City of Houston Project 25 TRS

[loumaag]

Okay so that's question 1. So if I want the portability option, then I'm stuck with the Pro 96. You must understand my confusion especially since the Wiki specifically says, "As this article is being prepared, there is only one scanner available (the GRE PSR800) that is capable of monitoring P25 Phase 2 channels, and that unit is no longer in production." Later on it adds only 3 more scanners.

I guess if you read the whole article and not try and pick out specific sentences you would realize that the sentence you choose dealt with the explanation area of what the city did and has really nothing to do with solution to monitoring.

Any takers on question 2? Do we get mostly similar scanning? I don't want to spend all the money on a new one if I don't get any of the talk I had on the old system.

Go back and re-read your post. You are not asking a question in the your second point, so there is nothing to answer. As for your comment about Tac channels, the normal operations on the UHF system didn't make use of any Tac channels except for "eight", which no longer exists at all, and "citywide", which is in the new lineup. The current encrypted tactical channels are all new.

As for your reference to the Pro-96, of all the P25 capable scanners I own, it is the only one that I cannot get reliable decoding on the new system. It just doesn't handle the multi-path distortion well at all for me; although, according to what some other folks on the HoustonScan Yahoo group say, it appears to work depending where you are located.

 

[KevinC]

Boy, it would be nice if someone "down there" would plug something into UniTrunker and get the rest of the frequency line-up so we could put them in the DB. Site 3-03 only has control channels listed and none of the frequencies he is hearing are in the DB.

Since no one "down there" would do this I went in the area and found the current frequencies and submitted them to the database.

 

[loumaag]

Since no one "down there" would do this I went in the area and found the current frequencies and submitted them to the database.

Thank you!

 

[springtx]

I am looking into buying a Home Patrol-1, is there still a lot you can listen to on the Project 25 band?

 

[mfn002]

I am looking into buying a Home Patrol-1, is there still a lot you can listen to on the Project 25 band?

Certainly. HCSO and the Constables are montiorable, as are several other agencies. Basically, if it has a "D" in the mode column, you can hear it.

 

[N5AMS]

Certainly. HCSO and the Constables are montiorable, as are several other agencies. Basically, if it has a "D" in the mode column, you can hear it.

To add to that some of the stuff that is in mode E is monitorable because some of that is selectable by the user of the radio except HPD/HFD

 

[teknishun]

About "down there"

Since no one "down there" would do this I went in the area and found the current frequencies and submitted them to the database.

Thanks, Kevin.

When - how soon - do you think they will be included in the RR update?

Which towers were you able to capture?

I have been attempting to do that -- I did get the PSR-800 to dump data into UniTrunker -- but the
log files in UniTrunker will not work -- nothing is being created or saved to my hard disk.
I have checked the "log" check box but that does nothing. I am wondering if I have to maybe
uncheck something else if I check the "log" box? When I exit the program it tells me that all
data has been saved, but it really hasn't saved anything. Hours worth of monitoring lost.

Anyway, all I came away with is a few screen captures from UniTrunker in jpeg format
from some of the towers near Alvin, Brazoria County, otherwise known as "down there."

teknishun KF5OPQ
PRO-2053 PRO-164 PSR-800 (2) and the BCD-996XT that the "jury" is
still out on at this time......

 

[teknishun]

.....(snip) even though I can copy the TDMA transmissions that are not encrypted, they are very in and out and not what I would call "communications quality." I have tried the two closest towers to my location and neither seems to do any better than the other. I have not heard similar comments from the users of the system, so I think it is on my end. From reading the other comments, I guess I should be glad I have something rather than nothing.

Thanks for the reply.

You need a good outdoor antenna for digital, else you will be stuck with the
R2-D2 robot digital gibberish. Digital is totally unforgiving of weak signals
and dropouts. The same was not true of analog. Better get used to it......

teknishun

 

[loumaag]

...

When - how soon - do you think they will be included in the RR update?

Which towers were you able to capture?
...

They (the single site he was checking 3-003) were updated before I thanked him on the 11th.

 

[cuelc001]

HPD

I use to have a scanner that i could follow HPD and since their switch over I can no longer hear them. My question is, what kind of scanner should I get if I want to monitor them ? I use to be able to listen to them on this site under the live feed but that is gone. I was looking @ the Home Patrol..wonder if that would work ? Thanks -c

 

[N5AMS]

I use to have a scanner that i could follow HPD and since their switch over I can no longer hear them. My question is, what kind of scanner should I get if I want to monitor them ? I use to be able to listen to them on this site under the live feed but that is gone. I was looking @ the Home Patrol..wonder if that would work ? Thanks -c

It will work on site 3-5 if you get it let me know I have a file for it

 

[mfn002]

How are the HFD UHF dispatch channels being designated? They all seem to be broadcasting the same automated voice.

 

[KevinC]

How are the HFD UHF dispatch channels being designated? They all seem to be broadcasting the same automated voice.

This is OT from the CoH P25 TRS thread, but they all transmit the same audio, the transmitters are in different parts of town. This is basically for station alerting only.

If you want to continue this discussion please request to have your message moved to a new thread.

 

[teknishun]

re: Down There - Brazoria County

Since no one "down there" would do this I went in the area and found the current frequencies and submitted them to the database.

Tonight I have submitted data from UniTrunker to RR for the following 3 sites that are
part of TXWARN P25:

site 003-11 Alvin County Road 182
site 003-14 Alvin State Highway 6
site 003-16 Santa Fe 1310 Ginger Road, Santa Fe, Galveston County, TX

I have 2 very small jpeg screen captures of each site for verification purposes,
since UniTrunker is not producing any log files for me.

teknishun KF5OPQ
PRO-2053 PRO-164 PSR-800(2) BCD-996XT

 

[teknishun]

I Use to could......

I use to have a scanner that i could follow HPD and since their switch over I can no longer hear them. My question is, what kind of scanner should I get if I want to monitor them ? I use to be able to listen to them on this site under the live feed but that is gone. I was looking @ the Home Patrol..wonder if that would work ? Thanks -c

All you need is any scanner that is capable of receiving the P25 (digital) trunked transmissions.
P25 is short for APCO Project 25.

This helpful WiKi should get you started.

Houston Police and Fire P25 - The RadioReference Wiki

teknishun KF5OPQ

 

[adcockfred]

ok i am waiting.
what a bout 3-17 and uhf back up . and the hfd deaths. waiting for the other shoe to drop. remember the hen house just got new head sets so they could stay in the game. i preceed the hen house 20 years. Donna been there 32. simplex now rules. car - to - still works. fox does not have any tac . remember it is like in casablanka . arrest the usual suspects. WINDOW , all media my junior.

 

[KevinC]

ok i am waiting.
what a bout 3-17 and uhf back up . and the hfd deaths. waiting for the other shoe to drop. remember the hen house just got new head sets so they could stay in the game. i preceed the hen house 20 years. Donna been there 32. simplex now rules. car - to - still works. fox does not have any tac . remember it is like in casablanka . arrest the usual suspects. WINDOW , all media my junior.

I'm going to assume this post is encrypted and I don't have the proper key.

 

[adcockfred]

ok i will digress a bit so you can cyfer. HFD payed a high price for what uncle sam wanted. but back to hen house. in the early 90 s women came into there own in hpd dispatch. now mind you there were females in harris county dispatch too. they have been driving us crazy on 800 for years ruffly late 80. what did she say. it was over with before we started to listen . but now in uncle sams brave new digital world it is a different deal, and i assume in 16 the county females will face the same thing. so this new head set for hpd females, just yesterday is trying to keep them in the game. so this is just the tip of the ice berg.

 

[mfn002]

I'll clarify a little more here. What I *think* he's trying to say is that converting to digital was an expensive process for HFD. In the early 1990s, female HPD dispatchers began to outnumber male HPD dispatchers. However, the majority of dispatchers in Harris County have been women since the late 1980s. When HPD went digital, the female dispatchers were required to get new headsets to maintain voice quality. Once the TxWARN Type II system is retired in 2016, all of the female county dispatchers will be forced to do the same.

 

[KevinC]

I'll clarify a little more here. What I *think* he's trying to say is that converting to digital was an expensive process for HFD. In the early 1990s, female HPD dispatchers began to outnumber male HPD dispatchers. However, the majority of dispatchers in Harris County have been women since the late 1980s. When HPD went digital, the female dispatchers were required to get new headsets to maintain voice quality. Once the TxWARN Type II system is retired in 2016, all of the female coucountynty dispatchers will be forced to do the same.

Thanks Michael!