Beale AFB P25 system off the air.

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jimvm

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I checked this afternoon and the P25 trunking system is off the air.
Still off at 7 PM. Nothing on 380-400 MHz either.
Maintenance?

jim vm
 

jimvm

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Beale new VHF system found

I found the new Beale AFB P25 system on VHF.
I need to figure out how to program my BCD996T so anyone out there with some help?

This is what I found so far.

Mot sys A837h,
138.3625 CC
138.3875
138.5125
138.1625
139.7625
138.0375
138.2625
137.7375 weak, not sure

The UHF 406 MHz system is gone!

jim vm
 

milcom_chaser

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I checked this afternoon and the P25 trunking system is off the air.
Still off at 7 PM. Nothing on 380-400 MHz either.
Maintenance?

jim vm

Why would they dump a perfectly good SmartZone system on UHF for something else?
 

inigo88

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Great find! It's interesting to see they elected to put the new P25 system on VHF 136-143 MHz and not 380-406 MHz.

I don't have a BCD996, but isn't there a P25 auto detect mode? It should be as easy as setting "P25-Auto" (or maybe P25-VHF) and inputting the control channel, because P25 announces the bandplan thru the CC.

Can anyone run Pro96Com or Unitrunker on the new system and let us know what you find?
 

kma371

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Great find! It's interesting to see they elected to put the new P25 system on VHF 136-143 MHz and not 380-406 MHz.

I don't have a BCD996, but isn't there a P25 auto detect mode? It should be as easy as setting "P25-Auto" (or maybe P25-VHF) and inputting the control channel, because P25 announces the bandplan thru the CC.

Can anyone run Pro96Com or Unitrunker on the new system and let us know what you find?

Sometimes I can hear it at night. I'll see if I can get it, or I'll drive up there this weekend.


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milcom_chaser

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Wonder if it was not feasible to run fully P-25 encryption on their current system, so they went VHF. Can't imagine PAVEPAWS had anything to do with it. That was in place years before the UHF SmartZone...
 

jimvm

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Beale VHF P25 system

They appear to be using the same talk groups as the UHF system.
I can only decode the control channel using custom search with the BCD996T.
I can see the system ID and address and the group ID numbers.
Have not been successful making a trunk system work yet.
So far have tried base frequency of 136.000 and step of 12.5 KHz.
It may be that the old BCD996T is unable to track VHF P25.
I hope the system is not using encryption!
I live 8 miles away from Beale so signals are strong.

Will keep trial and error, anyone let us know your results.

Regards, jim vm
 

SCPD

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have control on 138.0375, ct tone of 105.88, sid of a837 using psr 500 analyze, motorola vhf/uhf setting, tried unitrunker and pro96com, could not get to funtion, sorry
 

jimvm

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Thanks for input!

Thanks for your input.
You might find the P25 VHF system of Fairchild AFB in Spokane, Washington to be of use in
your initial setup.
It's nighttime now and activity is minimal. Will try again tmw at standard work hours :)

jim vm
 

SCPD

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on p25 auto i could not get any info, only on the mot vhf/uhf, now as far as the pro96com or unitrunker, are these under a trunking forum, or software?
 

WayneH

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Yeah, this is the older 3600 style of system. Nice assumption-derailment Inigo. ;)

All they did is swap the UHF stations with VHF ones. Kept the same controller and had Moto issue them an upgrade for VHF use. It's not really that special of a move.

For those of you with an XT or 500/600/800 you need to get a raw output of the control channel. And then one of us can calc it for the base and spacing. You can always try 138.0000 or 138.0125 with 380 and 12.5 to get started.

Based on what I was told by a former "user" the coverage was never that great on UHF.
 

b52hbuff

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Yeah, this is the older 3600 style of system. Nice assumption-derailment Inigo. ;)

All they did is swap the UHF stations with VHF ones. Kept the same controller and had Moto issue them an upgrade for VHF use. It's not really that special of a move.

For those of you with an XT or 500/600/800 you need to get a raw output of the control channel. And then one of us can calc it for the base and spacing. You can always try 138.0000 or 138.0125 with 380 and 12.5 to get started.

Based on what I was told by a former "user" the coverage was never that great on UHF.

Didn't mean to help push the train off of the track, but someone was mentioning P25. ;)

Wonder if the HP-1 can help map out the system? Gotta go find it...
 

WayneH

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Wonder if the HP-1 can help map out the system? Gotta go find it...
For that style (along with the 800) you would think they would add the math to do it. It's nothing complex. In many cases you don't even need any voice channels but it helps to confirm the spacing.

It's nice that the GRE's have the simple feature to turn on announcement of the channel ID. It's under Advanced but the name escapes me. It's not something you turn on and leave on.
 

WayneH

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I'm getting it just barely at home in SJ County. CC is on 138.0375 and is announcing that as $17F. That equates to a base of 138.0000, spacing of 12.5 and offset of 380. I think I got a voice channel on $212 which would be 139.8750 if the base stays the same and the data decode was correct.

And no, no site #.
 

inigo88

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Yeah, this is the older 3600 style of system. Nice assumption-derailment Inigo. ;)

All they did is swap the UHF stations with VHF ones. Kept the same controller and had Moto issue them an upgrade for VHF use. It's not really that special of a move.

For those of you with an XT or 500/600/800 you need to get a raw output of the control channel. And then one of us can calc it for the base and spacing. You can always try 138.0000 or 138.0125 with 380 and 12.5 to get started.

Based on what I was told by a former "user" the coverage was never that great on UHF.

Damn! Assumption-derailment indeed, I wholeheartedly plead guilty.

Coming from the land of the multiple 380 MHz P25 systems belonging to different branches of the military (with identical sysIDs but separate infrastructure and overlapping site coverages), a simple repeater swap and site controller reprogramming didn't seem like the most likely explanation. That would have been entirely too logical!

I guess the F-22/F-35 orders ate into the grandiose radio system upgrade budget. ;)
 
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