MARCS site rebanding

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mtindor

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Since last last year, MARCS has been updating their licenses to reflect the new frequencies for various sites that will be active post-rebanding.

A document I just read online from June 10, 2013 indicated that 99% of the subscriber radios had the "one-touch rebanding" complete.

An FCC document I read today mentioned "The Sprint FRA has only recently been completed and rebanding is scheduled to begin in mid-August, 2013. "

And today I got a call from a friend who heard a Helpdesk discussion where a tech was testing new freqs on the Cherry Grove site and then subsequently deemed that rebanding had been completed on that site.

So, for all of you who monitor MARCS, over the coming months if you start noticing that you aren't hearing anything from particular sites, you should determine if the site has been rebanded / control channel has changed.

The MARCS DB doesn't currently list the post-rebanding frequencies for any of the sites [there may be an exception here and there]. So you'll have to click on each individual site in the DB, look at the FCC licenses, and grab the additional frequencies from there and program them in -- should be in a situation where you aren't hearing traffic on a site anymore and are wondering what's going on.

Mike
 

aimedtoannoy

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yep! last night all of ashtabula county went dark except the geneva tower.
EDIT: How do we find the new freqs.? are they posted on the database somewhere or do we have to wait until someone finds them?
 
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kf8yk

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EDIT: How do we find the new freqs.? are they posted on the database somewhere or do we have to wait until someone finds them?

For control channels in the 866-869 MHz band (which is just about all of the MARCS CC's) just subtract 15 MHz.

For example the primary CC for Ashtabula 867.4250 MHz will change to 852.4250 MHz

You could load both the pre & post rebanding CC's into your scanner, so when the switch actually occurs on the sites you monitor your scanner will work without interruption.
 

aimedtoannoy

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For control channels in the 866-869 MHz band (which is just about all of the MARCS CC's) just subtract 15 MHz.

For example the primary CC for Ashtabula 867.4250 MHz will change to 852.4250 MHz

You could load both the pre & post rebanding CC's into your scanner, so when the switch actually occurs on the sites you monitor your scanner will work without interruption.

Didnt pick anything up, does that mean that they aren't being used yet? as of right now, I cant pick up any tower in ashtabula county except the geneva tower. All other towers went dark.
 

kf8yk

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I can hear a strong CC on 852.425 in Geauga County.

Unfortunately I left my scanner at home so I can't grab system info right now, I'm just using a spectrum analyzer/receiver to listen.

I know that the system techs are working on rebanding the sites in the area today, there may be times where the alternate CC's get rotated or when the site will go down completely to retune the combiners.
 

aimedtoannoy

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I can hear a strong CC on 852.425 in Geauga County.

Unfortunately I left my scanner at home so I can't grab system info right now, I'm just using a spectrum analyzer/receiver to listen.

I know that the system techs are working on rebanding the sites in the area today, there may be times where the alternate CC's get rotated or when the site will go down completely to retune the combiners.

Ok thanks,
 

mtindor

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I can hear a strong CC on 852.425 in Geauga County.

Unfortunately I left my scanner at home so I can't grab system info right now, I'm just using a spectrum analyzer/receiver to listen.

I know that the system techs are working on rebanding the sites in the area today, there may be times where the alternate CC's get rotated or when the site will go down completely to retune the combiners.

Thanks. I updated 6F0F-057 in the DB to add the new freqs and designated 852.425 as another CC.

For those who listen to site 57 (Ashtabula), you would want to add 852.425 (and probably 852.1625 as a guess) as control channels so that you can receive this site.

Although, as Eric says, even though the CCs are likely just 15 Mhz down, theoretically while rebanding the CC could be found on any one of the freqs.

Mike
 

mtindor

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If you're interested in following the site rebanding process, quite often you can hear on TG 17344 (HELPDESK) the various techs calling into Helpdesk testing the new rebanded frequencies... if all goes well, you may pick up the techs declaring that a particular site has completed the rebanding process.

If the techs are working in your area, you might get a heads up before it happens as the techs call Helpdesk when arriving at a site to do a reband.

Mike
 

rwhanf

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The Marysville site had not had any traffic on it lately. I checked and I was not picking up the control channel. Reprogramed it to 853.9125 and now hearing all traffic loud and clear. I am not sure when they rebanded or how long my feed had gone without radio traffic, but its obvious they already have rebanded here in Union County.
 

mtindor

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The Marysville site had not had any traffic on it lately. I checked and I was not picking up the control channel. Reprogramed it to 853.9125 and now hearing all traffic loud and clear. I am not sure when they rebanded or how long my feed had gone without radio traffic, but its obvious they already have rebanded here in Union County.

Thank you for that. I will udpate the DB

Mike
 

mtindor

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As of 8-21-2013, the following sites have been confirmed as being rebanded and have been modified in the RR database. However, some of them require somebody to run a trunking program to determine both the current active CC as well as the alternate CC.

6F0F-057 Ashtabula (Ashtabula)
- need somebody to run a trunking program on this site to get the alternate CC

6F10-049 Deersville (Harrison)
- need somebody to run a trunking program on this site to get the alternate CC

6F10-061 Dellroy (Carroll)

6F16-052 Cherry Grove (Hamilton)
- need somebody to run a trunking program and obtain both primary/alternate CC

6F16-055 Greenhils (Hamilton)
- need somebody to run a trunking program and obtain both primary/alternate CC

712D-008 Marysville (Union)
- need somebody to run a trunking program and obtain alternate CC

712D-034 Springfield (Clark)

The various tech companies appear to be busy all over the state, so any site could be rebanded any day. It would be wise for all monitors of MARCS to start looking for changes on the sites you listen to.

mike
 

mtindor

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If you are using Unitrunker and a site gets rebanded, it isnt' just a matter of noting the new freqeuncies in Unitrunker. You must designate the site as having been rebanded using the Wizard.

Otherwise, you'll find all kinds of interesting [bogus] frequencies showing up in Unitrunker for rebanded sites that you monitor. This also applies to site neighbors / peers.

If you are running UT and you suspect that a site has rebanded, you should clear out all frequencies associated with that site [as stored in your UT]. You should then go click on the Wizard icon for that particular site in UT and click 'Rebanded". Then you should fire up the receiver and let it populate the new information (site frequencies / site neighbors).

If you do not follow this procedure, you are likely to end up having a lot of bogus frequencies listed in your UT -- and some of you may even be inclined to submit those bogus frequencies as well. So we all have to stay one step ahead of the game and make sure that a site which has been rebanded is designated as rebanded in our Unitrunker and then remove all the frequencies listed for those sites and re-run Unitrunker on those sites to allow it to populate those sites with all of the correct frequencies.

Mike
 

wa8pyr

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For control channels in the 866-869 MHz band (which is just about all of the MARCS CC's) just subtract 15 MHz.

For example the primary CC for Ashtabula 867.4250 MHz will change to 852.4250 MHz

This is usually true, but in some cases the straight 15 MHz drop didn't work due to coordination conflicts with existing licensees, so other frequencies had to be found. Only way to be certain is check the FCC license and monitor the site in conventional mode to confirm the frequencies.
 

mdulrich

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Off the Lima site Trunk88 is showing neighbors Celina CC as 853.6125 and Continental CC as 852.8250. The radio that Trunk88 is running off of can't receive these two sites, so I can't give you ACs.

Mike
 

mdulrich

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Off the Lima site Trunk88 is showing neighbors Celina CC as 853.6125 and Continental CC as 852.8250. The radio that Trunk88 is running off of can't receive these two sites, so I can't give you ACs.

I spoke too soon. The Continental site AC is 853.2875

Mike
 

mtindor

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The following sites have been rebanded:

712D-041 middlepoint
6F16-046 georgetown
6F10-042 fairview

Listeners in the above areas who monitor the above sites will need to verify that the control channels we have listed are indeed the new control channels.

Mike
 
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