Don't get down to Broward very often, but recently added the new P25 system into my G5. Was pleasantly surprised to hear the system loud and clear (2 bars), while sitting in the cell phone waiting lot at PBIA this afternoon. Unication was sitting in mike holder, mid dash, with the OEM blue band stubby.
Broward County P25 (997.BEE00)
- Thread starter mikeycpa
- Start date
10005 - heard ongoing in-building coverage tests, so this is likely a radio shop channel. I had heard a few test counts a couple weeks back as well.
I see that FLL Airport Operations and Maintenance is still using the analog 1f25 system; so is building facilities, maintenance, and security. I would thought they would have moved to the DMR Tier III system by now. I heard that 1f25 will be shut off sometime in January.
I heard what could best be described as "security" on Saturday when the C.A.D. system wasn't feeling too well and started scanning the old P16 system. They were talking about vehicles blocking the arrivals loop road, but they weren't BSO and they weren't operations folks. This was on their old 12400 Ops channel.
N4KVE
Member
When an analog system like this is turned off, do the freq’s go back to the FCC to be reissued to the next “new digital system” In the area?
No. As long as the frequencies are still actively licensed, it really doesn't matter if the system is "turned off" or not; the frequencies are considered unavailable by the FCC and frequencies coordinators (and RPC's in the case of 700/800 MHz). If the licenses are canceled or allowed to expire, that's a different story, but that doesn't happen often. Because there are no FCC fees for public safety to renew licenses, there is no incentive to cancel or stop renewing them. It's the reason why you often see low band frequencies that haven't been used in decades being renewed in perpetuity.
APX8000
Sarcastic Member
Yeah they use a few in the 1000x series. So random and not enough usage to me to narrow it down yet.
APX8000
Sarcastic Member
Sounds like the uniformed BCAD folks keeping vehicles from standing at the terminals at FLL.
Gmork
Member
I got my Unication G5 in the mail today. I am absolutely impressed with the audio quality of this thing. It is not even comparable to the Uniden 536HP on this system for me. The programming is a little tricky, but so far this thing is exactly what I needed,
cars2809
Member
Does anybody know the talk groups for the 14 ops channels?
They have to actively use the frequencies and there are tricks to do that, plus they can get extensions. But they can't hold on to the coordination indefinitely with the high demand on 800MHz. There have been squabbles over public safety allocations in other areas that I'm aware of, I don't know about down here. Broward is a pretty busy county so maybe they have plans to expand the DMR system or add something else so they would hang on to them for that?
APX8000
Sarcastic Member
They are in the database. They have been renamed the LE CALL and LE COM's.
The County 800 frequencies are General Category and have no "give back" requirements like the NPSPAC 851-853 band that had a requirement to give back conventional UHF and VHF. Some of the frequencies in 1F25 are NPSPAC, are licensed to the School Board, and those could be required to be put back into the pool after the system is deconstructed and out of service. This would be a call by the Regional Committee that manages the spectrum for the FCC.
N4KVE
Member
Could some of the old freq’s be added to the new digital system to add capacity?
700 and 800 MHz are considered a single band by Motorola, Harris, etc., so yes...they physically could be added to the existing sites to expand capacity.
That being said, it's important to know that the Broward Simulcast currently has 19 frequencies, which equates to 36 voice paths as the system is TDMA. The current limit for simultaneous voice calls at a P25 TDMA site is 36, and so they have already reached that maximum and adding more repeaters wouldn't be of much value. The SmartZone simulcast had 28 frequencies, which equates to 27 voice channels, so the new system has already added quite a bit of capacity.
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Could they? Yes. Would they, probably not as they would need to do exotic combining and antenna changes so the 800 footprint would be the same as the 700 MHz. at the simulcast sites.
What they could do is to create additional sites in localized areas, like what I did in downtown WPB, to support the operations that don't need their traffic to go all over the County. But whatever they do would cause them to have to reprogram all of the radios all over again to gain the increased functionality.
With two overlay TDMA systems I don't envision any capacity issues through the life of the system as long as talkgroup counts are kept in check.
That's not necessarily true, as the existing sites would announce adjacent sites over the control channels, making subscribers aware of new sites they could roam to. I don't disagree with the premise of your post, but adding a new site to an ASTRO 25 system does not require an immediate reprogramming of subscribers (which, assuming they have POP25, isn't a huge obstacle anyway).
cars2809
Member
Just received my g4 paper today. I was able to program the new Broward on it and hands down this pager is better than any scanner I've owed. I tried to program Fort Lauderdale and Coral springs as separate channels with all the talk groups and for some reason, it's saying out of range on my pager when I attempt to get on the channels. There is something I'm doing wrong?
APX8000
Sarcastic Member
Shoot me a PM. I'll look at your profile.
Fort Lauderdale police dispatcher just broadcast to all units to read their e-mail about "upcoming radio maintenance today". I don't know if this affects the Broward P25 system, but it's a heads-up just in case. Because you never know.
