Oneida County VHF P25 Trunking?

[daredevil1]

Yes that's what I'm referring to.

155.4300 conventional MRD output. It's better than it was previously (I guess "sucks" might be a strong word depending on your receiver) but still gets fuzzy from time to time. This is strictly conventional here, not referring to digital artifacts. Maybe I'm going nuts but it seems like Fire Control (154.3700) conventional is crystal clear and rich - remarkably so - but MRD can get fuzzy. It's not as invasive as it was when the simulcast issue first appeared.

Not really sure how to describe it. It's almost like when the wind blows a certain way the signal degrades. Obviously I know that's not the case. Just don't know how else to describe it. Also MRD also sounds a little "tinny" as compared to Fire Control.

I've experienced the issue all over the central part of the county, on professional mobile radios and on portables, and on my own personal scanners with multiple antenna setups. My theory is it has something to do with the simulcast, but I can't figure out why Fire Control is so much clearer and stronger. At my home I have a 36" exterior copper dipole antenna connected to a Pro-2042 with coax and with that, I'm getting MRD very clear 99% of the time. Any lesser antenna setups and I experience the issue.

Oh yeah and the Florence tower seems stronger than the others MOST of the time.

I have a Diamond X50C2 antenna inside and sometimes MRD cuts out completely. I'm located in Rome. I have no problem receiving it on my Unication G5, it's crystal clear.

 

[R0am3r]

I have a Diamond X50C2 antenna inside and sometimes MRD cuts out completely. I'm located in Rome. I have no problem receiving it on my Unication G5, it's crystal clear.

Is there a chance that the new P25 system is overloading your receiver? When I travel through Rome, my Icom transceiver is overloaded by the P25 signal on 151.010 MHz. I frequently lose the 2 meter repeaters when I am on Erie Boulevard.

As noted above, I am not experiencing any issues (from my home) with the MRD signal. Since I live in Camden, I am likely hearing the tower in Florence. Maybe I'll listen on the MRD frequency on the way home and see if I experience dropouts.

 

[studgeman]

Analog simulcast is extremely finicky, the amount of finick can vary from radio to radio, and of course location to location. The observation about the wind blowing may not be too far off. As an antenna and tower move in the wind there is a slight polarization change in the signal. If the radio is marginally capturing the signal, the slight polarization change may be enough to throw the receiver off. If the radio uses a standard FM discriminator it is more susceptible to this than a radio that uses quadatature I/Q decoding. There are other issues in the receiver that can really play havoc as well. If the Local Oscillators are out of alignment it can degrade the reception. In short, Analog Simulcast is a maintenance headache and a valuable tool, like most things in life, its not perfect. Something to consider, digital doesn't suffer from the same problems and the County channels are mixed mode. Don't confuse the trunked system and the conventional system when I say that.

 

[daredevil1]

Is there a chance that the new P25 system is overloading your receiver? When I travel through Rome, my Icom transceiver is overloaded by the P25 signal on 151.010 MHz. I frequently lose the 2 meter repeaters when I am on Erie Boulevard.

As noted above, I am not experiencing any issues (from my home) with the MRD signal. Since I live in Camden, I am likely hearing the tower in Florence. Maybe I'll listen on the MRD frequency on the way home and see if I experience dropouts.

Hmm I'm not sure but I do live a mile from the tower.

 

[N2YQT]

Hmm I'm not sure but I do live a mile from the tower.

A mile from the site with a 4.5db gain antenna. Do you have an SDR radio or spectrum analyzer? You could measure the received signal strength.

 

[daredevil1]

A mile from the site with a 4.5db gain antenna. Do you have an SDR radio or spectrum analyzer? You could measure the received signal strength.

I do not. But 155.43 is the only frequency I have a problem with.

 

[Prospect62]

Analog simulcast is extremely finicky, the amount of finick can vary from radio to radio, and of course location to location. The observation about the wind blowing may not be too far off. As an antenna and tower move in the wind there is a slight polarization change in the signal. If the radio is marginally capturing the signal, the slight polarization change may be enough to throw the receiver off. If the radio uses a standard FM discriminator it is more susceptible to this than a radio that uses quadatature I/Q decoding. There are other issues in the receiver that can really play havoc as well. If the Local Oscillators are out of alignment it can degrade the reception. In short, Analog Simulcast is a maintenance headache and a valuable tool, like most things in life, its not perfect. Something to consider, digital doesn't suffer from the same problems and the County channels are mixed mode. Don't confuse the trunked system and the conventional system when I say that.

Makes sense.

I've been "blaming" the implementation of simulcast as the source of the degradation problems on the analog system from the start, and I know they've been working hard trying to get it working reliably. Seems that anyone left using the analog system on MRD will just have to deal with the degraded signal to varying degrees depending on a number a factors. I know the look down the road sees everyone migrating to the P25 digital system at some point anyway, except FD's due to paging requirements or so I'm told.

Funny thing is fire control doesn't seem to suffer from it, and the Florence tower sounds phenomenal where the other analog towers do not. Just my observations.

 

[studgeman]

I am not certain if MRD and Fire Control are combined into the same antenna and using the same power levels. If they are on different antenna that could be part of the difference between the two.

One thing about analog simulcast, all the transmitters have to be exactly the same. You should not be able to hear a difference between towers. If you are hearing something different between towers, and i would suggest testing this very close to each tower, then there is something seriously amiss. Any change in tone would result in a variation of the deviation.

 

[nacsr]

Is anyone in the Lee/Lee Center area able to receive the P25 system? Im still unable to with both a Uniden 436 and a Whistler TRX 1. For a year I've tried various tips and adjustments with no luck. Better results with the Uniden but still garbled and spotty.

 

[R0am3r]

What is the model of the Uniden you are using? As someone stated before, this may be an LSM simulcast issue.

 

[Prospect62]

I am not certain if MRD and Fire Control are combined into the same antenna and using the same power levels. If they are on different antenna that could be part of the difference between the two.

One thing about analog simulcast, all the transmitters have to be exactly the same. You should not be able to hear a difference between towers. If you are hearing something different between towers, and i would suggest testing this very close to each tower, then there is something seriously amiss. Any change in tone would result in a variation of the deviation.

I dunno, maybe it's just me. Transmissions off the Florence tower (both MRD and Fire) pretty consistently sound much clearer and richer than the other sites (and again this is the analog system). Maybe it's just the topography.

Another interesting thing which I've been finding particularly funny is that I can, on just about any receiver, hear the simplex broadcast of Data Control (155.7150) from the Base Road tower and SP Oneida's simplex transmissions (155.5050) as clear as a bell while MRD is (at times) severely distorted. Just shows that the problem isn't my receiver (which someone pointed the finger at previously), it's the broadcast.

I know it's apples and oranges, it just makes me laugh that after all the improvements, a basic simplex broadcast works better than whatever it is they're using for the repeaters.

 

[nacsr]

What is the model of the Uniden you are using? As someone stated before, this may be an LSM simulcast issue.

As stated the Uniden is a BCD436.

 

[R0am3r]

My apologies nacsr. I missed that.

 

[daredevil1]

Is anyone in the Lee/Lee Center area able to receive the P25 system? Im still unable to with both a Uniden 436 and a Whistler TRX 1. For a year I've tried various tips and adjustments with no luck. Better results with the Uniden but still garbled and spotty.

Where in Lee? I could take a ride with my Unication and see if I can pick it up.

 

[daredevil1]

Does anyone happen to have a recording of the officer involved shooting in Lee last night?

 

[KA2FWN]

sorry

 

[R0am3r]

Does anyone know if all of the Rome NXDN talkgroups moved over to the Oneida County P25 system? According to Radio Reference, there are four talkgroups listed for the older NXDN system:

Oneida County Fire Dispatch (patch with 154.37 MHz)
Oneida County Sheriff MRD (patch with 155.34 MHz)
Rome Department of Public Works
Rome Water

Since I am not seeing the Department of Public Works or the Water Department listed for the P25 system, the departments may still be using the older system. But when I listen to the NDXN system, I am not hearing anything. I see the control channel, but am not seeing/hearing any voice traffic. Any thoughts on where these departments are communicating?

Please note – my DSDPlus P25 batch file works great for the Oneida County CNYICC system, but I am not certain the batch file for the NXDN system is also correct.

 

[W2ZXN]

I don’t know what still exists other than the DPW, but they are still on the Rome NXDN. City of Rome still utilizes their NXDN, just Public Safety has migrated to P25.

 

[R0am3r]

Andy - thanks! I guess I just needed a little patience. My RTL-SDRs (using DSDPlus) monitored numerous NXDN transmissions from the Rome DPW this morning.

Anyway... back on-topic and back to monitoring the P25 system.

 

[virtualspin315]

Utica Fire Department update

Old Label New label

Rescue 1 is Ambulance 1
Rescue 2 is Ambulance 2
Rescue 3 is Ambulance 3
Rescue 4 is Ambulance 4
Rescue 5 is Ambulance 5
--------------------------------------------
TAC 1 is Rescue 1
TAC 2 is Rescue 2
------------------------------------------
Car 200 is Car 1
Car 202 is Car 2
Car 203 is Car 3
Car 204 is Car 4