Erie County P25 System

[kb3bam]

This is the problem i hate with uniden scanners. I would like it to stop on encrypted traffic so that I can identify a signal is being received and can lock it out manually or on the off chance the talkgroup is partial encryption.

Uniden should add a setting to allow the encryption skip to be turned on and off.

I found a cheap workaround for this. Using a single RTL-SDR dongle and OP25 on a linux machine I'm able to monitor one control channel, view all of the traffic being routed and what frequencies are used to route the it, The software can automatically detect the encryption and you can choose whether or not to mute only the encrypted audio. The downside is that if the receiver will still tune to the TG even if the encrypted traffic is muted, and since it's only a single receiver, it will tie it up until the transmission has ended. TGs can be blacklisted if you never expect to hear any unencrypted traffic on them and they will not be tuned to, but you will still see the trunks being set up. I have all of the Law Enforcement TGs blacklisted, but I removed them from the config to grab this screenshot.

Of course, this only works for now if I'm at my desk or at least within Bluetooth range, but I'm really thinking about throwing one of these SDRs into a Raspberry Pi and hosting a feed

 

[scnrfrq]

Millcreek Fire active on TAC 4 TG 108 doing training. I'll add to database.

 

[scnrfrq]

Biggest mystery for me so far is that I can't receive East County Fire at all on any of my scanners. I'm in west Millcreek, and I know people quite a bit farther west can get East County. Any ideas what's going on?

 

[lorddavid25]

It appears the paging channel on conventional 453.95000 is only used by select dispatchers.. Extremely sporadic at that. It's like sometimes they hit the button to multi transmit, sometimes they don't. one call you'll hear the dispatch for Corry or Albion then you will go 6 to 8 hours hearing nothing. I find it interesting hopefully they get a game plan together specially for the people that you not have the new scanners available to them. I've noticed it's been the same for the Millcreek paging frequency 462.96250 sometimes you hear a page and sometimes they don't even bother transmitting on it.. Everything seems pretty kosher on the P 25 system though.

 

[Railbender]

Biggest mystery for me so far is that I can't receive East County Fire at all on any of my scanners. I'm in west Millcreek, and I know people quite a bit farther west can get East County. Any ideas what's going on?

I was just coming Rt 5 in Springfield TWP and got an East County dispatch. That was with a HP2 using a no name mag mount antenna on the roof.

 

[kb3bam]

I’m at Maple Donuts Field in Lake City and having no issues with East county... Using a stubby duck on a Uniden 325.

 

[Drachen_Fire]

It appears the paging channel on conventional 453.95000 is only used by select dispatchers.. Extremely sporadic at that. It's like sometimes they hit the button to multi transmit, sometimes they don't. one call you'll hear the dispatch for Corry or Albion then you will go 6 to 8 hours hearing nothing. I find it interesting hopefully they get a game plan together specially for the people that you not have the new scanners available to them. I've noticed it's been the same for the Millcreek paging frequency 462.96250 sometimes you hear a page and sometimes they don't even bother transmitting on it.. Everything seems pretty kosher on the P 25 system though.

I have seen some trunk system paging use where the staffed EMS services and career fire departments aren't paged on the paging channel, and only volunteers are paged. Does this sound like the pattern?

 

[Drachen_Fire]

Have you tried the paperclip trick? There's a number of simulcast sites in Millcreek, you may be having some LSM issues.

Biggest mystery for me so far is that I can't receive East County Fire at all on any of my scanners. I'm in west Millcreek, and I know people quite a bit farther west can get East County. Any ideas what's going on?

 

[scnrfrq]

Have you tried the paperclip trick? There's a number of simulcast sites in Millcreek, you may be having some LSM issues.

What is that trick? Googling doesn't bring it up.

 

[Drachen_Fire]

Unbend one leg of a paperclip, unplug your antenna, and stick the paperclip into the center conductor of the BNC connector on the scanner.

 

[scnrfrq]

Biggest mystery for me so far is that I can't receive East County Fire at all on any of my scanners. I'm in west Millcreek, and I know people quite a bit farther west can get East County. Any ideas what's going on?

East County just had a call. I took my 436 and went outside and walked around. Heard nothing from East County or their TAC channels. I seem to be receiving all other TG's in the system.

 

[n3obl]

East County just had a call. I took my 436 and went outside and walked around. Heard nothing from East County or their TAC channels. I seem to be receiving all other TG's in the system.

Do you have the service type fire tac enabled under services?

 

[scnrfrq]

Do you have the service type fire tac enabled under services?

Yes it is. I can get West County and South County, just not East.

 

[terryho]

Yes I have Fire tac checked. I have been having trouble with Erie tac 1 tonight where as it was pretty good before. Weird how it is varying. Maybe system hasn’t settled in yet. I have been trying to point my antenna toward lake city tower and Erie to see if any difference in reception but haven’t come to any conclusions as to whether simucast is causing problems. Updated scanner to latest known tgids , will see if anything else comes onboard soon.

 

[n3obl]

I suspect it could be due to simulcast distortion.

 

[terryho]

Could be!

 

[scnrfrq]

It appears the paging channel on conventional 453.95000 is only used by select dispatchers.. Extremely sporadic at that. It's like sometimes they hit the button to multi transmit, sometimes they don't. one call you'll hear the dispatch for Corry or Albion then you will go 6 to 8 hours hearing nothing. I find it interesting hopefully they get a game plan together specially for the people that you not have the new scanners available to them. I've noticed it's been the same for the Millcreek paging frequency 462.96250 sometimes you hear a page and sometimes they don't even bother transmitting on it.. Everything seems pretty kosher on the P 25 system though.

Has this gotten any better? I'm not sure I've heard any paging yet. Do these signals cover the whole county, so you would hear them no matter which dept. was being paged? West County just had a call and I didn't hear anything on 453.95.

 

[scnrfrq]

Unbend one leg of a paperclip, unplug your antenna, and stick the paperclip into the center conductor of the BNC connector on the scanner.

It's pretty loose. So you just let it hang down from the antenna connector?

 

[scnrfrq]

Has this gotten any better? I'm not sure I've heard any paging yet. Do these signals cover the whole county, so you would hear them no matter which dept. was being paged? West County just had a call and I didn't hear anything on 453.95.

I did hear paging on 453.95 this AM for a call to Albion.

 

[terryho]

That's a good sign! I still am getting some garble at times here, could be simucast interference, but also heard dispatch comment to unit that he could not copy. I imagine they are still adjusting the system, timing ect but it might get worse before it gets better who knows.