Worcester County added six new 851-854 channels to its license WQYS632 for its radio system back in May. Has anyone noticed if they are operational yet? They are intended to replace troublesome channels that were experiencing interference during the summer months.
Worcester County - new channels
- Thread starter maus92
- Start date
AFAIK, Worcester has not added the channels to their infrastructure yet, but if you have a Unication or scanner, you should add the new channels to your programing so your radio won't suddenly go dark. Once the transition process is complete, remove the deprecated channels. At least that's what I'm doing, lol.
The county has asked for an extended implementation due to supply chain issues, according to a filing with the FCC. They plan to have all the new equipment on hand by the end of Spring 2023, and a migration plan devised by the end of last month. The subscriber reprogramming should be completed by late Fall 2023, as well as presumably equipment installation (new antennas, combiners, etc.)
DisasterGuy
Member
The actual change will occur this winter or very early spring at the latest. It will not happen before the first of the year. There are several limitations that have delayed things for an extended period including a need to change the band plan due to adding NPSPAC channels in a previously non-NPSPAC system. Lab testing for subscriber reprogramming has occurred at Harris in Lynchburg, VA under the supervision of Worcester County and Town of Ocean City staff to validate the ability for the band plan to be updated in subscribers before infrastructure. The task of updating codeplugs is in progress with reprogramming starting shortly.
Additional changes are likely to be forthcoming including an antenna pattern change at one Worcester simulcast site and the addition of a new tower in Snow Hill. Additional encryption is likely on the horizon as well. Both the Worcester County and Town of Ocean City portions of the system will also be undergoing major life cycle upgrades in 2024 replacing aging servers and network equipment as well as going to the most recent (SR11) system release.
Additional changes are likely to be forthcoming including an antenna pattern change at one Worcester simulcast site and the addition of a new tower in Snow Hill. Additional encryption is likely on the horizon as well. Both the Worcester County and Town of Ocean City portions of the system will also be undergoing major life cycle upgrades in 2024 replacing aging servers and network equipment as well as going to the most recent (SR11) system release.
As a new resident of Ocean Pines, I can understand complaints about poor in-building performance of the Worcester County system in the OP. Probably the trees, but the site spacing suggests that it wasn't designed for adequate in-building performance in all areas of the county. The IQ waveform of the control channel signal in my new office is pretty ragged compared to what I've seen with FIRST sites and the new AACo system in my old office in Annapolis. But FIRST was designed for good in-building coverage for the Annapolis area, and the new county system throughout the county.
DisasterGuy
Member
The Worcester County system was built separate but in coordination with the Town of Ocean City as a singular system. Since the Town of Ocean City owns the tower on Racetrack Rd at the North Gate, they build the Ocean Pines site and it was intentionally designed as a standalone site. The footprint of the Worcester / OC system within the Ocean Pines area is over 99% in-building coverage.
The entirety of the system countywide was designed for 95% in-building coverage and tested at 98%.
Elaborating, I can receive a usable but not pristine signal from both the Worcester County system and the Ocean City Ocean Pines site, however the FIRST Ocean City ASR and the FIRST Worcester Somerset, and Ocean City's 700 sites are unusable at my location (for voice at least). I am using a less-than-optimal antenna atm, but it's the same one I used in Annapolis for the Anne Arundel County system and FIRST Anne Arundel site with no issues. Also noting that the signal from Delaware 800 Sussex County site is not usable either.
DisasterGuy
Member
Several factors going on there. Ocean Pines is a lot of 100’+ pines that create TONS for RF attenuation. This is one of the reasons that there are so many issues with commercial cellular coverage in a lot of Ocean Pines. Within this region of the state, FiRST was designed for on-street rather than in-building coverage. There are a total of 4 simulcast sites + 1 ASR serving Worcester County/OC while there are 10 sites on the Worcester/OC system. The 700MHz OC simulcast sites are engineered for dense “on island” coverage with no regard for off-island coverage. The Worcester simulcast cell of the local system has a site dedicated to West OC coverage.
The best site to receive the Worcester/OC system in the majority of Ocean Pines is the Ocean Pines tower site. The exception being certain areas along the bay that excel from the Ocean City 700MHz simulcast.
I am finding that the Ocean City Ocean Pines site performs better than the Worcester County simulcast cell at my location about a block from Manklin Creek. I'm watching to see what traffic I'll miss if I just monitor the OP site vs. the Worcester simulcast. Thanks to DG for a detailed explanation. I do know that contractors don't have very good service from Verizon at my house, but I have pretty good coverage from FirstNet (AT&T) inside my house. I also enabled WiFi calling on my phone as a backup, but the disclaimer to enable it indicates that precise location info may not be determined when the phone is using WiFi calling.
Some more notes re: RF performance at my location in Ocean Pines. As noted, there are lots of large trees in this area. I notice that the signalling from the Worcester system is highly variable and the waveform look a little "ratty" when viewed with the UT2 IQ tool. Moving the receive antenna only slightly can make noticeable differences in decode performance, but the RSSI is still variable. UT2 is able to decode the Worcester system and the OC Ocean Pines site in the upper 90% decode quality, and a bit less quality on the Delaware Public Safety system. My refirbed XTS5000 can receive Sussex Fire on DPS while sitting on my desk with only occasional breakups. The G5 receives the Worcester system using the stock antenna with no issues, and the SDS200 does surprisingly well with an unextended back-of-set stock antenna. However, SDR Trunk is unable to maintain lock on the control channel and will eventually go TU when attempting to monitor the Worcester system. I'm assuming this behavior is caused by the fluctuating signal quality / received power level at my location. SDRT will interpret this as a control channel channel change and starts looking for an alternate control channel, but eventually locks back on the original cch. I have a tripod with a simple base antenna mounted that I will place in the backyard to see if that makes a difference - at least that will remove the light building attenuation from the equation, but does nothing about the trees, lol.
Continuing, the temporary outdoor antenna on a stand improves the received signal to a point where SDR Trunk will work reliably. I'm now testing an indoor dipole to see if it can capture an adequate signal for SDRT to function.
Yeah. Not much you can do about all those trees. Well without annoying the neighbors.
I was down the shore the end of August but it was such nice weather I left the 436 and SDS 100 in the hotel room the whole trip. I set them to record to test their performances but by the time I get to listen it’ll be time to book next year’s visit.
I was down the shore the end of August but it was such nice weather I left the 436 and SDS 100 in the hotel room the whole trip. I set them to record to test their performances but by the time I get to listen it’ll be time to book next year’s visit.
I was down OC for a couple days...
13871 ENC - Possibly Worcester Sheriff Tac?
13873 ENC - Possibly Worcester Sheriff Tac?
14153 - Fire Tones? - Only saw it active on the Ocean Pines Site.
Also appears that the Worcester School Buses Talkgroup is now fully encrypted.
13871 ENC - Possibly Worcester Sheriff Tac?
13873 ENC - Possibly Worcester Sheriff Tac?
14153 - Fire Tones? - Only saw it active on the Ocean Pines Site.
Also appears that the Worcester School Buses Talkgroup is now fully encrypted.
Some intense profanity a short time ago during MVC response in the Berlin first due area, lol. I cannot say that I've ever heard that language go out over the air. Somebody was frustrated (turning out to be minor injuries.)
Clarifying that it was a first responder that was apparently frustrated and venting his anger, not an injured party in the background. Still I've never heard that type of behavior during my time in the fire service, and many years of monitoring multiple agencies and jurisdictions.
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The above I found in the California forum. Might explain the radio issues in Ocean Pines.
I have improved my antenna situation a bit by raising it off the ground and onto a shed - it gives it about 8 more feet in height. I also added a Stridsberg 7/800 pre-amp to the line which enables me to receive the Ocean City 700 system at a usable power level. The L3Harris system seems to "pulse" its power level - it can be seen in a waterfall display. This is different than what you see with a Motorola P25 system which appears more stable. This pulsing behavior can be seen on the OC 700 system, the OC 800 site, and the Worcester County system, but not on the FIRST sites: Worcester / Somerset, OC ASR, or Wicomico. When Delaware starts testing next year, I'll be interested to see how their signaling behaves. The "pulsing" makes a difference to me because SDRTrunk *can* interpret the low end of the pulse as a signal loss and starts looking for a new control channel - but this seems to happen more in the summer months. Perhaps it's the foliage, or maybe ducting.
FIRST Worcester Somerset simulcast site: note how smooth / uniform the side walls of the waterfall appear.
FIRST Worcester Somerset simulcast site: note how smooth / uniform the side walls of the waterfall appear.
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