WS1040: Mixing P25 and Analog?

[RhapidFyre]

I haven't fully figured out the scanner yet, but I realize what I need it to do now. Call me a scanner newbie but I think it's a talkgroup that I have to set up.

What I have is the following channels I want to scan:
1) Oroville Police Department - 154.78500 - 411 NAC - P25
2) Oroville Police Department - 154.78500 - 411 DPL - FMN
3) Oroville Fire Department - 153.81500 - 123.0 PL - FMN

As you can see, programmed channels 1 and 2 are the same frequency. Officers generally use Analog until they can't be heard, or they don't want everyone with a scanner hearing what they're doing, and then they'll change over to "Gold", which is the P25.

Right now, I have priority set to channel 1, because it only transmits when they use P25. All analog transmission is silent, which means that channel 2 is the one that is constantly talking. I also threw in Channel 3, which is the fire department, but they're a "back burner" channel for when it gets boring. My ultimate goal is to have Channel 1 and 2 as the priority. When I do that, however, the digital noise will go over the analog channel, which queues that channel to broadcast, and you skip the digital channel altogether.

The only idea I had was to put a 2 second delay on the analog channel (channel 2), but that results in listeners missing transmissions. Is there a way to set it up so P25 activates when it's digital, otherwise uses analog?

The whole reason is that if #2 and #2 are both "non-priority" channels, then the fire department will over-speak the police if they're the first ones to transmit - I don't want the fire department being heard at all unless there's no transmissions coming from the PD.


TL;DR - I don't want the fire department being heard unless the police are not transmitting, and I want the PD to interrupt the FD, but to do that I have to have Channel 1 AND 2 as the priority. But if I set #2 to priority, then the P25 (#1) won't transmit sometimes.

 

[Spitfire8520]

What you can do is program the police frequency once and have it as a priority over the fire frequency. You can set the squelch mode to "Search" on the police frequency and it will automatically switch between analog and digital modes based on what it detects. It is not really possible for them to talk on the 1 frequency at the same time, even if they program it as different radio channels. This means you only need to program it once.

 

[RhapidFyre]

I tried to use the "Search" function but it seemed to miss the digital stuff. I'll try again tomorrow when I got more time to play with it. I tried "Search" and the digital transmissions just came in as fuzz.

 

[Spitfire8520]

Something you could try to mess with is the DG Int Prime/Digital Detect Time(out) setting found under the Expert/Advanced/Extended settings (depending on software). This setting controls how long it checks the received transmission for P25 before defaulting to the analog mode.

The default setting is 60, which should be 600 ms. If you increase the value, it will wait longer to see if it is digital. The trade-off is that setting it too high might cause it to cutoff the very beginning of the analog transmissions. You will probably want to play with it to see if it improves the situation and maybe find a nice balance.

 

[BigFarmer]

Hello im BigFarmer n new to all the termonology and scanners. i purchused a Whistler 1040. tried with two other people to program this unit and failed. now iv applied for this subscription to help me program this unit. however, this is way out of me league as well. can you please assist me?

 

[RhapidFyre]

I just attempted to use the "Search" feature on one channel, and while it works *most* of the time, occasionally a digital transmission gets through as Analog and you hear fuzz.

I'll check out the digital detect time out setting.

 

[RhapidFyre]

Alright I figured out what it is doing.

If the first transmission to start is digital, it comes in clear. However, the dispatcher answers on analog, so when the officer responds on digital it picks up the analog transmission instead. This is much less noticable when there is a break in transmissions, but if the officer answers analog right away with digital it almost always ends up being fuzzy.

 

[Spitfire8520]

That is a problem because the scanner only checks to see if it is P25 at the very beginning of the transmissions.

Does the carrier (signal) ever drop during this time? You could try to turn off the delay setting for that specific object. This would cause it to jump straight back into scanning immediately after the the signal drops instead of sticking around to see if there is a followup transmission. This would make it search for a digital signal once it detected activity on the police frequency again.

Unfortunately this won't work if the officers are keying up before the carrier from the repeater drops. The scanner could also pick up those pesky firefighters talking and would briefly monitor them until the priority check kicked it back to the police.

 

[RhapidFyre]

Yep, the officers will inquire to dispatch on digital and it will be clear (you can easily hear the difference between digital and analog). Dispatch will answer with an analog, "Go Ahead". The officer immediately rekeys their mic and it's just "RRRzzznznzzrrnrrBRRRRRRRT".

(Digi): "Oroville 25, 10-28"
(Ana): "25 go ahead."
(Ana): "rrrzznnzzzrtbrrnnBRRRRT"
(Ana): "Clear, current 2000 Chevy."
(Ana): "rrrznnBBBBRRRT"
(Ana): "10'4"

The only way I could solve this was to put P25 on it's own conventional channel with priority, and then scan analog. The only problem is the F.D. will speak over PD-Analog.

Also, I cant find the digital timeout/int prime setting you were talking about. Delay is under the expert settings of each individual channel, that is set to 20 (default)

 

[Spitfire8520]

The DG Int Prime is found in the Global Expert Setting. Are you programming by hand? If so, you need to go to PGM > FUNC + F3 (GLOB) to reach that menu.

Now that I think about your situation more, I think that your original approach was probably the better method. You should have both your PD objects programmed with priority so that fire doesn't override them, however you should set the "Delay" to "Off". Turning the delay off means it should jump straight back into scanning and pick up the other channel.

You will probably need to reduce the "HD5 Fade" setting (found in the same Global Expert Setting menu as DG Int Prime) when going that route. That setting controls how long it stays on a channel after the NAC/DPL disappears. The default is 2000 (2 seconds). This means that when the dispatcher stops talking (and the DPL goes away), you will still hear the digital noise for 2 seconds before it times out and goes back into scan. The setting ranges from 10 to 2500 (0.01 seconds to 2.5 seconds). You might want to try something like 100-200.

 

[RhapidFyre]

I'm programming by hand, I can't figure out how to download the software. "DG Int Prime" is not under the F3 GLOB menu on my handheld, checked three times for it but I will check a fourth when I get home tonight.

So create a P25 channel, an analog channel, set priority to both, and create F.D. - Turn delay off for the digital channel so it's checked first, and scan PD/FD with delays?

 

[Spitfire8520]

I'm programming by hand, I can't figure out how to download the software. "DG Int Prime" is not under the F3 GLOB menu on my handheld, checked three times for it but I will check a fourth when I get home tonight.

You need to press FUNC before you press F3 (GLOB) to reach this menu.

So create a P25 channel, an analog channel, set priority to both, and create F.D. - Turn delay off for the digital channel so it's checked first, and scan PD/FD with delays?

Pretty close. The "Turn delay off" would apply to all channels. You want the scanner to immediately jump back into scan mode when the current channel it is parked on fails to receive the correct DPL/NAC so that it will switch between the digital and analog as quickly as possible for PD. Turning it off for FD will let it quickly check PD every time the firefighters stop talking.

You will also be reducing the expert "HD5 Fade" setting to hopefully speed up the process of jumping back into scan mode.

I am also available on IM if you would like to speed up this back and forth process up .