Franklin County/Columbus P25 System Discussion

[KD8DVR]

I have 5 scanners programmed for the New Columbus City system.
None of this receive on this system very good. At night sometimes the system is so bad that you cannot hear decodes at all. The Franklin Co and MARCS-IP work great. Crystal clear from all over the state, but cannot hear the Westside of Columbus on Columbus City.

One scanner is on an outside discone antenna which worked great with the old analog system. It works great with everything. When I looked at the Control channel 859.2125 which has never changed, I can bearly hear it.
Sometimes it will be 99% other times it will bearly decode.

Is Columbus still performing a low power test ?
Is this issue also why so many officers are not hearing calls while in buildings ?
There is something going on that I simply cannot understand after being in Radio and Television for over 45 years.
Any thoughts would be helpful, my mind is done.

Not in low power test. Fully active. I get Columbus city fine. Columbus MARCS is my biggest pain. The answer before mine answers it well. It's about location, antenna and luck.

AntiSquid disclaimer: All information provided is personal opinion only and may or may not resemble actual fact.

 

[kellysrv1]

Thanks for the response, I work in tv and radio for OSU.
Next time i see the Motorola tech i will see what he thinks.
Driving me nuts
Thanks again

 

[phask]

I have 5 scanners programmed for the New Columbus City system.
None of this receive on this system very good. At night sometimes the system is so bad that you cannot hear decodes at all. The Franklin Co and MARCS-IP work great. Crystal clear from all over the state, but cannot hear the Westside of Columbus on Columbus City.

One scanner is on an outside discone antenna which worked great with the old analog system. It works great with everything. When I looked at the Control channel 859.2125 which has never changed, I can bearly hear it.
Sometimes it will be 99% other times it will bearly decode.

Is Columbus still performing a low power test ?
Is this issue also why so many officers are not hearing calls while in buildings ?
There is something going on that I simply cannot understand after being in Radio and Television for over 45 years.
Any thoughts would be helpful, my mind is done.

I don't see 859.2125 as a CC?
What scanner(s)?
How did you program them?
Link to what you programmed?

 

[SCPD]

I don't see 859.2125 as a CC?
....

I see it here:
Columbus City Site Details (Ohio MARCS-IP: Multi-Agency Radio Communications (P25))

 

[phask]

I see it here:
Columbus City Site Details (Ohio MARCS-IP: Multi-Agency Radio Communications (P25))

Weird - I did a copy and paste nd it did not find it on the main page. Probably added a space .

 

[ebuckeye]

The system has been utilizing the backup control channels as well. Not sure if this is normal practice on these types of systems, but my audio seems to perform the best with the backup CC's. My radios seemed to have difficulty decoding 859.2125. Maybe it was just a coincidence.

The audio used to be terrible on the Eastside, but over the last two weeks it has improved tremendously. Still not perfect, but I can at least listen most of the time without wanting to throw my scanner through the window. Be Patient, maybe system adjustments will benefit you down the road.

 

[copper434]

For the tech savvy that are out there ...trying to set my shack pro-651 to the set it up...then leave it alone...monitoring at one location settings...what are you turning on/off in these options 1) muti-site on/off stat roam 2) attenuators on/off 3) narrow FM on/off 4)Dwell ( set at ) 5) AGC 6)super track on/off...when on the road in roam setting what high / low threshold ...If my location is important...based at 1/2 mile south of E.broad & Rosehill Rd...When traveling from that location daily to Gahanna at Hamilton Rd. & E. Johnstown Rd. Thanks

 

[wb5ycm]

Columbus marcs towers -physical locations

I am trying [desperately] to reduce the effect of multi-path reception on my Whistler-1040 Scanner on the NW Side of Columbus. Can anyone tell me the locations of the towers broadcasting on these six frequencies? [The single frequency for Line-61, Franklin County is perfectly clear, BTW]:

Radio-Ref Line 10: Columbus City WNRJ541:
851.41250
851.66250
853.0375

Radio Ref Line 16: Columbus MARCS WPTZ7770
773.531250
773.781250
774.031250

[Line numbers refer to the Win500 application.]
I understand that there is a tower by the Fire Station at Polaris, but others might be better, given the realities of UHF signal propagation. Any help on this will be greatly appreciated! de Jack-KW5A

 

[phask]

ULS License - PubSafty/SpecEmer/PubSaftyNtlPlan,806-817/851-862MHz,Trunked License - WNRJ541 - COLUMBUS, CITY OF - DIVISION OF SUPPORT SERVICES - Locations Summary

I find nothing for WPTZ7770 - probably a typo in the DB

 

[KD8DVR]

I am trying [desperately] to reduce the effect of multi-path reception on my Whistler-1040 Scanner on the NW Side of Columbus. Can anyone tell me the locations of the towers broadcasting on these six frequencies? [The single frequency for Line-61, Franklin County is perfectly clear, BTW]:


I understand that there is a tower by the Fire Station at Polaris, but others might be better, given the realities of UHF signal propagation. Any help on this will be greatly appreciated! de Jack-KW5A

You can go to the FCC website and look at their license data. It will give the physical location of each tower.

The Polaris tower, you are referring to Is located at Sancus and Lazelle. On Station 33s lot. It is about 1.5is miles from my house.... sweeet! Needless to say, Columbus City for me is a primo system

 

[KD8DVR]

ULS License - PubSafty/SpecEmer/PubSaftyNtlPlan,806-817/851-862MHz,Trunked License - WNRJ541 - COLUMBUS, CITY OF - DIVISION OF SUPPORT SERVICES - Locations Summary

Ok... you got that one in there right as I was typing my response Yeah..... did me one better That's the site.

 

[wb5ycm]

THANKS!

Thanks John 'n Phask for super fast and super acurate replies. This was driving me a little nuts! 73 de Jack KW%A

 

[Chief580]

Hi all, Is their anyone else in the Lancaster area monitoring Col Fire now that the re banding has taken place. Really hard to get from my location. Was wondering if it will not come into Fairfield County only units on Col are Madison or Violet Twp.

 

[copper434]

I'm not in Lancaster I'm E.Broad & Rosehill in R-burg...CFD is apparently done tinkering with the system occasionally they had been switching back 'n forth with the old & new systems which really screwed up scanning... For about last 3 weeks it has gotten much better...probably not gonna get any better but we still have a lot of issues which is probably related to cell towers and atmospheric/nature things...From what I have picked up from the more tech savvy is try and point antenna to one site which I guess would be for u S.Hamilton Rd. & Groves Rd (Eastland ) or 5600 Parsons Ave ( far south)...A interesting phenomenon u could sometimes take advantage of according to the savvy is if there is C-bus City employee that has a take home radio turned on it will pickup C-bus traffic in contiguous Counties and allow scanners in those areas to suddenly pickup all the C-Bus traffic ..maybe we need to recruit a bunch of them to leave their radios on ,lol...I found that out when I was dead silent here and suddenly I was getting CPD from Licking County sites.

 

[copper434]

TG 57334 not in database...heard surveillance likely CPD tac

 

[KD8DVR]

TG 57334 not in database...heard surveillance likely CPD tac

There are a ton of those talkgroups. I kind of note the ID and what it MAY be on Unitrunker and set the priority high so I can try to decipher what's going on. I submit them once i'm 100% sure what they are.

Since Columbus is so new at this, there are a LOT of unknowns.

 

[copper434]

Yep I do the same .I temp assign to favorite until receive more info

 

[ebuckeye]

The Columbus has not been great from a scanning perspective the last several days, after being great for a while in the previous weeks. For some reason, 10FIRE seems to have the best audio all the time.

I have done some fine tuning with my settings, and I found this article to be very helpful. It is specific to my scanner, but it does help explain what the settings accomplish. You might be able to find a model specific guide to making adjustments.

I always keep my ATT off, otherwise I do not receive any CC.

It seemed to run best on setting 6, but I still keep it on auto, because the the signal fluctuates so much.

I keep my filter on OFF. P25 adjust mode is at 3.

I think I need to adjust the wait time to different setting. My scanner seems to work better when my channels are manually on rather than scanning. Anyway, Here is the link:

P25 audio decode level adjustment - The RadioReference Wiki

I have used my walkie with my scanner nearby. It picked it up, but that is about all the testing I can do.

 

[copper434]

The link to P25 audio decode I guess is for uniden ...anybody using shack Pro-106 ,651 have suggestions for those?

 

[Colin9690]

I'm using the TRX-2, and live in the Polaris area right on the Franklin/Delaware County line. I can pick up CPD Zone 1 & 5 loud and clear, but for some reason haven't heard anything out of the other zones. Also, I'm not picking up Columbus FD at all.

I have all the sites in the area programmed in. Riverview (Delaware County), the 2 Franklin County sites, and the Columbus site.

Anyone know why this is?