"East" simulcast?????

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bobruzzo

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Could someone explain how I would add this to my radio as far as what towns you would include in this system. For example I have North, South and Prov in their own separate systems, on the radio North is quick key 1, South quick key 2 and Prov quick key 3. So thats all the towns in RI. So what would you do with the EASTERN simulcast??? Put all the Newport County towns in that system? Right now all the Newport County towns are in the Southern Zone in my radio, along with the other towns in Washington county. I am just trying to organize the right towns with the right systems and Freescan doesnt have it set up that way.
 

Stewj

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Bob,
I duplicate the North or South in a couple of different quick keys and assign specific towns to that quick key. Just make sure you have it on ID Scan not ID Search.
 

cg

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I understand that RISCON has added a new East Simulcast Site.
You don't have to worry about that if you have it in as a single System with 4 Sites. You have a single set of Groups and choose which Site you want to use via Quick Key.
The new East Simulcast would simply get added as a new Site with a different Quick Key
The system determines what Talkgroups are allowed on each Site and having radios affiliated determines if the traffic is broadcast on each site.

chris
 

ecps92

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Only by careful monitoring are any of us going to know which Towns RISCON is going to allow TG's to appear

And since it was only powered on in the past day or two, there might not be any radios at a Department level programmed yet
outside of the Radio Techs and System Administrator [who knows, as it is too new, altho Thanks to the folks who have reported the info, for us to get it quickly in the SNE Wiki and the RRDB]

Could someone explain how I would add this to my radio as far as what towns you would include in this system. For example I have North, South and Prov in their own separate systems, on the radio North is quick key 1, South quick key 2 and Prov quick key 3. So thats all the towns in RI. So what would you do with the EASTERN simulcast??? Put all the Newport County towns in that system? Right now all the Newport County towns are in the Southern Zone in my radio, along with the other towns in Washington county. I am just trying to organize the right towns with the right systems and Freescan doesnt have it set up that way.
 

bobruzzo

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OK so why not just call these "systems" and "Zones" (since RI is such a small state) simply "Washington County" (South) "Providence County" (North) "Providence City" (Providence) "Kent County" (?) "Bristol County" (?) and "Newport County" (East). I am still finding it confusing and hard to organize because you don't clearly know which towns are in which Zones. And Freescan doesn't have it broken down specifically as to which towns go with which zones. I mean I can manually set up each zone with a quick key in Freescan, delete all the encrypted data that we cant hear anyway, and just label each zone according to the individual COUNTIES in the state. To me I would rather set it up so the NORTH zone only includes the towns NORTH of Coventry, West Warwick and Warwick. SOUTH zone would only include all the towns SOUTH of West Greenwich and East Greenwich. The make a MIDDLE ZONE called "KENT for those towns in Kent County, Providence CITY obviously would be like it already is, and Newport County could be considered the new "EAST" zone. I know that the actual TRANSMITTING TOWERS are not set up like this, but it would seem easier to set up the radio County by county. The way Freescan works is it's just a free for all what towns end up in which zones. Of course I could be wrong and overthinking this. I am just not sure if this radio has to be programmed in a specific way with regards to where we place sites, and groups.
 

bobruzzo

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I understand that RISCON has added a new East Simulcast Site.
You don't have to worry about that if you have it in as a single System with 4 Sites. You have a single set of Groups and choose which Site you want to use via Quick Key.
The new East Simulcast would simply get added as a new Site with a different Quick Key
The system determines what Talkgroups are allowed on each Site and having radios affiliated determines if the traffic is broadcast on each site.

chris
But what towns do I add to it? What does "East" actually refer to? Newport, Portsmouth, Jamestown and Middletown? I already have those towns in my SOUTH zone! I don't understand how to do this because Freescan doesnt separate the specific towns to specific zones.
 

cg

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You don't add any towns to it. You are making it way harder than it is.
1 single System (RISCON) - One System Quick Key
4 sets of frequencies (North, South, East, Providence) - Four Site Quick Keys
a bunch of talkgroups - put these in groups however you like. Some folks do it by town, some by Agency Type

You can have all 4 Sites turned on and if you are in range, they will be scanned. If they are out of range, they will be ignored.

chris
 

pmlance

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The East Site is active , I'm listening to it as I type this. I turned off South and North zones to make sure it is only the East site on my scanner that is on.
 

bobruzzo

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You don't add any towns to it. You are making it way harder than it is.
1 single System (RISCON) - One System Quick Key
4 sets of frequencies (North, South, East, Providence) - Four Site Quick Keys
a bunch of talkgroups - put these in groups however you like. Some folks do it by town, some by Agency Type

You can have all 4 Sites turned on and if you are in range, they will be scanned. If they are out of range, they will be ignored.

chris
OK I am totally not understanding the proper way to use Freescan. The interface is VERY confusing. I dont know how to do what you are suggesting without the interface of Freescan confusing me. In the attached picture I set it up for Rhode Island, Statewide and Apco P25. I circled the 4 systems in red on left......I circles all the agencies on the right. This is where I am confused. What is the point of those things on the right if you dont need to add them? Freescan wont let you pick and import any/all of the 4 systems on left without having something chosen from the right! I hate to ask but do you think you could give me a detailed step by step on how to properly do this? I have been going around in circles getting nowhere. The way I have radio programmed now is I have NORTH in quick key 1 and added all the towns in the TOP HALF of state, SOUTH is in quick key 2 with all the towns in the BOTTOM HALF of state (including Newport County towns). and PROVIDENCE (city) is in quick key 3, and I chose from the right list "Providence (city) from the list. This is the way I ASSUMED you can set radio up using Freescan. I didnt bother assigning a bunch of quick keys to anything else cause thats too confusing. It is easier to have each system in its own bank, or quick key. So now we are confronted with an "EAST SIMULCAST" now! Plus Freescan wont let me assign a quick key to a SINGLE RISCON system without changing the 4 zones to the SAME quick key! HELP!
 

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wa1lad

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East Zone: Jamestown, Newport, Middletown, Portsmouth, Little Compton, Tiverton. Its up, its running and all the users in the East Zone had their radios updated prior to the turn on of the zone. All the TG's for those towns will be East Zone only.

I said before, huge changes and upgrades in RISCON over the past decade or so and they will keep coming. So, PLEASE make sure you are using the latest confirmed system information before complaining about it.
 

bobruzzo

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East Zone: Jamestown, Newport, Middletown, Portsmouth, Little Compton, Tiverton. Its up, its running and all the users in the East Zone had their radios updated prior to the turn on of the zone. All the TG's for those towns will be East Zone only.

I said before, huge changes and upgrades in RISCON over the past decade or so and they will keep coming. So, PLEASE make sure you are using the latest confirmed system information before complaining about it.
The only place I am getting my information from is the RR database and Freescan. I did program in quick key 4 the EAST zone. I checked and rechecked and all frequencies accurate and in there. But for some reason the signal is very low and not receiving the control channel. It says "NFM" when scanning. The signals for the other 3 zones are all full scale. Again I am just not fully understanding how to program the radio via Freescan.
 

cg

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The setup looks OK for you.
You have 1 system, RISCON
You have 4 Sites, circled on the left
You have the Groups, or more exactly groups of Talkgroups circled on the right. There is an error pointed out in red. It would appear that your scanner may have a limit with the number of Groups of Talkgroups. There are 51 in the RR Database and your scanner will only allow 20. This would mean to get all the users on the system, you may need to enter the information into Freescan yourself.

chris
 

bobruzzo

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The setup looks OK for you.
You have 1 system, RISCON
You have 4 Sites, circled on the left
You have the Groups, or more exactly groups of Talkgroups circled on the right. There is an error pointed out in red. It would appear that your scanner may have a limit with the number of Groups of Talkgroups. There are 51 in the RR Database and your scanner will only allow 20. This would mean to get all the users on the system, you may need to enter the information into Freescan yourself.

chris
OK I checked in to that red error....thats from trying to load weather data. And thats what I have done when I first learned how to use radio. I entered each of the 3 groups, NORTH, SOUTH & PROVIDENCE (city) into their own QUICK KEYS. North is "1" South is "2" and Providence is "3".
I had to MANUALLY choose what to pick from the list on RIGHT. For the NORTH site I added ALL the towns in the upper half of RI. For SOUTH site I added all the towns in the lower half of RI including Newport county. And for PROVIDENCE (city) I just added the "Providence (city) TG from the right. I have been running scanner with this setup with mostly no issues. So now with this new EAST site I programmed it in the same exact way as the other site and put it in quick key "4". So I have the same Newport County towns in the SOUTH zone too. Anyway when I am scanning the 4 zones North, South and PROV are full scale on signal strength meter but EAST is fluctuating between 1 and 3 bars and isn't hearing the control channel. I am using a dedicated 800mhz mobile mag mount on ground plane outside my window. It's been working very well. Not sure why EAST zone coming in so weak. So this is really the only way I know how to program this radio for the Riscon zones. I am not sure if you manually have to go in and delete all the encrypted departments. It seems everybody has different ways in their set ups. And there isn't any really concise clear instructions how to program this radio with Freescan.
 

wa1lad

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There are 5 transmitting sites in the zone. All from Jamestown east.
 

bobruzzo

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There are 5 transmitting sites in the zone. All from Jamestown east.
Yeah I am thinking my location is the issue. I live right on the other (west) side of Dean Estates in Cranston......thats a BIG hill. I looked on elevation map and its just a huge obstruction, although I can hear many analog stations over in southeast Mass pretty well. But those are 453, 483 mhz. So I am going to assume thats the case. I guess I can still hear Newport County from the other sites. I have that area programmed in my SOUTH zone in radio.
 

wa1lad

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Newport County is part of the East Zone. The ability to hear those agencies will disappear when the East and South zones are finally and totally separated.
 

W1KNE

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And don't forget the land that the East Zone needs to cover is relatively flat, and small, so the need to cover ground isn't as large as the others. So don't expect the monster coverage you get from North/South zones at your residence.
 

wa1lad

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And don't forget the land that the East Zone needs to cover is relatively flat, and small, so the need to cover ground isn't as large as the others. So don't expect the monster coverage you get from North/South zones at your residence.

Absolutely 125% correct!!
 
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