Centre County to test new radio system in October

[Twister_2]

I'm hearing lot's of "check 1-2-3"'s on the air right now on Pat Ferg PD 1 user id 7702

 

[SlipNutz15]

Ferguson and Patton PD start using their portables Tuesday

 

[Twister_2]

Great news! The audio is decent in the basement of my dorm room on campus. It sounds extremely good for simulcast; there is no distortion from multipath like I have back at home in Dauphin County.

 

[SlipNutz15]

As it should. You're getting direct signal from the Ford building

 

[Twister_2]

Not too much going on today. Either Ferguson and Patton don't have a lot going on or are using both radios. But I heard the 8 AM shift start using them first this morning. Every once and a while I can hear the county go testing 1 2 3.

 

[SlipNutz15]

They're using new portables to test this week. Old mobiles for big incidents. Still have old system TGs in portables if they need to revert.

 

[SlipNutz15]

This week, week of 2/10, the rest of the police, minus Penn State, will be migrating over to the new system. Penn State is scheduled for next week.

 

[SlipNutz15]

Penn State PD and other services have switched over to the new P25 TRS.

State College, Spring Twp. and Bellefonte PD are to be switched over the week of 2/24-2/28

 

[cfd_safety]

When does Fire switch over?

 

[SlipNutz15]

Scheduled to start 3/10. Schedule to be tweaked as needed. Nothing concrete for obvious installation/programming reasons.

 

[imported_bds2]

Poor audio in digital

I've been disappointed with the digital audio on my Pro-197 since the switch started - it's choppy and mostly unintelligible. I'm in State College and the scanner display fluctuates 4 to 5 bars strength on the control channel. I have tried both a RadioShack 800 MHz stubby duck on the scanner's antenna jack and the external antenna from an old bag cell phone mounted on a high shelf - both give excellent audio on analog. My attic discone antenna seems to have too much attenuation (likely due to the coax run ) to give enough signal.

Is the poor audio likely due to the received signal, scanner settings,..?

Brett

 

[SlipNutz15]

You may need to turn your attenuator on if the signal is too strong from the PSU Ford Building transmitter. Audio on my GRE PSR-500 is great and I can even pick up the system in Mifflintown, Juniata County. Don't set your squelch too high and check your attenuator in case your front end is being overloaded.

 

[imported_bds2]

You may need to turn your attenuator on if the signal is too strong from the PSU Ford Building transmitter. Audio on my GRE PSR-500 is great and I can even pick up the system in Mifflintown, Juniata County. Don't set your squelch too high and check your attenuator in case your front end is being overloaded.

I did some digging around and found a reference that said to check the signal quality of the system - mine shows 40-60% which is below what's needed for good decoding. I will probably need to get a better antenna/move the scanner to another location.

Thanks,
Brett

 

[imported_bds2]

I did some digging around and found a reference that said to check the signal quality of the system - mine shows 40-60% which is below what's needed for good decoding. I will probably need to get a better antenna/move the scanner to another location.

Moved the scanner to the window and the quality of the digital system increased dramatically. I guess I have a lot to learn about digital reception!

Brett

 

[HM1529]

Brett, do you perhaps have a cell phone tower nearby? In my experience, cell towers cause a great deal of interference with reception of control channel data on scanners. The signal strength display may appear full strength, but the cell signal may cause interference of the received data causing poor signal quality.

 

[imported_bds2]

Brett, do you perhaps have a cell phone tower nearby? In my experience, cell towers cause a great deal of interference with reception of control channel data on scanners. The signal strength display may appear full strength, but the cell signal may cause interference of the received data causing poor signal quality.

I don't have a tower nearby, but I can correlated the quality of reception directly to moving the scanner even a few inches closer to/further from the window. The signal quality reading goes from 60% to 99% with minor changes in position. A good external antenna (with quality coax feed) might be the final solution but, for now, putting the radio near the window gives excellent quality audio.

Thanks for the suggestion,

Brett

 

[Twister_2]

I heard a Mt. Nittany ALS ambulance on their private channel brag about how they were able to use the system all the way from a Hospital in Williamsport. That's quite a footprint!

 

[SlipNutz15]

I can pick the system up in Juniata County as well.

All Fire and EMS and Police are officially over to the new system. The new EMS paging will be online by beginning weeks of May (460.6125). County/Admin/PW talkgroups are slowly being merged to the new system.

Also, there will be Fire/EMS paging off the Ford Building tower on PSU Campus in the near future for better downtown coverage.

 

[Twister_2]

slipnutz,

Do you monitor the central and outer simulcast? I am trying to figure out if they simulcast the central stations to all the outer simulcast stations. When I strictly monitor the outer region, I hear EMS, FD, and PSU. I do not hear any township PD on the outer region.

Have you noticed anything like this or can you add?

 

[Teallitnin2014]

Centre County Police

Is anybody else able to get any of the Centre County police? I was able to for a while, the past few months, but don't seem to be getting anything now. Is it that quiet without the students here? Or am I missing something? I used to pick up Ferguson/PSU/Patton/Bellefonte/Spring township police to 911, but haven't heard any of these in a few weeks now. I'm using a Uniden HomePatrol.