I suppose that the hardware was abandoned in place so that it could serve as a backup system if the P25 system failed. I don't know how practical that is at this point, and the old gear still has value for other SmartZone operators struggling to keep their systems on-air until they can be replaced. Still weird that multiple sites could come back online seemingly without the system admins knowing about it.
Fairfax County SmartNet System Magically Back Up and in FailSoft?
- Thread starter LateNightGaming
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Rarely is the case leaving for backup. More than not its "no money" in project to pay folks to remove, or shop getting paid and not removing it. I can't count the maount of shleters I have been in with legacy gear and when asked was told "project" was complete. As for why this one came alive again if someone just hit disable on the MTC or 6809 it could of been hit again, or a power issue that caused controller to die and then failsoft came up. The other option is backhaul from subsites to master site could of been shut off or disabled. In the end they found the issue but good practice is to power off and physically remove power from any stuff thats decomishioned in place.
I suppose the RF hardware remained connected to power in case they had to switch over to a backup scenario quickly, and likely the backhaul also remained powered up to maintain connectivity, IDK. I agree that funding could also have been an issue as far as physically removing the equipment - could get expensive especially if someone needed to climb towers and lower antennas and dishes, and drop the feedlines. They need to rent out the tower space and let someone else pay for it, lol.
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Will the equipment actually get sold off this time around? If it’s going to be recycled I’ll take it, especially core and site controller equipment – I’m one of a few enthusiasts working on documenting the protocol and keeping Type II alive with other hobbyists!
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Well yes but also no. Originally the systems was left online for back-up and for FCPS and their transportation. Then in 2021, the county bought an identical ASTRO system for backup. When FCPS built out their TIII DMR System that removed the need for the smartzone system in its entirety.
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This exactly. The county wont pay us overtime to go out there and we are busy during the day so we dont have time nor care much to go out and actually disconnect everything
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System is still up and broadcasting, and we have been told from higher ups to actually leave it on-air. So, as of now, thats all we have. And old system, broadcasting constantly, for no reason (that we know of).
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Oh Boy...
Last Friday we shut all the units down, 1 by 1, at each site. Everyone at radio shop said it was good to remove and we were planning to remove the repeaters on 3/21/25. We get in this morning? the sites are back up, in failsoft, and the trunking controller is now on 853.575, which is NOT it's programmed control frequency. Its code red over here, as no one knows what the hell is happening. Likely a breakdown in communications, or someone is playing an elaborate prank on us. Next time I go to the Master site on west ox, I'm going to actually unplug the unit and duplexer. If it comes back online again after that we will know there are some shenanigans happening here.
Last Friday we shut all the units down, 1 by 1, at each site. Everyone at radio shop said it was good to remove and we were planning to remove the repeaters on 3/21/25. We get in this morning? the sites are back up, in failsoft, and the trunking controller is now on 853.575, which is NOT it's programmed control frequency. Its code red over here, as no one knows what the hell is happening. Likely a breakdown in communications, or someone is playing an elaborate prank on us. Next time I go to the Master site on west ox, I'm going to actually unplug the unit and duplexer. If it comes back online again after that we will know there are some shenanigans happening here.
Outerbanks4wd
Member
Time to change the locks?
This story has been very interesting to me and yesterday I was actually able to be close enough to Fairfax to listen. I plugged the old system into my scanner and within minutes of entering Prince William County I was able to hear the failsoft beep. What is interesting is the failsoft beep is now on channel 852.275 and this is also not a control channel per the old system in the database.
I also went into analyze on my scanner and was able to see that the system ID that was shown also matches the old P16 system.
I also went into analyze on my scanner and was able to see that the system ID that was shown also matches the old P16 system.
Are you the admin for FFX Co p25 system ? The one who was a guest speaker on a YouTube channel ?
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An Admin, yes. THE Admin? No. That would be Charlie you're thinking about.
Cool yea from watching that 2 part YouTube interview he seems like he really knows what he's doing and so do you I'm wondering too I had a unication g4 alnot long ago and I was listening to Montgomery county MD cause I was in Rockville and it said device disabled is it true that a radio id if one 1 is randomly selected to be stunned or disabled ? Cause of possibly rougue HT,s out there ? When I called the admin for Moco Co he really got mad and hung up on me before I could truly explain that the g4 got stunned/disabled and that I was willing to meet him in person to get it working somehow since receive only scanners are legal.
BTW I hope you all got that old p16 system completely turned off so it doesn't cause havoc or a life safety issue
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Montgomery County has had multiple Duplicate ID's in the past year or so. While I don't know the admin personally, I'm sure none of the admins up there are super keen on anyone listening to anything, considering their move to FTE. I'm assuming your asking me if the system admin can stun the G4? Which would be no, because we can't stun something we cannot find. Unication's pagers do not affiliate, so there would be no ID to send the command to. I can't really decipher the rest of this post.
chrismol1
P25 TruCking!
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Unication pager stun
Has anyone ever heard of a unication pager being stunned/killed by a trunking system? It was mentioned to me, but I had never heard of them even having this capability. I would assume that if the pager was programmed with no id by default, there would be no way to stun it.
Registration; RID=1 REFUSED
I've been seeing several "Registration; RID=1 REFUSED" entries when monitoring our state's (TACN) system. I've been looking for it to try to affiliate, but so far, I haven't seen any attempts. Is that normal? I figured it's a failed attempt to NAS, so I'm wondering why no affiliation...
Although your device may be legal, it's not in a system admins job responsibilities to help a scanner hobbyist get his receiver working again. If you were a firefighter, that might be different.
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Wow. I would not expect a receive only device to respond to a command like that. The more you knowUnication pager stun
Has anyone ever heard of a unication pager being stunned/killed by a trunking system? It was mentioned to me, but I had never heard of them even having this capability. I would assume that if the pager was programmed with no id by default, there would be no way to stun it.forums.radioreference.com
Registration; RID=1 REFUSED
I've been seeing several "Registration; RID=1 REFUSED" entries when monitoring our state's (TACN) system. I've been looking for it to try to affiliate, but so far, I haven't seen any attempts. Is that normal? I figured it's a failed attempt to NAS, so I'm wondering why no affiliation...
