GATRRS Site 2-E620 (Simulcast 2) Down - Austin

[KTR722]

Can anyone connect to Site 2-E620? Apparently from my logs, it has been down since 3:42am this morning. Site 1-CW is up and functional.

I just tried to connect to Site 2 via Pro96Com; Site 1 is advertising the control channel as 851.1375 as an adjacent site but that freq (and all the Site 2 freqs) appear to be dead.

I normally keep my broadcastify feed set to Sim2 because the audio quality is just slightly better...but apparently anyone listening today just heard dead air...

I have the feed moved to Sim 1 for now

 

[ScannerMikeinTexas]

Simulcast 2 is down for me, located in Leander, I listen to Simulcast 1, Honeycomb, and Williamson sites via Whistler Trx 1, formerly known as Mikepro96fan, not sure why Simulcast 2 is down..

 

[KTR722]

Still down for me this morning also. Will try to make a few inquiries and see if I can relay anything.

 

[KevinC]

Still down for me this morning also. Will try to make a few inquiries and see if I can relay anything.

This may be part of the consolidation of the 2 simulcasts into one big 30 channel simulcast.

 

[KTR722]

Kevin, I made some preliminary inquiries but do not have anything solid back to report. What do you know about the simulcast consolidation? From the traffic loads I have seen on SIM1 lately, it makes sense to consolidate...there are a number of times where the number of available freqs in the pool was starting to look pretty slim.

FWIW I just checked again and Sim2 is still down. I will throw a trunk tracker on SIM1 later tonight and see if I can see any new freqs being added to the pool or if SIM2 is no longer being broadcast as an adjacent neighbor.

 

[Russell]

Phase II would solve that problem.

 

[rbarker]

From this Screenshot of Simulcast 1 it shows site 102 851.1375 as Failed if that helps

 

[KevinC]

Kevin, I made some preliminary inquiries but do not have anything solid back to report. What do you know about the simulcast consolidation? From the traffic loads I have seen on SIM1 lately, it makes sense to consolidate...there are a number of times where the number of available freqs in the pool was starting to look pretty slim.

FWIW I just checked again and Sim2 is still down. I will throw a trunk tracker on SIM1 later tonight and see if I can see any new freqs being added to the pool or if SIM2 is no longer being broadcast as an adjacent neighbor.

Several previous posts here mentioned it.

 

[blantonl]

Hmmm, I wonder if I should decom my BCFY Calls instance on SIM2 - it's been down for a few days.

 

[rbarker]

They took Simulcast 2 offline for maintenance. It should be back up by Inauguration Day.

1 (1)	002 (2)	Simulcast 2	Travis	851.0625	851.1375c	851.3125a	851.3875a	851.5875a	851.7375	851.8375
				852.1625	852.4125	852.6375	852.6875	852.950	853.050	853.275
				853.325	853.550	853.575	853.825	853.850

 

[KevinC]

Is it back yet?

 

[rbarker]

I do not show Simulcast 2 to be up yet as of Monday Jan 18 442pm

 

[Project25_MASTR]

Phase II would solve that problem.

Yes and no. When the dual layer system was built, County Wide was built to a technical limitation of Motorola simulcast systems at the time. In order to meet the planned upgrade schedule to the next version of Astro 25 (the core was on 7.15 and was to be upgraded to 7.17 and the core is regularly upgraded) some changes had to be made as the upgrade release no longer supported Quantars nor did it support circuit switching (forcing an upgrade to GTR8000's and IP backbone infrastructure). In that new release, that channel limitation was gone (which is what spurred the consolidation effort of County Wide and E620) and since trunking capacity is exponential, simply adding a single channel to the County Wide layer offers the same loading/call capacity as upgrading E620 to the same number of channels as County Wide. What was originally planned, the excess hardware (as co-located sub-sites had more RF paths than Astro 25 allowed for at a combined single site) would be repurposed to upgrade the capacity at the E620 only sub-sites.

Once you have a fully built out Astro 25 Phase 1 site, you get into the Motorola Phase 2 conundrum. That conundrum being, an Astro 25 site is not limited by the number of RF channels at the site but the number of voice paths available and that voice path limitation is the same for Phase 1 as it is for Phase 2. Thereby making a Phase 2 upgrade on a fully built out Phase 1 site mostly pointless as you won't be able to utilize roughly half of the channel capacity (unless you split it out into another layer). Looking at it from an economics perspective, either way the hardware upgrade had to be done. The cost for upgrading to Phase 2 doesn't really make sense while it would increase capacity for E620, and fully build out County Wide...it would force the upgrade of some 4,000 Phase 1 only subscribers in order to utilize the newfound capacity. Keeping things Phase 1 only allows you to put off the upgrading of those subscribers until the end of their natural service lives and better budget for it (and even keep the Phase 1 SU's in reserve for a major incident).

 

[KevinC]

Did it ever come back up?

 

[rbarker]

Simulcast 2 is still down. I wish I knew more. as of Thursday 810am

 

[KevinC]

I'm guessing it never came back?

 

[rbarker]

I haven't seen Simulcast 2 come back. There is a LOT MORE use of the intellirepeaters.

 

[KTR722]

Two updates; first is that Sim2 is no longer being transmitted as an available adjacent site (no longer listed but in failed state as before)-and is still down. Second is that a VHF frequency appears to have been added to Sim1 (162.2575) but I only have 1 hit on it so far.

 

[KTR722]

Reviewing Sim 1 this morning and looks like the first sign that Sim 2 is being consolidated into Sim 1 has showed up.

851.1375 has now been added to the Sim 1 frequency pool. This frequency used to be on Sim 2.

162.2575 is the only other change, first VHF frequency, presumably for compatibility with Burnet County and other VHF users?

Full dump of Pro96Com Sim 1 Tower site log below:

FileVersion:8
-TowerInfo
#This section is here for information only. With the exception
#of the Call Sign(s), This data is not Read back into the program at all.
System ID : 13E
System Name : Greater Austin/Travis Regional Radio System (GATRRS)
WACN : BEE09
Tower Number (Decimal): 1-1
Tower Number (Hex) : T0101
Tower Description : CW-S1 (Simulcast 1)
Control Capabilities : Data,Voice,Registration
Flavor : Phase 2
Call Sign(s) : WPQY686 WPQY813
Timestamp : Mon Mar 8 09:15:38 2021

-Tables
#Format: Table ID,Base Freq,Spacing,Input Offset,Assumed/Confirmed,BandWidth,Slots
00,851.00625,0.00625,-45.00000,"Confirmed",0.01250,1
01,762.00625,0.00625,30.00000,"Confirmed",0.01250,1
02,139.86250,0.00250,0.90000,"Confirmed",0.01250,1
03,150.10000,0.00250,-0.90000,"Confirmed",0.01250,1
04,160.33750,0.00250,-0.90000,"Confirmed",0.01250,1
05,762.00625,0.01250,30.00000,"Confirmed",0.01250,2

-Frequencies
#Format: Channel,Usage,Frequency(/Slot),Input Channel,Input Frequency(/Slot),Input Explicit(1/0),Hit Count
"00-0005","vdip",851.03750,"00-0005",806.03750,0,10723
"00-0021","v",851.13750,"00-0021",0.00000,0,0
"00-0025","avdp",851.16250,"00-0025",806.16250,0,15666
"00-0045","c",851.28750,"00-0045",806.28750,0,0
"00-0065","avdp",851.41250,"00-0065",806.41250,0,21370
"00-0089","avdp",851.56250,"00-0089",806.56250,0,4661
"00-0113","vdp",851.71250,"00-0113",806.71250,0,94099
"00-0129","vdp",851.81250,"00-0129",806.81250,0,93856
"00-0147","vdp",851.92500,"00-0147",806.92500,0,95297
"00-0173","vd",852.08750,"00-0173",807.08750,0,1181
"00-0177","vdp",852.11250,"00-0177",807.11250,0,94475
"00-0209","vd",852.31250,"00-0209",807.31250,0,1209
"00-0213","vdp",852.33750,"00-0213",807.33750,0,92988
"00-0251","vd",852.57500,"00-0251",807.57500,0,1229
"00-0255","vdp",852.60000,"00-0255",807.60000,0,95138
"00-0291","vdp",852.82500,"00-0291",807.82500,0,1256
"00-0295","vdp",852.85000,"00-0295",0.00000,0,12408
"00-0335","vd",853.10000,"00-0335",808.10000,0,1294
"00-0339","vdp",853.12500,"00-0339",808.12500,0,93632
"00-0377","vdp",853.36250,"00-0377",808.36250,0,94917
"00-0387","vdp",853.42500,"00-0387",808.42500,0,92601
"00-0419","vdp",853.62500,"00-0419",808.62500,0,94558
"00-0429","vdp",853.68750,"00-0429",808.68750,0,93440
"00-0459","vdip",853.87500,"00-0459",808.87500,0,10607
"00-0471","vdp",853.95000,"00-0471",808.95000,0,93378
"04-0768","v",162.25750,"04-0768",0.00000,0,1
"08-1162","v",0.00000,"08-1162",0.00000,0,1

-Neighbors
#Format: TowerID,TowerIDHex,System ID,Channel,Frequency,Tower Name
103,"T0103",13e,"00-0287",852.80000,"SGL BEND-S3 (Marble Falls IR)"
104,"T0104",13e,"00-0275",852.72500,"HONEYCOMB-S4 (Honeycomb IR)"
105,"T0105",13e,"00-0355",853.22500,"COLLIER-S5 (Burleson Manor IR)"
106,"T0106",13e,"00-0307",852.92500,"BELLSPRG-S6 (USGS Shingle IR)"
110,"T010A",13e,"01-1154",769.21875,”CAUS-S10 (Central Austin)”
120,"T0114",13e,"00-1113",857.96250,”WILCO-S20 (Williamson Co Simulcast)”

 

[Project25_MASTR]

Unless there is a new limitation in the release of Astro 25 that I am unaware of(should be 7.17 currently but I'm guessing it's being upgraded to 7.19 in the next month or two if CoA is still on track), there isn't a reason why the control channel should be advertising 162.2575 as an available channel as that would be something only a multiband radio (such as an APX8000 or APX8500) could utilize.

I remember being told that the IR sites (standalone sites) would be added to the consolidated simulcast system as well but that is still independent from the VHF Singleton Bend portion for Burnet county. On paper the 800 MHz and VHF portions of Singleton Bend are two separate sites (different site ID's and control channels) even though they are physically co-located on the same tower. I'm intrigued as to why that is advertising as such.