now. I may have seen the voice frequency "flutter" issue simply due to poor signal strength--151.3925, 161.8500, and 161.9000 all seem to come in a bit stronger than 161.8875.

Dave