RFSS/WACN

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mejnetguru

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Question:

What is the purpose of the RFSS field shown in the database for P25 trunked systems. I don't see any obvious use for it for subscriber radios that isn't covered by the WACN/System ID/Site ID fields. A scanner of course would not need it anywhere that I could tell.

Along a related note, any idea why so many system operators never change the default WACN (even large systems)? Doesn't that kind of make that field kind of useless?
 

troymail

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Question:

What is the purpose of the RFSS field shown in the database for P25 trunked systems. I don't see any obvious use for it for subscriber radios that isn't covered by the WACN/System ID/Site ID fields. A scanner of course would not need it anywhere that I could tell.

Along a related note, any idea why so many system operators never change the default WACN (even large systems)? Doesn't that kind of make that field kind of useless?

Scanners don't use it (at least I'm pretty sure that's true). However, for complete programming, Unication pagers do use it (but it's not necessarily required as it can be wildcard if the user doesn't really care.)

I have alot of frequency reuse in my area and for traveling, you really want to use things like that to keep things straight when frequencies are reused in different locations.

I think BEE00 is reused because Motorola wants people to know it's a Motorola system....

I recently asked a similar question on WACNs/SYSIDs and got this recently:

http://forums.radioreference.com/ma...50072-who-using-p25-phase-ii.html#post2761110

EDIT: I'd actually like to see some of these values added to scanners... I recently found a common frequency being used in the same county but on two different systems (one a state system and the other a remote site on that county's system).
 
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KevinC

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Question:

Along a related note, any idea why so many system operators never change the default WACN (even large systems)? Doesn't that kind of make that field kind of useless?

What's the "default"?
 

natedawg1604

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It's actually very important info. for scanner users who monitor large multi-site systems (such as statewide systems with dozens of sites). By way of brief background, large systems often share cc frequencies among multiple sites spread apart geographically (i.e. 30 or 50 or 100 miles apart). In such cases, you could be monitoring a cc associated with Site A from your house, but if you drive 40 miles you could find yourself monitoring Site B on the same cc frequency. Consequently you won't know for sure which site you're monitoring unless you verify the RFSS (Zone) and Site # associated with a particular control channel at a particular location.

Does that make sense?
 

trumpetman

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An RFSS is linked to a zone controller in a system. It's another means of differentiating similar site numbers. For Motorola systems, depending on the ASTRO revision, you're limited to either 99 or 128 sites per zone core. When you require more than one zone controller each core is assigned an RFSS. This allows the radios to understand roaming across systems with more than 1 zone controller, as the WACN stays consistent across the entire system.
 

INDY72

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An RFSS is linked to a zone controller in a system. It's another means of differentiating similar site numbers. For Motorola systems, depending on the ASTRO revision, you're limited to either 99 or 128 sites per zone core. When you require more than one zone controller each core is assigned an RFSS. This allows the radios to understand roaming across systems with more than 1 zone controller, as the WACN stays consistent across the entire system.

Correct, with the only other real variable being NAC for each site, though I am noticing that the same NACs are being shared kinda like the way CTs were with maybe 10 total NACs for total of 2 Zones with at least 60 to 70 sites each. Kinda like for breaking each Zone down into subsets, almost how it was done on the old SmartZone system.
 

troymail

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It's actually very important info. for scanner users who monitor large multi-site systems (such as statewide systems with dozens of sites). By way of brief background, large systems often share cc frequencies among multiple sites spread apart geographically (i.e. 30 or 50 or 100 miles apart). In such cases, you could be monitoring a cc associated with Site A from your house, but if you drive 40 miles you could find yourself monitoring Site B on the same cc frequency. Consequently you won't know for sure which site you're monitoring unless you verify the RFSS (Zone) and Site # associated with a particular control channel at a particular location.

Does that make sense?

Absolutely - however, these low level details are not typically considered/used by scanners (something I think needs to be and will change in the future). Unication already allows for use of these values in programming. I've found that they can both help and hamper your efforts to monitor the systems/sites if you're not careful. Based on recent experiences, I've now begun applying wildcards to some of these values if/when I haven't personally validated them and/or it may not matter (there are many factors that go into if I think they don't matter for my usage).

Having said that, these values are more likely to be used today by more advanced scanner users when they see/hear something that doesn't make sense.
 
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