Chester County P25 System

[kb3imk]

Hello! First time poster. Just received a Uniden HomePatrol 2 which I purchased specifically to listen to Chester County's P25 P2 system. But neither the built in DB nor a file built from the RRDB seems to be working. I receive New Castle county trunked systems and conventional systems from DelCo but nothing on Chesco's. I have a roof mounted antenna about 12 miles from West Chester at about 380' ASL. Is there any trick I've missed? I'm fairly knowledgeable and have been running scanners and ham gear for a couple of decades so this is really frustrating.

Thanks!

AJ

 

[HM1529]

Was thinkin' the same, Will keep my ear to the ground

A new local PD? That's uncommon, It's usually the other way 'round a merger or closure.

Since no new RID's were logged; I'm assuming an existing DES radio was in use, I'd imagine if it's really a new PD they'll have a new RID series start to appear when they turn them on.. 480xxyy (xx=10 mobile & 15 portable)

I mean, it seems odd. W Marlborough has fewer than 900 residents and they dont even have a municipal website. It's not exactly a bustling area. I guess we'll see. They have been covered by PSP in the past.

 

[royldean]

Hello! First time poster. Just received a Uniden HomePatrol 2 which I purchased specifically to listen to Chester County's P25 P2 system. But neither the built in DB nor a file built from the RRDB seems to be working. I receive New Castle county trunked systems and conventional systems from DelCo but nothing on Chesco's. I have a roof mounted antenna about 12 miles from West Chester at about 380' ASL. Is there any trick I've missed? I'm fairly knowledgeable and have been running scanners and ham gear for a couple of decades so this is really frustrating.

It's a phase II simulcast system, so you will have difficulty with any scanner other than the SDS series (or maybe the unication pagers).

[edit]
Softwared solutions (which are free) that work are OP25 and SDRTrunk (I've tried both successfully on the Chesco PII system)

 

[u2brent]

I mean, it seems odd. W Marlborough has fewer than 900 residents and they dont even have a municipal website. It's not exactly a bustling area. I guess we'll see. They have been covered by PSP in the past.

I'm letting the scanner record. just saw an E Marl PD RID pop on it. will let it run and review later today.

 

[HM1529]

Maybe they’re contracting with a local PD for service now and this would be used as a side channel for units assigned to patrol there? We’ll figure it out eventually.

 

[u2brent]

TG 1648 East Marlborough Township PD Tac 2

"SAM1 on Tac 2"

That's what I've heard several times after reviewing some recordings..

Sorta like TG 1653 Westtown/East Goshen Regional PD 2 (would be East Goshen Twp PD if there was one)
except in this case it's unclear if this has anything to do with West Marlborough Township aside from the fact that the TG had been unused and likely there never will be a separate PD there.. Just not sure why East Marlborough needs another private ch You'd think someplace like Coatesville could use one more

 

[u2brent]

Wuz up with the duplicate TG being added to the DB?
DES Technical Div 5452
has always been used for testing all kinds of things, has something changed?
I've been hearing the talking robot for months..
Just figured it was for training..
Is that what dispatch will sound like in the future.. Yuck..

 

[magiclightman]

Wuz up with the duplicate TG being added to the DB?
DES Technical Div 5452
has always been used for testing all kinds of things, has something changed?
I've been hearing the talking robot for months..
Just figured it was for training..
Is that what dispatch will sound like in the future.. Yuck..
View attachment 83580

I'm guessing they're starting the P25 pager testing/deployment. Been in the works for a while apparently.

Maybe the robot was the testing of the VC reception and now they've patched the dispatch channel over to test tone decode?

 

[n3obl]

Wuz up with the duplicate TG being added to the DB?
DES Technical Div 5452
has always been used for testing all kinds of things, has something changed?
I've been hearing the talking robot for months..
Just figured it was for training..
Is that what dispatch will sound like in the future.. Yuck..
View attachment 83580

I added it based off a submission and didn't realize there was a duplicate. So the question is are they repurposing the group for paging or just using it temporarily? Cause that group number is no where near the fire groups.

 

[magiclightman]

I added it based off a submission and didn't realize there was a duplicate. So the question is are they repurposing the group for paging or just using it temporarily? Cause that group number is nowhere near the fire groups.

Chesco is definitely moving towards a P25 paging system or at least looking at one. It would make sense that it's being tested now. There were a few nights back in March where they would switch everyone over to the analog 8ches channels while they took the p25 system offline for maintenance on the core. RX frequencies stayed the same but the TX changed. Not sure if this is related at all but they have definitely been doing work. I've had my sds locked to that TG and put my minitor into monitor mode and can confirm that yesterday there were at least 4 dispatches that I heard on the VHF dispatch channel and those never came across that TG. I'll keep unitrunker running and log the TGs and see what comes up.

 

[u2brent]

Wuz up with the duplicate TG being added to the DB?
DES Technical Div 5452
has always been used for testing all kinds of things, has something changed?
I've been hearing the talking robot for months..
Just figured it was for training..
Is that what dispatch will sound like in the future.. Yuck..
View attachment 83580

I added it based off a submission and didn't realize there was a duplicate. So the question is are they repurposing the group for paging or just using it temporarily? Cause that group number is no where near the fire groups.

Without being an "insider" I'd say the TG in question has been and continues to be used for the purpose that was originally posted when the system came on line (This was provided by the county).
The RID's observed are Tech Div Known RID's not dispatch or fire related.
The test dispatches I heard were fictitious in nature and in no way related to actual EMS/Fire calls that were occurring.
They only occurred during regular business hours.
I can't be 100% sure, but I don't recall any tones.. Just the robot text to speech..
I'm recording it now, but of course it's silent today..
I'd say renaming the TG is premature at best, and possibly totally wrong at worst.
I await a comment from @HM1529 to clear this up definitively.. (Unless the submitter was an actual Chesco DES person of course, which I sorta doubt )

 

[KQ4WU]

Just an FYI:
I am capturing all calls on this system with trunk-recorder.
You can listen to it at https://openmhz.com/system/cces

 

[magiclightman]

"SNDCP DATA PAGE REQUEST" to "1", I assume it's IP related but I've never seen it before.

 

[Falcon4]

New TG or a patch? Stolen vehicle out of West Chester apprehended in Caln... West Dispatch was broadcasting from TG 65172

 

[magiclightman]

TG 65172 is Interop Patch 72 for CCDES

 

[Falcon4]

TG 65172 is Interop Patch 72 for CCDES

Thanks,what would trigger that? Cant they all communicate via West dispatch or did they open that up for West Chester.

 

[magiclightman]

Thanks,what would trigger that? Cant they all communicate via West dispatch or did they open that up for West Chester.

Could have been one of many things, first off being your guess. WC units are on Central PD so that could have been a way for Caln PD to talk directly with WCPD.

They could have also been looping in BeON app users too for whatever reason.

Maybe PSP was involved and they patched in the STARNet system.

I assume it was just as simple as getting a private channel setup for WC to talk to Caln rather then using West PD.

 

[u2brent]

An easy way of sending out a message to all PD units simultaneously instead of on each zone separately. All get patched to an unused TG. In the case of Chester Co they use these.. As documented here..

Chester County Emergency Services Unknown Talkgroups - The RadioReference Wiki

wiki.radioreference.com

 

[magiclightman]

An easy way of sending out a message to all PD units simultaneously instead of on each zone separately. All get patched to an unused TG. In the case of Chester Co they use these.. As documented here..

Chester County Emergency Services Unknown Talkgroups - The RadioReference Wiki

wiki.radioreference.com

PD dispatchers from other sectors (West, East, Central) NEVER just hop over to another tg to transmit BOLO messages across the entire system from the same person. Whichever dispatchers are on for those areas will announce the BOLO around the same time but its always those dispatchers for their respective channels. The patch TGs listed on the second half of that page is for patching in other systems (DELCO, BERKS, NCC, etc.) they have that pool of IDs that they circle through. If they needed to send out a message to all units at once, it would be done via the intergraph MDCs rather then the radios.

 

[Falcon4]

PD dispatchers from other sectors (West, East, Central) NEVER just hop over to another tg to transmit BOLO messages across the entire system from the same person. Whichever dispatchers are on for those areas will announce the BOLO around the same time but its always those dispatchers for their respective channels. The patch TGs listed on the second half of that page is for patching in other systems (DELCO, BERKS, NCC, etc.) they have that pool of IDs that they circle through. If they needed to send out a message to all units at once, it would be done via the intergraph MDCs rather then the radios.

Then what is the purpose of TG CCDispatch 1450 doesn't that broadcast across west central east?