Collin County P25

[IAmSixNine]

Thats interesting as XTS devices are phase 1 devices only and the Collin County P25 system has been Phase 2. Watching 1171 shows it going back and fort with slot 1 and slot 2 confirming its in Phase 2 mode. But with this tying into an existing system it has the capability to revert back to Phase 1 if a unit with an older device affiliates with a TG that allows Phase 1.

 

[mwjones]

something has changed on the system- driving from farmersville to mckinney today my xts in the car showed out of range the entire time- my xtl at the office works but shows an ID number for each call instead of the talkgroup.

update- dispatch made a call saying the radio system was back up- went and checked my xts and its working again- must have just been an outage or maintenance

Are you sure you're talking about the new P25 system that's part of PAWM? Or are you talking the old Motorola System?

I know over the weekend I couldn't pick up the Motorola System control channel on my handheld with a rubber duck even while just outside my apartment, but it would come in if I put it on the "antenna" I'm using here in my apartment in Frisco. Since I'm situated between the Frisco and West McKinney Simulcast sites, it usually comes in pretty good. Based on that, my guess is some of the repeater sites had an outage (or they may have been working on the microwave network that connects the repeaters), and everything was falling back to the "master" site at Wilmeth Road in North McKinney.

As of today, all seems to be back to (degraded quality, but functional) normal.

 

[mwjones]

For those of you keeping score and haven't been following the Wiki Page as I record updates, we've got a few new leads on talkgroups on the new system:

• 1173 is "Ops 2" as called by the Radio Techs doing coverage testing. Combined with previously reported 1171 "Dispatch 2" and 1172 "Ops 1" I suspect these are Sheriff Office channels.
• 1203 appears to be the jail, and may be their dispatch channel.
• 1247 was called by Anna Brush 1, so that may be the Anna Fire-Tac Channel
• 1279 may be the Princeton Fire-Tac Channel, as a unit called for dispatcher on it that I later heard on the old system (although they were mutual aid in Branch when I heard the call, so it may also be the Branch Fire-Tac channel)

With all of the coverage testing going on (which makes for a lot of dry listening, with a few occasional 'light' moments), it shouldn't be that much longer before we see the migration of users start to happen.

 

[FishScan]

I dont think I have heard anything for over a week on the system? Testing must be complete.

 

[Russell]

I've seen very little activity on UniTrunker, as well.

 

[mwjones]

Coverage testing pretty much did wrap up. I know they were originally targeting Motorola handing the system over to the County as of October 1 (after originally expecting handover September 1). No word if that happened or not.

There is still some occasional non-testing hits on various talkgroups, as it is clear that most of the radios in the field have now been reprogrammed with talkgroups on the new system as well as old. I'm recording them all and continue to try and identify usage (I have confirmed the "Jail Dispatch" is 1203, "Sheriff Dispatch 1" is looking to be 1168, and "Sheriff Inquiry" appears to be 1169). I've got a couple of more I need to listen with cans as I'm not making out what's being said over my speakers. I'll try and get the Wiki updated with this information over the weekend.

If testing is complete, I suspect they are just planning to wrap up things and then plan for when they will switch users over and start using the new system. Its clear that dispatch is going to be on new consoles, so its not just a "click this button" to make the switch, but most field units will be just switching to a new talkgroup on the same radio they already use.

 

[mwjones]

Talkgroup 1311 is active with users tonight, don't know if by accident or on purpose. I'll try and go through the recordings later to try and identify, but wanted to give everyone a heads up. Sounds like law enforcement at a High School Football game.

 

[mwjones]

Talkgroup 1311 is Celina PD, although I've also heard them on 1298, (and tonight during the football game, the "Chief" was also heard on 1312 and 1315 like he switched to another talkgroup inadvertently).

 

[riverradio68]

Celina PD had 2 TG's and Fire had 3 TG's on the old system. With it's growth and location it wouldn't surprise me if they were assigned several on the new system, Same with Princeton, Anna and possibly Farmersville.

 

[mwjones]

Celina PD had 2 TG's and Fire had 3 TG's on the old system. With it's growth and location it wouldn't surprise me if they were assigned several on the new system, Same with Princeton, Anna and possibly Farmersville.

Being there's 146 talkgroups that have lit up (and only 1 of those is encrypted!) since testing started (by comparison there's only 63 on the old system according to RRDB, but there's at least a few more than that), I suspect you're right. With an known "Dispatch 2" being added for the Sheriff, there's likely a lot more breathing room being built in, particularly in how fast the County is growing population-wise.

I haven't had any positive hits of usage in recent days, but I'm seeing a lot more radios affiliate with the system (as I type this, there's 30 radios affiliated). I'm also hearing some of the Fire units on the old system report they're not getting the tone-out alerts but are getting the dispatcher broadcasts, which may indicate that whatever radio they use for tone-out alerts may be tuned to the new system.

 

[riverradio68]

I have New Collin in both stand alone and with PAWM. I'm not hearing anything either. The Old system had several TG's that were never listed in the DB and a few that were misidentified such as CCSO NARC/VICE which wasn't encrypted but was rather ASTRO. The old system was very outdated in technology as well as size and accommodation for municipal agencies that were exploding in growth and would need more radio than what they had. I'd bet when it's all said and done, Melissa, Anna, Celina, Princeton and possibly Nevada & Josephine end up with multiple TG's to support their growth. Princeton Public Works could move off VHF finally and many school districts will likely be added as well as Hospital groups. I think were all going to be amazed at what will become of this system.

Thanks for keeping on top of this and sharing your findings.

 

[mwjones]

There was testing activity yesterday and today across a few talkgroups, but when its just the engineer saying "Radio service test, testing, one, two, three" repeatedly it doesn't really deliver anything of value to us.

I would think we'd be getting close to it going live, just don't know the timing of when they will really start using it, but it seems like the old system is getting worse by the day (I'm an IT engineer, and certainly know the pitfalls of running systems past their service life).

 

[mwjones]

It appears that the old Collin County Motorola System may have had a failure. I'm no longer receiving a control channel, just an open carrier where the control channel should be.

No additional radios affiliating with new PAWM site yet, so they may be trying to restore things first before trying to pull off an expedited migration.

 

[IAmSixNine]

Im picking up a strong control channel for collin county on 853.125, trunker is seeing activity on the system and my scanners are picking up activity. So its possible it was a temp glitch. I was scanning other stuff at the time and never noticed it. So cant comment on the time you noticed it.

 

[mwjones]

I just dialed up 853.125 on my SDS200 to listen to raw audio, and I can hear bursts, but not a solid control channel, so it may be one or more repeater sites down on the West side of the county. Still ongoing for at least 90 minutes now.

 

[IAmSixNine]

Still solid signal and im around the Wylie / south eastern collin county area.

 

[mwjones]

It looks at whatever was down affecting the West side of the county was restored sometime this morning, as I'm hearing them again in Frisco.

 

[mwjones]

The gremlins in the Motorola system keep having bits of downtime at least in the repeaters on the West side of the county, so I suspect that many of the users can't wait to get moved over.

That said, there was a lot of testing today on the new system, which appeared to mainly focus on intentionally causing failures and seeing how the radios react. From shutting down the site controller to network failures and individual repeater failures, they were going through it all. (As an IT engineer and trainer, "disaster recovery" exercises are my favorite - I love intentionally breaking things)

Sadly, there's at least two more talkgroups that are showing Encryption in use, but as long as that list doesn't grow much larger I'm not going to complain. I've updated the Wiki accordingly.

 

[mwjones]

Can I get a second (or third) set of ears listening to talkgroup 1303 on the new system?

A group of 4 units appear to be doing some training, but the streets that are being called out don't align with anything in County records. They've been active for the last 1/2 hour. (started 17:49)

 

[mwjones]

Can I get a second (or third) set of ears listening to talkgroup 1303 on the new system?

A group of 4 units appear to be doing some training, but the streets that are being called out don't align with anything in County records. They've been active for the last 1/2 hour. (started 17:49)

Looks like whatever law enforcement agency this was finished up just before 19:00 (only one radio remains affiliated with the group).

I have attached an archive of all of the transmissions if anyone's interested in giving it a listen (split into two parts because of size limitations)