Collin County P25

[mwjones]

I'm assuming the hospitals use low powered radios, so you have to be decently close to pick them up.

Hospitals vary by instance. From my location near Preston and Panther Creek Parkway, I can pick up Texas Health Frisco and Medical City Frisco. Most of the time I can pick up Medical City Denton. Scottish Rite Frisco is spotty (That is a work-in-progress and not in RRDB). On the new Baylor System, I can get Plano, Denton and Grapevine clear as a bell but its spotty for Centennial, and McKinney is unreadable. Of course Baylor is still tuning things and that reception may change by the time it goes active.

On an unrelated note, my TRX 1 has started pulling in Plano FD for some odd reason tonight. Frisco has dropped out a little. Running a TRX 1 with a small dipole on a sucton cup window mount that's on a window facing West. I'm in the 380 and Coit area. Anyone have any idea how the Frisco P25's antenna is oriented at Frisco PD?

I should be able to pick up Prosper and Frisco clear as anything else, but I mostly pick up the Jail and Juvenile Detention the most.

Depending on radio affiliation, Plano FD/PD may come in on the County site. This is perfectly normal, and expected behavior (If you were listening to the PAWM Site, you'd likely hear the Sheriff and County Fire for the same reason).

Frisco is a simulcast system, with 3 sites providing coverage. The nearest site to you (and me) is the water tower at Coit and ElDorado. I have an old Uniden BCD996T base unit with a collapsed telescoping whip on the back of the scanner and still get full bars (my SDR Radios and SDS200 are on a splitter off of a mag mount on a sheet metal ground plane on top of my bookcase).

Frisco/Prosper is building a 4th site on a water tower near Fishtrap and Teel, but I have not heard when it is going online.

This discussion is starting to drift further and further away from the Collin County P25 system, might I suggest you start a new thread and continue the discussion there.

 

[twjr80]

Did anyone catch Locution being used on the system? I caught the tail end of a locution dispatch on Lavon FD talkgroup. Can't remember what day it was but I know it was in the last 3 days.

 

[mwjones]

Did anyone catch Locution being used on the system? I caught the tail end of a locution dispatch on Lavon FD talkgroup. Can't remember what day it was but I know it was in the last 3 days.

Wylie FD's Locution dispatcher (talkgroup 825) appeared to inadvertently been patched to Lavon likely after a Mutual Aid call. Once they discovered it the patch was pulled down.

 

[ArkTex]

I'm pleasantly surprised how well I've gotten PAWMco and PAWM considering it's something the TRX1 isn't exactly adept at.

The audio does come in and out, but it handles the SO Dispatch decently. All I have on it currently is my REM-800b.

 

[mwjones]

I'm pleasantly surprised how well I've gotten PAWMco and PAWM considering it's something the TRX1 isn't exactly adept at.

The audio does come in and out, but it handles the SO Dispatch decently. All I have on it currently is my REM-800b.

The PAWMco site is a 9-site simulcast. There's an antenna site at Frisco Police Department, as well as the McKinney Water Tower at Westridge and Independence, so you should have a good signal. I know with just a stock "rubber duck" antenna on my SDS100 I can pick it up fine.

PAWM is also simulcast, but the closest antenna is at Sam Rayburn and Custer. I have pretty good reception on that with the rubber duck as well, so it shouldn't be a problem for you either.

The simulcast may be the actual reason for the audio issues. Try using the attenuator setting on your scanner, or changing the antenna - you may actually be overloading the receiver, and the TRX-1 isn't designed for simulcast.

 

[riverradio68]

I have PAWMCO Only with SO Dispatch and FD Dispatch ONLY and the TRX-2 does fairly well. It skips some but catches most with a Larsen tri-band on a mast mount kit 36 feet up from the Ladonia/Pecan Gap area.

 

[hiegtx]

I have PAWMCO Only with SO Dispatch and FD Dispatch ONLY and the TRX-2 does fairly well. It skips some but catches most with a Larsen tri-band on a mast mount kit 36 feet up from the Ladonia/Pecan Gap area.

You're far enough outside of the simulcast site's footprint that you don't have a problem. I don't have problems with PAWM, on any scanner capable of monitoring the system, because I am so far out that I also avoid simulcast issues on it.

 

[TexTAC]

I live right in Plano and get a very strong signal. The only issue I have with PAWM is the sound is sometimes “robotic” and for some reason the SDS100 AGC reduces the volume output significantly. The volume is usually 2 clicks lower than other sites. Occasionally, one person is loud and another is very faint within the same talk group.

 

[riverradio68]

Someone recently updated PAWMCO. Shows the PAWM site with NO control Alternate control channels while PAWMCO retains alternates. So is PAWM Harris and PAWMCO Motorola?

 

[mwjones]

Someone recently updated PAWMCO. Shows the PAWM site with NO control Alternate control channels while PAWMCO retains alternates. So is PAWM Harris and PAWMCO Motorola?

Both sites are Motorola.

RRDB is phasing out the "Alternate Control Channel" designation, so you're starting to see some sites where they are removing that designation while they're making other changes to the site. I haven't heard the reasoning, but it is likely due to many systems using rotating control channels, so what is primary one day may be a secondary the next (For example the Baylor NXDN system that's currently being built out).

 

[IAmSixNine]

Odd they are doing that since Motorola P25 systems still stay on the primary CC and only rotate to the secondary ones when there is an issue. They eventually go back to primary. Unless Motorola is phasing that out as well.
True Harris uses all frequencies as control channels but if its a known harris system why not label them all alternate?
I am watching 3 Motorola P25 systems on unitrunker and they are always on the primary. 1 is phase 1, 1 is phase 1 that is migrating to phase 2 and the other is a newer phase 2 system.

 

[mwjones]

Odd they are doing that since Motorola P25 systems still stay on the primary CC and only rotate to the secondary ones when there is an issue. They eventually go back to primary. Unless Motorola is phasing that out as well.
True Harris uses all frequencies as control channels but if its a known harris system why not label them all alternate?
I am watching 3 Motorola P25 systems on unitrunker and they are always on the primary. 1 is phase 1, 1 is phase 1 that is migrating to phase 2 and the other is a newer phase 2 system.

RRDB is likely doing it (this is my speculation, as I haven't heard specific reasoning from the staff member that informed me it was coming) as there are a lot of non-P25 systems that use rotating control channels, and for those of us that use this site, most of which are hobbyists, don't really care about primary/alternate status, we just want to receive and listen to comms.

Not to mention, there are some users that see the primary and think that's all they have to enter in their scanner. Then when the control channel rotates, they complain loudly that its broke, until someone points out that they should enter all the control channels. By going to a single "control channel" designation without primary or alternate, you therefore reduce those complaints.

 

[riverradio68]

Just curious, have you (or anyone) heard any iCALL traffic on the system yet?

 

[KevinC]

True Harris uses all frequencies as control channels but if its a known harris system why not label them all alternate?

If everything is an alternate, then nothing is an alternate.

 

[mwjones]

Just curious, have you (or anyone) heard any iCALL traffic on the system yet?

I haven't heard any iCALL traffic since the system went live in March. Just to double check, I looked at logs from the last two weeks (which includes both sites, due to how I'm currently configured) and there's no iCALL traffic on either site in that time frame.

 

[hiegtx]

My logs match yours. No iCALL traffic seen.

 

[mwommack]

Another curiosity, where are medics amr 191-194 based out of?

 

[mbarnold12]

Another curiosity, where are medics amr 191-194 based out of?

191 - Anna FD
192 - Princeton FD
193 - Farmersville FD
194 and 195 are their Day trucks that run 12 hours. They post around where needed if not running calls. They also post the others to other points throughout the County based on the current call load in order to stay compliant with response times.

 

[DustyH777]

iCALL? What is that?

 

[mwjones]

iCALL? What is that?

Private radio-to-radio calls.