Pinellas County P25 Sites

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cabfeegig

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Oct 22, 2006
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Clearwater, Fl
Can anyone help me understand the differences between the sites? Are they all simucast? I live in Clearwater - which site should I listen to?

thanks
 

kayleesdad

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Oct 22, 2007
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4 is sppd, TI, USF and Baypines 'A' and Tarpon if I recall, 5 is pcso main and sppd main. I don't really know what simulcast is, but reception is poor west of Roosevelt and Ulmerton, probably between towers. my best reception on site 5 is with a 450-470 yagi pointed away from the towers (99% decode), but I am in a good location and haven't traveled West of R/U with it. A 860 yagi does well on site 5 when pointed east, but I still haven't tried it west of R/U.
 

cabfeegig

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Clearwater, Fl
Thanks

I have been listening to 5 and just wanted to make sure that was the correct site. I have a scantenna in my attic and all is fine...

thanks
 

Tryton

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Sep 15, 2007
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Largo, Fl
I wish I had the magic on the Pinellas system. I have pure **** for decode. The new Uniden 1.07 firmware didn't help. I have tried the RS 800 mhz rubber duckie, The stock whip, and even a scantenna (which is laying on its side in the attic cause its 3 inches too big.) My best settings I can get on the hidden P25 is 7 / 145 . I live right off of Roosevelt and the bay side bridge ( corner of Bolesta and Whitney).
 

kayleesdad

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Site 5 ain't so good in that area. Found some adjustments for the xt and rs800 that seemed to work a little better in the car in mid Pinellas but none were great. Havent taken the other scanners on the road or the antennas. Probably should, maybe this weekend. You can borrow the yagis if you want to see if anything works better, both on tripods.
 

Tryton

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Hi Kayleesdad, Can you let me know if the Yagis work better pointed at the tower in your home.. If you are able to get a solid decode from site 5.
 

kayleesdad

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twave 900 pointed at tower not so good as twave 900 pointed away from tower. gold anodized welded 450-470 laird better no matter where pointed. i have them on a switch so i can switch quickly and the laird is better audio and decode. your mileage may vary. using 396xt. site 5.
 

kayleesdad

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Only thing working decent near the airport is the par800. Doubt an antenna is going to help. I'll try it with a yagi, but this area is not good for reception. So far xt with rs800 was bad, with laird a little better but not acceptable. Pro106 is in between, but not good enough. Location, location, location.

Edit-no luck with the twave 900 and the xt in any direction. Quite the deadzone for the xt out here at Datsko Park. Picked up Tampa east and West and Pasco, but Pinellas p25 eludes the xt here.
 
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Tryton

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I wonder if it's a TX power issue, Meaning that the tower(s) are not at full power since they are still on the analog sites.
 

kayleesdad

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I can only guess that Datsko XT Deadzone is between two towers. Seems like plenty of signal, just tough to decode. The PSR800 did okay, but the way it eats batteries I never use it in the car. I wonder if the Uniden homepatrol does better. Maybe Uniden should buy GRE while they are struggling. Oh well.
 

kayleesdad

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Okay, did a factory reset on the xt and checked a few things and realized the squelch was way too high. Lowering the squelch to zero helped the most, and raising the squelch made it much worse. So the dead zone ain't so bad, but I'm not getting a whole lot of magic from the antennas, maybe just fewer cracks in transmissions and a little better decode rate. Now the xt is close to psr800, but neither is perfect.
 

pgnsucks

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Jun 24, 2006
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Central Florida
I'm just starting again I plugged in the Clw system and down here in St Pete with just a rubber-duckie I get quite a bit of the edac traffic. I'm going to get an antenna just not sure what brand yet.
 

David40

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Clearwater, Fl.
EXPLANATION OF PINELLAS P25

For all of you wanting to know... To start, Zone 5 is multiple physical tower "sites" (countywide) all being simulcast. This zone replicates "Ridgecrest" on the analog system, being that it is countywide. HOWEVER, not every tower has the P25 system yet. Hince the good and bad coverage. The only users on Zone 5 so far are departments that generally only use mobiles or portable outside of a building, in which case the coverage for portable talkback inside a building does not need to be there YET. In the near future when Fire Rescue, Sunstar, and SO switches, there will be much greater coverage needed for in building portable talkback.
Zone 4 is a simulcast of multiple physical tower "sites" for south county primarily St. Pete PD. The entire system (all 4 separate zones) are NOT simulcast together.
I do not know if the county will be divided into even more zones, since (currently) Zone 2 is only at the North end of the County (Tarpon and Eastlake Towers).
I am also not sure what Zone 12 is for since the licenses on those freqs. were temps and have since been cancelled.

Hope this helps and isn't too confusing.
 

David40

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Wow, that is confusing. I have a big problem with transmissions dropping out or breaking up. Someone is talking and all of a sudden it's like they are getting cut off, but I know they are not because the person they are talking to doesn't come back and say, "sorry repeat that, you got cut off". I thought that if I understood the sites better I could zero in on the site closest to me and it might solve the drop out problem. Since they are all in the same physical location I guess that's not going make any difference. Wish I could figure out why this is happening.
 
Joined
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Clearwater, Fl.
Wow, that is confusing. I have a big problem with transmissions dropping out or breaking up. Someone is talking and all of a sudden it's like they are getting cut off, but I know they are not because the person they are talking to doesn't come back and say, "sorry repeat that, you got cut off". I thought that if I understood the sites better I could zero in on the site closest to me and it might solve the drop out problem. Since they are all in the same physical location I guess that's not going make any difference. Wish I could figure out why this is happening.

Sorry!!! I try to explain it the best I can, the whole transitioning and trying to follow it is very confusing. I personally have multiple spreadsheets set up with the different zones and frequencies used on each zone compared to FCC licensing. Along with TGs, and useage. They will also be moving the entire Master Site (for the entire system) to a new location. I am not sure if/ how this will affect sites. The long and short is that all 4 Sites in the system are NOT simulcasts of each other and Site 5 is Countywide and Site 4 is St. Pete (mostly) The furthest north site for (Site 4 Simulcast) is Roosevelt/ 275. All other (Site 4 Simulcast) is aligned with Central Ave. On the East and West Side.
 
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ngel

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Jan 19, 2010
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SW Pasco County
Pinellas P25

From experience listening to the P25 system. Site 5 appears to have all the agencies currently on P25: SO, SPPD, PPPD, BPVA, PIN COUNTY UTILITIES, ANIMAL CONTROL, PSTA, AND SOME OTHERS.

I am in Pasco, so i cannot pick up site 4, however i can pick up site 2 and site 7. Site 7 I have heard very little traffic nothing recently, and Site 2 appeared to only be an So patrol channel and TSPD which was encrypted anyway.

I am using a Pro-106. The key to reception for me is to have the scanner in a window that looks south towards pinellas, even with that i have reception issues for two frequencies on site 5. 851.3375 and 858.7375 mhz. Generally speaking the system sounds great from New Port Richey though.

For those by the airport, there has always been a dead zone in the area of Roosevelt between the airport and 62nd st even with the analog system. Remember P25 will be more affected by a dead zone than will analog by nature of digital systems.
 
Joined
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Messages
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Location
Clearwater, Fl.
From experience listening to the P25 system. Site 5 appears to have all the agencies currently on P25: SO, SPPD, PPPD, BPVA, PIN COUNTY UTILITIES, ANIMAL CONTROL, PSTA, AND SOME OTHERS.

I am in Pasco, so i cannot pick up site 4, however i can pick up site 2 and site 7. Site 7 I have heard very little traffic nothing recently, and Site 2 appeared to only be an So patrol channel and TSPD which was encrypted anyway.

As you said for Site 5, that is correct for the most part. St. Pete PD will be on Site 5 since this system operating like SmartZone, so if a St. Pete PD radio affiliates with Site 5 (not 4) then you will have St. Pete PD on Site 5. But Generally they are Site 4. Also, the SO, only the 5 Patrol channels are currently Patched to the Analog system. No SO radios actually use the P25 system yet.
I have compiled a map, so show the Site locations...
Pinellas County P25 Radio Sites
 

ngel

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Jan 19, 2010
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SW Pasco County
As you said for Site 5, that is correct for the most part. St. Pete PD will be on Site 5 since this system operating like SmartZone, so if a St. Pete PD radio affiliates with Site 5 (not 4) then you will have St. Pete PD on Site 5. But Generally they are Site 4. Also, the SO, only the 5 Patrol channels are currently Patched to the Analog system. No SO radios actually use the P25 system yet.

I am not sure the particular knowledge you have about the system or how your getting it and i am not saying your wrong, however I was just monitoring site 5 for quite a while (2 hours) and i can assure you that all the SPPD talk groups listed here in RR and a few others in the "1400" range are coming up consistently and i am able to follow all the transmissions without any problem. For example 1400-1404 dispatch channels and 1412 and 1460 come up all the time. Some of the encrypted talk groups I have locked out like 1438, but even those consistently come up on site 5. I even have all the event channels programmed in and they come up with games etc... at the Trop during events.

Also your correct about PCSO traffic being simulcasted from the analog site 1 , The LE and SE channels also have radio traffic simulcasted on P25 site 5. I also still hear digital audio on the analog site for a few PCSO talkgroups occasionally. I know FD Tac channel F is simulcasted into P25 as well for testing and interoperablility. As of right now there are so many talk groups that come up on site 5 that i have separated an "open" for all traffic and "closed" scanning list in my pro-106 so that if i want to only listed to certain agencies i can.
 
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