EMS/Hospital Traffic on RPD TGID

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KF4JZY

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I noticed last night and this morning something strange going on while listening to the scanner. I am hearing EMS/hospital traffic come over TGID I have programmed for RPD. For example, this morning I heard Wake Med on RPD D23 Dispatch (tgid 40048). I also heard some RPD traffic over the Wake Med TGID. I have not logged everything, so there may be others as well. I have verified my programming with the RR DB. Has anyone else noticed this? Are there some TGID's patched together for some reason? I just updated the firmware on my 396XT, and want to make sure something is not acting funky.

Thanks,
Brent
 

trumpetman

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My XT was doing that after my a little while after my firmware update as well. It happened a lot at first, and then seemed to disappear. A lot of mismatched TGs (hearing PD on EMS channels, Fire on PD channels, etc). We decided it was due to the dispatch center being temporarilty relocated and just a few glitches in the system that the scanner couldn't recognize. We never actually confirmed that though, it could've been the firmware. The only advice I can offer is sit tight and see if it's still happening and if so, do some searching for the older firmware and see if that makes a difference.
 

KF4JZY

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Thanks Cory for the reply. That is a strange issue for sure. I just noticed a hospital come over the NCHP tgid?? I will wait a little while and see if it clears up. I looked through the forum and did not see this sticking out as a problem with the new firmware, but I could have overlooked something. I may do some more digging. Thanks again.

Brent
 

KF4JZY

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Thanks again. After looking through that thread it appeared the system was undergoing some changes. That would make sense, but I do not know if that is what is taking place in this case. I am hearing totally different traffic on the same TGID. For example, on "RPD D21 Stat" I will hear normal RPD traffic, then a second later, on the same TGID, I will hear REX ER traffic. Then I will hear RPD again on the same TGID. I did not notice this until the firmware update, so I am leaning towards that being the culprit at this point unless someone conforms that VIPER is undergoing some tweaks. If I have some time, I may install Trunk88 to monitor the CC data.
 

KE4ZNR

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I would still recommend using Trunk88 but the issue is not any unusual talkgroup patching..the issue is multipath distortion or a "bleed-over". It happens on both my GRE and Unidens radios from time to time. Unfortunately the only solution at this time is moving the radio a few inches here or there and the problem should disappear.
Running Trunk88 or Unitrunker will show you that the old Wake Co EMS->Hospital TGs are being phased out with the VMN (Viper Medical Network) talkgroups taking their place. So there are some patches between the legacy Hospital TGs and the VMN but that is the extent of it.
Marshall KE4ZNR


Thanks again. After looking through that thread it appeared the system was undergoing some changes. That would make sense, but I do not know if that is what is taking place in this case. I am hearing totally different traffic on the same TGID. For example, on "RPD D21 Stat" I will hear normal RPD traffic, then a second later, on the same TGID, I will hear REX ER traffic. Then I will hear RPD again on the same TGID. I did not notice this until the firmware update, so I am leaning towards that being the culprit at this point unless someone conforms that VIPER is undergoing some tweaks. If I have some time, I may install Trunk88 to monitor the CC data.
 

jeffmulter

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If it's a slow radio comm day in Raleigh, or 911 is short-staffed due to the holidays or training, they may have put some talkgroups into "radio merge" mode (which is different than patching or multi-select).

Mike Hodgson made reference to this feature being available to Raleigh 911 in a posting two years ago:

http://forums.radioreference.com/no...167-raleigh-pd-testing-800mhz.html#post663170

Just a thought ... but Marshall's post makes more sense.
 
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KE4ZNR

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Thanks Jeff :)
Talkgroup Merge (or Multiselect) is only done on Raleigh PD Talkgroups and has nothing to do with EMS. So The real reason for what KF4JZY is experiencing is distortion. Heck, I have to deal with it myself from time to time here in West Raleigh. Usually moving the radio a little here or there causes the issue to evaporate.
Marshall KE4ZNR

If it's a slow radio comm day in Raleigh, or 911 is short-staffed due to the holidays or training, they may have put some talkgroups into "radio merge" mode (which is different than patching or multi-select).

Mike Hodgson made reference to this feature being available to Raleigh 911 in a posting two years ago:

http://forums.radioreference.com/no...167-raleigh-pd-testing-800mhz.html#post663170

Just a thought ... but Marshall's post makes more sense.
 

KF4JZY

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Thanks for the replies. As far as the bleed-over goes, I just drove from Wake Forest to Raleigh and still encountered the problem while driving. As I type this I am listening to EMS traffic on RPD D22 Disp while in Raleigh. I can move around the radio and the problem does not go away. I use this scanner almost on a daily basis and have not encountered this until I did the firmware upgrade. I'm not an expert in this stuff, but unless there has been some sort of infrastructure change (or just some whacky propagation going on) I do not understand why all of the sudden this would start happening. Having UIDs with the new firmware is neat, but I may start investigating about reverting to the previous version to see if that resolves this problem.

Thanks again,
Brent
 

KE4ZNR

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Hey Brent,
When you get a chance double check your radio programming with Freescan. It is rare but every now and then programming can get scrambled after a firmware upgrade. Double check the systems and groups and make sure some TGIDs did not get scrambled.
I can assure you that the following is true:
~There has been no change on the VIPER side of things that would cause any difficulties like what is being reported.
If needed I can look over your Freescan file or help you narrow down what may be the issue or I will have my programming laptop at the January meeting.
Just let me know.
Marshall KE4ZNR



Thanks for the replies. As far as the bleed-over goes, I just drove from Wake Forest to Raleigh and still encountered the problem while driving. As I type this I am listening to EMS traffic on RPD D22 Disp while in Raleigh. I can move around the radio and the problem does not go away. I use this scanner almost on a daily basis and have not encountered this until I did the firmware upgrade. I'm not an expert in this stuff, but unless there has been some sort of infrastructure change (or just some whacky propagation going on) I do not understand why all of the sudden this would start happening. Having UIDs with the new firmware is neat, but I may start investigating about reverting to the previous version to see if that resolves this problem.

Thanks again,
Brent
 

KF4JZY

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Thanks Marshall for your willingness to help! I have checked and confirmed some of the TGID's that have been giving me problems, but I will check again tonight. The strange thing is that on the same TGID I will hear RPD one second and then EMS a second afterwards. I don't think that would be a config problem, but I will check it out.

Brent
 

KF4JZY

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Just for some more detailed/further information, I have been listening to the Wake Med TGID (34592) for a while now (on hold, not scanning) and have heard the following:

*Various RPD -- This is mainly what I am hearing; if I did not know I was on the Wake Med TGID, I would think I was on a RPD dispatch channel.

*Wake Pediatrics -- assigned TGID 34640

*REX ER - assigned TGID 34608

and I do hear Wake Med as well.

I wonder if anyone else is able to duplicate this on a Uniden 396XT with the latest firmware. It will not take long listening to the Wake Med TG to hear RPD traffic, if so.

Brent
 

KE4ZNR

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I have the latest firmware in all of my radios (GRE and Uniden) and as I said above this happens from time to time with any of them...nothing crazy or unique going on. If it makes you feel better totally erase all programming in the radio then rewrite the data to the radio.
I have been home all day sick with a sinus infection and I am sitting here listening to Raleigh 26 DISP 40096 on both the 396XT and 996XT and I have not had any problems today.
Marshall KE4ZNR


Just for some more detailed/further information, I have been listening to the Wake Med TGID (34592) for a while now (on hold, not scanning) and have heard the following:

*Various RPD -- This is mainly what I am hearing; if I did not know I was on the Wake Med TGID, I would think I was on a RPD dispatch channel.

*Wake Pediatrics -- assigned TGID 34640

*REX ER - assigned TGID 34608

and I do hear Wake Med as well.

I wonder if anyone else is able to duplicate this on a Uniden 396XT with the latest firmware. It will not take long listening to the Wake Med TG to hear RPD traffic, if so.

Brent
 

KF4JZY

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Problem Resolved

Here's the latest:
After several days hearing various agencies on the Wake Med TGID, I went ahead and cleared the memory/reset the scanner and manually programmed the Wake Med TGID alone. After doing that I only heard Wake Med. That was good; that told me it was probably not firmware or bleedover.

I went ahead and reprogrammed it with a previous Freescan config and it has been working perfectly. Reprogramming it with other (bad) config makes the problem reappear. Bottom line is that the problem is solved, and it appeared to be the Freescan config.

The questionable thing is what in the world was wrong the Freescan file that was causing the problem? I reviewed it and nothing appears to be incorrect. I even looked at the .996 file in Notepad to see if any underlying data was corrupt, and it seemed okay from what I could tell. Furthermore, what kind of misconfiguration/malformed config file could cause multiple agencies to be heard on a single TGID? Not sure, but it's back working now, so that is what counts. If anyone has extra time on their hands, is of the inquisitive sort, and is interested is examining the Freescan config file that caused the issue to try to figure it out, let me know and I'll post it/email it.

Thanks again for all those who assisted with this problem!

Happy New Year,
Brent
 
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KE4ZNR

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Brent,
Good to hear the problem has resolved itself.
If you are still willing email the file over to me
just out of curiosity and I will see if Assaf (guy
behind Freescan) and myself can see any weird
anomalies. Thnx! BTW: Hope you can make a couple
more meetings after the first of the year.
At the December Christmas Giveaway meeting I ended up getting another scanner to add to the collection: A old vhf/uhf base unit that now sits parked on SHP Troop C dispatch (42.600Mhz). I didn't need another one but when my name came up I couldn't resist.
Happy Monitoring (and Happy 2010!)
Marshall KE4ZNR
 

ou99

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Maybe not Freescan?

I wouldn't be too quick to rule out the 396XT firmware and blame Freescan. I use Buetel XT Pro and experienced the same thing a couple of weeks ago on the Charmeck TRS.

Haven't had problems recently. When it was happening I tried some logging, recording etc and unable to come to any conclusion. But I did make a couple of observations. My 396XT is pretty new and I was just getting set it set for first time.

To get maximum use of the 99 System Quick Keys I broke "The system" (Charmeck TRS) into several "systems" - identical systems/sites/control freqs, each with unique names and it's own set of different groups and talk groups. Then I grouped the systems into a "profile".

The scanner had been previously reset and should have been "clean" of anything wasn't Charmeck TRS.

By logging and monitering, it seemed that the problem may have been confined to one of these pseudo systems. While reloding that system didn't resolve the issue, reloding the entire profile of systems (without resttting the scanner) seemed to resolve it. I too checked text of the XTPro files and nothing seemed out of order.

Others were also having similar problems on the Charmeck System around that time. Some were putting the blame on the north tower equipment, which is my closest RF source for that system. I am, however surrounded by many other, cell phone etc, RF sources

Sorry I can't be more conclusive but thought this info might be helpful. Lot's of tweaking goin' on and lack of familiarity makes for lousy troubleshooting conditions.

Larry
 

KF4JZY

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@Larry: That is interesting you were having the same issue. In fact, I have my scanner programmed the same way you do. Maybe that has something to do with it; I really don't know. If I or someone else come up with something more conclusive I will post it here. Thanks for the feedback!

@Marshall: I will email you the file to check out. Let me know if you see anything I overlooked or if you encounter the same problem on your 396XT with that config (you should be able to hold it on Wake Med for a little while to see). I hate that I was unable to come to more meetings; my wife and I truly did enjoy it. With school, however, it made it difficult. We'll see how this semester is; maybe we can try to make some. That's cool you won a scanner!

Take care,
Brent
 

KF4JZY

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396XT Shuffled TGIDs

I have a 396XT that is acting up so much I'm starting to think it's defective and it's becoming quite frustrating . Any advice would be appreciated before I send it off to Uniden for service.

Here's the problem:
I live in Wake County, NC monitoring the VIPER system. I programmed my radio using the latest version of Freescan, and I am confident that my configuration is correct (see below link). What is happening is that the scanner is stopping on channels where the traffic and TGID does not match what I programmed into the radio (in ID SCAN mode). For example, I programmed the radio for Wake Med with a TGID of 34592 but will hear Raleigh police with a TGID of 40112 (among others) on that channel. This is just an example; I will also hear Highway Patrol where I have RPD TGIDs programmed, Wake Med on RPD TGIDs, Rex on HP channels, Wake Med on Sheriff dispatch, etc.

I understand that multi-select is being used with RPD dispatch and different TGIDs will show up on those channels. This is not what I am experiencing. I also understand that sometimes channels are linked when needed and can demonstrate this behavior. This is not what I am experiencing. I can also understand that sometimes anomalies can happen for this to occur. Again, I do not believe this to be the problem because it happens all the time I listen to the scanner. If this was considered "normal" I would have found a lot more data in researching the problem, so I do not think it is normal to the extent I am experiencing the issue.

Some things I have done:
Move the radio around in case of distortion, try different times of the day, etc.
made sure ID Scan is enabled, not ID search
turned off/on Unit IDs
Messed with audio types on the channels
reprogrammed the radio from scratch using Freescan
reflashed the radio back to 1.07; reprogrammed
reflashed the radio back to the most current firmware; reprogrammed
disabled "control channel only" in Freescan and placed all the trunk freqs in the sites
lowered the baud rate on the radio and com port to 9600 in case data was getting scrambled during transfer
monitored a single channel (instead of scanning) and experienced the same issue
reset the scanner and reprogrammed
programmed some systems in by hand
monitored scanning/TGIDs using Freescan to what was going on. I clearly see the scanner stopping where I have programmed a TGID 34593 with an alpha tag of "Wake Med" showing that TGI 40112 is what is being decoded and hearing police traffic on a hospital channel that should not be linked for any reason.
etc., etc.
Tried a sample Freescan config
I have also researched these forums and others.
Status bit is not enabled
I turned on the attenuator and that still did not help. The signal is so strong that I can even take off the antenna and receive a signal. Even with the antenna off (major attenuation) it still happens.
I also monitored some of the trunk channels and I am not hearing anything that sounds like bleedover.

I was not able to resolve the issue with any of these steps.
I found some in the past who had these same issues with a different scanner and tried putting all the trunk freqs instead of just the CCs. As noted above, I tried that with no avail.
I also read some that said this type of problem was normal for Uniden scanners. I question if it is normal to the degree I am experiencing the problem otherwise I think I would have found much more data on the problem.

Thanks for your time in reading this post. I would greatly appreciate any assistance with this. I would also like to know if you experienced this problem and sent it off to Uniden for repair and the outcome. BTW, I've had this scanner for over a year and had this problem before. I thought I resolved it before, but it was not.

Here are the links to my current Freescan config file and an Excel spreadsheet with about 1.5 hours of logging that shows what I am experiencing.

Config - http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3825268/Fres...dio auto.996
Excel Data - http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3825268/Review_396xt.xls

I also posted this in the Uniden forum a week ago or so. Unfortunately, no resolution was discovered.
 

KE4ZNR

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Since I have not personally experienced this myself let me look
over the info you have linked. I will look it over after dinner tonight
and respond back. I wish I had an easy answer but you have done
all of the troubleshooting steps I would have recommended. Might
be a defective unit issue.
I will respond back little later on.
Marshall KE4ZNR
 

maultsby

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Yes, I have also seen this issue with the 396. I listen to a small set of talkgroups, and I haven't run into the issue lately (that I've noticed), but when I used to scan all sorts of things, I definitely have seen that issue. The TGID says one thing, but from the audio, I know for a fact that the TGID is not correct.
 
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