bwoodley
Member
I'm using this scanner to replace an existing older analog only unit so that our fire house can continue to receive the digital transmissions as we migrate from an existing VHF analog system to the nearby city's 800 P25 system. The specific system is the Salem P25 system in Salem, Oregon.
I've engaged the dealer and uniden support and neither were of any value. The uniden support person indicated - 'well, the SDS200 would be better suited to your needs.' Hindsight 20/20 - that's not what your website says. It says, 'scans APCO 25 Phase 1 and Phase 2, Motorola, ... as well as conventional analog and P25 digital channels'. I've imported the default template and manually entered the system information. The code plug and scanner have been sent back to the dealer and returned indicating - there's nothing wrong with the scanner or the code plug.
The units permanent home is about 5 miles north of the city itself so we're technically on one side of their system. My chief problem there is although my portable 2-way radio sitting next to it works just fine, both display great signal strength, the audio works fine on my 2-way but the scanner doesn't stop on a talk group and produce the exact same audio.
The thought that if their system is a simulcast system and having heard mixed commentary about how this unit either fails completely or has 'difficulty' receiving a simulcast system (after the purchase of course) is concerning. I've seen a couple of YouTube videos on how folks have implemented work arounds to cope with the simulcast problem. None of those seem to make a difference here. The physical tower location map provided by the radio tech shows the northern most tower should have 80% saturation or better over the next closest tower so it seems less likely a simulcast issue.
I have a known 'encrypted' police talk group enabled to work along side what is supposed to be non-encrypted P25 talk groups. To my amazement - I hear more garbled encrypted audio from the police talk group than I do the non-encrypted fire talk groups - GO FIGURE. Today I'm working from a different office in the city where I would believe I would have more problems with simulcast - and I'm actually getting more frequent transmissions from the fire talk groups, although the audio is horrible similar to that of a child's plastic CB toy radio.
The type of the system being a hybrid was described by the radio system technicians as, 'our system is a Linear Simulcasted in both C4FM (Phase 1) and QCPQSK (Phase 2) that operates dynamically between the two on each RF channel.' - Apparently this scanner has a hard time switching between the two types which complicates is it the system type or a simulcast issue. While I listen exclusively to just a few fire talk groups - and all those groups utilize the same unencrypted P25 digital format, the scanner shouldn't need to do a lot of switching depending on how listens for signals.
So my question to the group then becomes - can the physical location of the radio in relationship to a potential simulcasted system affect the performance of the scanner? If so, how?
Does anyone potentially see an issue that I haven't thought of or is there a programming parameter that may be of value? I have seen, System ID and Site ID values when observing the diagnostic 'System Status' but I'm not sure if that has anything to do with physical radio sites specifically. Has anyone had similar problems with the scanners not being able to actively switch between system types?
Any probing questions, tests to perform or advice greatly appreciated.
Brian
I've engaged the dealer and uniden support and neither were of any value. The uniden support person indicated - 'well, the SDS200 would be better suited to your needs.' Hindsight 20/20 - that's not what your website says. It says, 'scans APCO 25 Phase 1 and Phase 2, Motorola, ... as well as conventional analog and P25 digital channels'. I've imported the default template and manually entered the system information. The code plug and scanner have been sent back to the dealer and returned indicating - there's nothing wrong with the scanner or the code plug.
The units permanent home is about 5 miles north of the city itself so we're technically on one side of their system. My chief problem there is although my portable 2-way radio sitting next to it works just fine, both display great signal strength, the audio works fine on my 2-way but the scanner doesn't stop on a talk group and produce the exact same audio.
The thought that if their system is a simulcast system and having heard mixed commentary about how this unit either fails completely or has 'difficulty' receiving a simulcast system (after the purchase of course) is concerning. I've seen a couple of YouTube videos on how folks have implemented work arounds to cope with the simulcast problem. None of those seem to make a difference here. The physical tower location map provided by the radio tech shows the northern most tower should have 80% saturation or better over the next closest tower so it seems less likely a simulcast issue.
I have a known 'encrypted' police talk group enabled to work along side what is supposed to be non-encrypted P25 talk groups. To my amazement - I hear more garbled encrypted audio from the police talk group than I do the non-encrypted fire talk groups - GO FIGURE. Today I'm working from a different office in the city where I would believe I would have more problems with simulcast - and I'm actually getting more frequent transmissions from the fire talk groups, although the audio is horrible similar to that of a child's plastic CB toy radio.
The type of the system being a hybrid was described by the radio system technicians as, 'our system is a Linear Simulcasted in both C4FM (Phase 1) and QCPQSK (Phase 2) that operates dynamically between the two on each RF channel.' - Apparently this scanner has a hard time switching between the two types which complicates is it the system type or a simulcast issue. While I listen exclusively to just a few fire talk groups - and all those groups utilize the same unencrypted P25 digital format, the scanner shouldn't need to do a lot of switching depending on how listens for signals.
So my question to the group then becomes - can the physical location of the radio in relationship to a potential simulcasted system affect the performance of the scanner? If so, how?
Does anyone potentially see an issue that I haven't thought of or is there a programming parameter that may be of value? I have seen, System ID and Site ID values when observing the diagnostic 'System Status' but I'm not sure if that has anything to do with physical radio sites specifically. Has anyone had similar problems with the scanners not being able to actively switch between system types?
Any probing questions, tests to perform or advice greatly appreciated.
Brian