APX 7000 Conventional Simulcast - Call Alert Question

[Squadman35]

Howdy!

We are running the APX 7000 portables on a P25 system for main operations and communications. For call alerting/dispatching, we are simulcasting over P25 and a conventional VHF 2 tone system. This system was rushed into place in mid 2019, and we are finally taking care of some VERY overdue programming issues.

The audio on the VHF side of this is awful, and the only thing it is used for is initial dispatching. VHF tones alert minitor/unication pagers, and the voice audio following the tones is simulcasted on this VHF channel, and a P25 channel.

We have a smaller dispatch center that is a branch of a larger system one county over. Switching to P25 dispatching just is not in the cards for the next 10 years or so.

If we were to set up a call alert in our CPS - could it alert via 2 tone VHF, and switch to another channel for audio following the alert? Or is this a wild request? Worst case, alerting and monitoring the VHF dispatch - but the audio is so bad it would cause more problems than its worth.

I have recently been given the reigns on radio/pager programming for our department, and I just want to be a little more educated on programming options before I talk with our shop about reprogramming 30 portables.

If anyone has any helpful tuning changes, these radios haven't been tuned or programmed in any way since 2019.

Appreciate any and all help/advice!

 

[KevinC]

To better understand the audio issue is the VHF simulcast or single site and is it analog or P25?

 

[Squadman35]

To better understand the audio issue is the VHF simulcast or single site and is it analog or P25?

Simulcast, and P25!

 

[KevinC]

Simulcast, and P25!

Is the "Digital Modulator" set to CQPSK in the 7000 codeplug?

 

[Squadman35]

Is the "Digital Modulator" set to CQPSK in the 7000 codeplug?

Waiting on our guy at MetroSafe to answer this for me - We have a generalized list of how all of this operates, but they are stern on keeping the codeplugs locked down. My hopes with this is to learn enough to have him update these to best help our situation.

 

[ramal121]

If you're using Minitor pagers the VHF is going to be analog.

 

[rbrtklamp2]

He said they are using unication pagers so P25 should be fine

 

[jeepsandradios]

What manufacturer put in the paging system. Our county is Harris and is garbage. More of sloppy cast than siumulcast.

 

[ramal121]

The OP states they use both Minitor and Unication pagers on the VHF channel for alerting. I am going to go out on a limb and guess that the pages are analog and go out with simul-select from the dispatch console for both P25 and VHF channels. Many departments do this. Whether there is only one VHF transmitter or multiples is unknown. The complaint is only with the audio on the VHF channel.

What I would suggest is to not do an end-around by reprogramming the APX portables and try to fix the VHF audio issues. You need to get a tech that is NOT named Bubba or Larry and do a full audio level alignment from dispatch microphone to the transmit modulator.