FUTURE HARRIS COUNTY /HOUSTON VISIT

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KE0HIN

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I will be visiting my brother in Houston in January I see many systems are Motorola type 2 but I'm curious are they operating in type 2 or can you hear some things in type 1? mainly interested in Fire only.
Scanner would be a 396 hand held

thanks
 

hiegtx

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I will be visiting my brother in Houston in January I see many systems are Motorola type 2 but I'm curious are they operating in type 2 or can you hear some things in type 1? mainly interested in Fire only.
Scanner would be a 396 hand held

thanks
Not sure where you are seeing 'many systems are Motorola Type II'. While there are a few of those systems, they are almost exclusively businesses.

Virtually all of the public safety agencies in the Houston metro area are on TxWARN P25, which is a P25 Phase II system.
Your 396, regardless of whether it's the original 396T, or the later 396XT, cannot handle Phase II talkgroups.

There are a few talkgroups that are P25 Phase I, as noted by the D in the mode column, but the majority are Phase II, mode T. There is also quite a bit of encryption on the law enforcement talkgroups, and a significant number of the Fire talkgroups.

There are a handful of smaller, volunteer, fire departments using DMR or NXDN, but the majority are on TxWARN. The DMR & NXDN systems are beyond the capability of the 396 models.

Also, TxWARN in the Harris County area is largely using simulcast sites, which are also a problem for the 396 model scanners.

There are several Houston Fire talkgroups that are Phase I, and on a different layer (site) from the rest of Houston Fire which are Phase II.
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There are several talkgroups, for various agencies, that are on the Broadcastify 'Calls' section. Those talkgroups are bold faced in the system listings.
 

KE0HIN

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ok yes I meant P25 type 2 sorry about that we had a type 2 system here that we could monitor type 1 traffic on and yes Im aware of the simucast issues as well thanks for the info
 

RaleighGuy

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ok yes I meant P25 type 2 sorry about that we had a type 2 system here that we could monitor type 1 traffic on and yes Im aware of the simucast issues as well thanks for the info
Proper name, to help others respond correctly, is P25 PHASE 1 and PHASE 2, not Type, a Type II system is an older style and not P25.
 

KevinC

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Without a scanner that handles both simulcast and TDMA your scanning experience in the greater Houston area will be less than stellar.
 
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