WISCOM (2010)

[sfd119]

I'm not familiar with terminology associated with the Wisconsin P25 system. What did you mean by "County Scan groups"?

Most of all the TGs (or talk groups) that have a 10 after them (EG: 25710) are scan groups. It's an interop solution where you'll most of the county's fire and law traffic on it. It's a way for other WISCOM users who want to keep tabs on other counties that do not have WISCOM.

 

[JT-112]

WISCOM, unlike Michigan's MCSPS, Minnesota's ARMER, Illinois' Starcom21 or Indiana's SafeT has very few users and agencies on it. I don't really know why this is - I don't know if it's a political issue, or a technical set of issues, or both. I have never seen a statewide trunked system get built then basically go unused the way this one has.

There's not a lot of traffic. Many times when I listen all I hear are the aforementioned scan groups, which are really not that useful for interop. Many of the towers have scan groups that have multiple counties on them. Unless the RIDs change by the agency being transmitted, there's no way of knowing what county or agency you might be hearing. I'd be more appreciative if each county got a TG, then you could scan just the counties you needed to hear, and you would know who you were hearing if something interesting came up.

My assessment is that the scan groups were just a way of loading some traffic on the system for testing and demo purposes.

 

[kirkman123]

Upper Peninsula listener

I'm surprised that WISCOM isn't utilized more. Could be politics or perhaps it's a financial decision.

I'm in a somewhat rural area and the Michigan system is utilized here by police (State, county and local) fire, EMS, Corrections Dept. Dept. of Natural Resources,, to name a few.

 

[w9bsd]

To be fair, WISCOM is still very new. Considering that the state is just now transitioning their agencies, I'm not surprised there's not much traffic. Comparing WISCOM to a system like StarCom21 that's been in use for almost 10 years isn't particularly useful.

I think once the state is more fully transitioned and the system is proven more users will migrate over. However I do think the timing was a little late, which may impact overall usage in the near term. I have to wonder if counties like Rock (who moved to P25 conventional) would have moved to WISCOM if it would have been operational two years ago.

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[cheezhead]

To be fair WISCOM is an inter op wasn't designed to be a primary system. If an agency wants they can build out their area on WISCOM but it was designed for inter op use. Most agency's would want strong local coverage for portables which WISCOM doesn't have even locally near a lot of the towers. Look a Fondulac county they built out their area on WISCOM at their expense.

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[ScanWI]

Politics, most of it comes down to politics. Unlike ARMER the WISCOM system was not built to replace everyone's system. It has that capability but the agencies are not being forced to use it. There are several state and federal agencies that are using the system, and have been for a while. There has also been a few counties on the system for some time now. This will only add to traffic locally though. State patrol is only late to the party because of radios that after several custom firmware versions still don't properly work on the system.

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[JT-112]

There was traffic - real traffic - on nearly every one of those systems within minutes, hours and days. There was demand - pent up demand - in some cases.

Not so with WISCOM.

It's been up and radiating basically nothing for quite a while now. Very sparse usage. Not zero usage, I hear some and obviously I don't travel across the entire state, but it really isn't much.

Not saying it won't be a good system at some point, carrying a decent amount of traffic for the taxpayers (federal and state) that paid for it, but that time is not now. When I hear about municipal bus systems going on the system, that raises my eyebrows as well. WISCOM is not a high capacity system, and bus system operations don't really fit into public safety interop usage scenarios, do they?

If there are any plans for major users (or even mid-size users) to migrate over, that would be great to hear.

 

[ScanWI]

The are several agencies moving. I know it's slow but part of the reason behind that was to build out the whole system and then transition over. Unlike others that moved over before the system was ready.

Currently on system
DOJ, City of Fond du Lac, Iowa County, UW Milwaukee, City of Greenfield, Taylor County, US Marshalls, FBI, Capital PD, Sawyer County, Kewaunee County, Menomonee Tribe transit, National Park Service, Department of Health Services (hospitals all have radios)

Partially on the system(currently transitioning)
DOC, WSP, DNR, Juneau County, Douglas County, in a way Dane County(failsafe),

I know the transition is slower than other systems but I would rather move to a complete system than a partial system.


As far as the transit systems are concerned, the system is open to any government agency. The system is also open to any agency organization that works with the government in any capacity.

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[sfd119]

Anyone hear TG 16102? It sounded like Superior PD patch, but I see 16101 is Superior PD. Sounded like Douglas County Dispatch and they weren't on it long.

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Also, this question is more for the DB admins in reference to GPS on the sites. Most sites are at 30 miles right now and while taking a long drive last night, I noticed that most of the towers came in on GPS before I could actually see any signal strength.

I would put forth a vote saying to change them to 20 - 25 miles on each site. Would anyone have complaints on that? With most areas, there are tower overlaps and by setting it to 20 - 25 miles, that a better tower will give you a signal until you "jump" to a better tower. No need on having two WISCOM tower sites on if one is only one bar on signal while the other is still a 3.

I have examples of towers if needed.

 

[ScanWI]

Talk-group 16102 would be Superior PD 2.

Some towers are going to have a 30+ mile footprint, however there are going to be areas that do not have a strong signal from any one tower and it will be difficult to set all the towers exactly. We do not want to leave any holes across the state. This being said, the towers that are being added by the counties are most likely the ones you are seeing this from since they are being used to fill in the gaps for portable coverage. I wouldn't want to change these settings due to 30 miles being the average footprint. Everyone's scanner setup is different and with the new portable/mobile scanners with GPS, we want to make sure they always find a tower.

I will look into some of the coverage settings for some towers that may not have a large footprint.

 

[bc780l]

"No need on having two WISCOM tower sites on if one is only one bar on signal while the other is still a 3."

Well, don't forget that WISCOM is not simulcast (thankfully), meaning that WISCOM user radios affiliate to only one site at a time. For the scanner world, you'll only receive that traffic if your scanning that site. That means if a user is affiliated to that further-away site with "one bar" instead of the site you're closest to and the only one your listening to, you'll not hear their traffic. So, if you're in range of more than one site with a scanner, you'll potentially hear more if you scan the control channels of all the sites in range.

That's still no guarantee you hear all of the traffic--which goes a long way for addressing complaints that people aren't hearing traffic. Remember that a scanner must be listening to the same site that a WISCOM user is affiliated to, even if the talk group that radio is on is a statewide talk group. If you're out in the boonies and the radio traffic is on a site far away, you're just not going to hear it unless a radio is affiliated on your monitored site.

 

[sfd119]

Talk-group 16102 would be Superior PD 2.

I will look into some of the coverage settings for some towers that may not have a large footprint.

I have a GPS Scanner, would you like some input of the towers I see / traverse? I can name about 5 - 6 towers that could be reworked to be more friendly.

Well, don't forget that WISCOM is not simulcast (thankfully), meaning that WISCOM user radios affiliate to only one site at a time. For the scanner world, you'll only receive that traffic if your scanning that site. That means if a user is affiliated to that further-away site with "one bar" instead of the site you're closest to and the only one your listening to, you'll not hear their traffic. So, if you're in range of more than one site with a scanner, you'll potentially hear more if you scan the control channels of all the sites in range. That's still no guarantee you hear all of the traffic--which goes a long way for addressing complaints that people aren't hearing traffic. Remember that a scanner must be listening to the same site that a WISCOM user is affiliated to, even if the talk group that radio is on is a statewide talk group. If you're out in the boonies and the radio traffic is on a site far away, you're just not going to hear it unless a radio is affiliated on your monitored site/

I'm well aware of how trunking and affiliation works. But when you have one bar on the scanner and transmissions are garbled/ fading in and out, I don't think it's worth it--especially since I have a roof mount on a mobile scanner. What about the people that have 436s with a stock antenna, they won't hear anything! If you have three towers in a county and one of them is 1 bar, you'll still hear other units just fine on other sites.

I hear Sawyer County constantly off of the Lampson tower which isn't even in their county. One site is usually enough because somebody is sitting on it.

 

[jpjohn]

WSP Eau Claire Post was doing some testing over the noon hour. Post was calling a 6** car....Post was having trouble copying the car so they told them "to switch back to conventional."

Talk group was 151.

 

[jpjohn]

Eau Claire Post appears to be fully on TG 151. Didn't hear anything on VHF.

Spooner Post next?

 

[N9NRA]

Eau Claire Post appears to be fully on TG 151. Didn't hear anything on VHF.

Spooner Post next?

I hope so, last time i was up north i heard nothing on the WSP TG`s at all the whole time i was there, here`s hopin` they start using `em, honestly i think the VHF channels sound like hack IMHO. N9NRA

 

[jpjohn]

Eau Claire Post now back on vhf. this evening however there was nothing on vhf this afternoon, just on Wiscom TG 151.

Now TG 154 active with rebroadcast of VHF and no activity on TG 151.

 

[10-7Goodnight]

Do you know what the control channel will be for the State Patrol for Spooner when they get up and running?

 

[sfd119]

Either Lampson or Shell Lake. I would guess Shell Lake for the Post as that tower is less than 5 miles away.

 

[sjgostovich]

WSP Spooner Post

Will you be able to hear the WSP traffic on the Lampson tower though? I must be in a dead spot for thier tower or they are not that busy because I never hear them?!

 

[sfd119]

I have not heard any WSP traffic on any towers in the Spooner Post region yet. I'm assuming you should be able to hear them without a problem on Lampson as units in Burnett, Douglas, Sawyer, and Washburn counties would affiliate off that tower as the county units already do.

The Lampson tower has heavy traffic on it from local counties mostly.