GSP repeater?

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Cow

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Does GSP have a repeater in a county where there is not a post with a communications center? I live in Decatur county (Bainbridge is the city, southwest corner of the state)and the Americus post houses the communications/dispatchers, so how does the radio signal coming from the cars(freq 154.800) reach all of the way up to Americus? I can barely hear the troopers when they are 10 miles away. I heard a trooper over the radio say to another "The Bainbridge tower must be down" because the dispatcher said that he was having a hard time hearing them. Please someone shed some light on this and if you have the freq. of the repeater then please post it. Thanks
 

kayn1n32008

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Probably. It is easy to link one place to a repeater that can be across the road or hundreds of kilometers away. It is done by a variaty of ways, by lease line, fibre optics, Uhf point to point or microwave point to point links, or a combination of all of the above
 

b7spectra

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Remember, the GSP car is transmitting on 154.8000 on about 110 watts. The GSP post is receiving it on an antenna that is any where from 50-100' above ground level. When you have an antenna up that high, you can pick up a lot of traffic from good distances.

Having your antenna as high as you can get it makes all the difference in the world.
 

k4sgt

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GSP is using Motobridge to link their towers and to consolidate the dispatching. If they loose a link then that tower is down. The other adjacent towers can fill in the gaps (poorly) while the down site is being worked on. I support a couple of these linked sites around my neck of the woods. There are no repeaters (around here) and the Quantars and MTR 2000 machines are all being used as bases. GSP dispatchers TX on one freq and the cars TX on another freq just like a repeater, but there is not any hardware to repeat the signal. The mobiles are just programmed in reverse of the bases. You should be scanning both the car and the base TX freqs with your antenna as high as you can get it in order to hear their traffic.

Barry
K4SGT
 
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procopper7005

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As always the key with GSP is to have your antenna as high as possible.

Also, each post still is equipped with a full dispatch console and base station which can be manned by a trooper if needed, even though the comms centers were consolidated.
 

radiofan1

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AND the GSP is so clever that they never bothered with that old '60s PL tone thingy... AND they're all still wideband. :roll:
 

ButchGone

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I'm pretty sure GSP is using narrowband analog
on it's VHF freqs, at least up this way in north Georgia. The transmissions from base and mobiles sounds pinched, just like narrow analog does on other services. In any event, they sound much different than they used to prior to reshuffling dispatching to regional coms centers.
BG..
 

procopper7005

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Being that most of GA is still extremely rural and looks nothing like metro Atlanta, the system GSP has used has actually worked fairly well.
All GSP should do is what Texas DPS did, start using VHF p-25 repeaters. There is absolutely no need for trunking as each post usually only has 2 to 4 troopers working a multi county area at one time. At night in much of GA there might only be one single trooper covering well over 1000 square miles alone, there is no need for anything more than a single VHF repeater.
Keep it simple and cheap.
 

MTS2000des

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why would we just take the simplest route?
P25 conventional repeaters? We NEED 700/800MHz simulcast ASSTRO25 sites all over the state, nevermind the infrastructure costs into the hundreds of millions, not to mention the ongoing costs of maintenance and support, but remember we have NO CHOICE as the "digital mandate" is but around the corner.:roll:

back to reality, conventional VHF digital would be ideal, and they would get the most bang for the buck. But this IS the state of Georgia, the same people who brought you the now defunct 800MHz project of 1995, how well did that work out? Two or three sites, and then everyone switched to Zig Zag's friends system Southern LINC...anything is possible.

One thing I have learned is you can count on incompetence. It's what we have become famous for.
 

SCPD

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GSP Radio System

Come on MTS2000des, give GSP a break. I personally feel the State has some very good, competent personnel overseeing their two-way radio equipment and systems and are doing their best to make good on the two-way radio resources (equipment, frequencies, infrastructure and funding) they have. I think if GSP is installing or has installed VHF P25 capable base stations and mobile radios along with issuing our troopers P25 compliant portable radios then this is a huge improvement over what we have seen in past years with previous administrators and personnel. I think the attitude of "We have got to have a Statewide 800 MHz Trunked Radio System and nothing else will do" may be gone and the personnel who have been put in charge of overseeing the two-way radio equipment and systems in recent years do not have tunnel vision when it comes to a solution. I know they know there are other ways to achieve interoperability with the users of the disparate radio systems operated by cities and counties throughout our State and some very good solutions are in place today.

I just wish the idea of installing VHF P25 Systems had caught on three to five years ago by both the State and all of the cities and counties in Georgia who still operate VHF Systems. This could have been a win-win situation for the State, all of the cities and counties still operating VHF Systems and the taxpayers especially if local and state government and agencies within these two levels had pooled their radio frequency resources to create regional VHF P25 Systems or possibly one large Statewide VHF P25 System like other states have done. Heck, can you imagine what type of system could be built out if one took all of the VHF frequencies licensed to the State that are in use by the Department of Corrections, DOT, GBI, Georgia Forestry, GSP an other State agencies and put these into one system? Now throw in the VHF frequencies licensed to the cities and counties for all services, not just fire, police, sheriff, EMS, etc. and image the possibilities. You and many others out there know that I am not a huge fan of P25, but this would have been a better scenerio than what we are seeing unveil today with the various systems throughout our State. Several cities and counties operating fairly good VHF Systems have elected to switch to 700 MHz P25 Systems or switch to proprietary VHF or UHF Systems like MotoTRBO or NEXEDGE (Yes, you read this correctly, one county has switched from VHF conventional to UHF MotoTRBO in a predominantly VHF state and I hear a couple of others are considering doing the same). Many of these agencies did this because they were convinced by their radio vendor that this was the best way to meet the narrowband mandate and now you see where it has gotten us. Without the intervention of a communications officer/dispatcher to activate a gateway (i.e. ACU-1000, console patch, Motobridge, etc.) our field responders have less control over interoperability today than they did back in the early 1980s. Don't get me wrong, gateways are a good solution to interoperability as long as the responders using disparate radio systems are within the coverage of both radio systems, but if they get outside the coverage of one or both systems then the gateway is an oversided paper weight. I did hear the other day that a couple of counties in Georgia are considering upgrading their VHF analog conventional systems to VHF P25, so maybe if this happens then VHF P25 will catch on in other counties throughout Georgia.

Boy, I really would have liked to have seen all of the cities, counties and State pool their VHF frequencies to at least build out some regional VHF P25 Systems (I truly think this could have been done if the right people had gotten together). I think had they done this they could have reduced and possibly eliminated the problems of not having the "right splits" on frequencies for repeater inputs and outputs or the problem of "not having enough VHF frequencies to create a P25 Trunked Radio System", but the sad part is we may never know because other commitments have already been made. More than likely we will not see this opportunity arise again until there is another major change in technology and shift in spectrum. In the meantime, there will probably be a lot of VHF frequencies that cities and counties will maintain current licenses for that will not be used. What a shame...
 
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MTS2000des

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I am glad to hear there are finally changing attitudes at the state level...wasn't always this way.

A TRUE Project 25 trunked system (not one of the proprietary "one offs" some vendors peddle) would be a great start, especially if ISSI roaming were part of the backbone.

The other part of our issue isn't just the radio system itself but the psychology behind interagency interactions. As I write this, there was a high speed chase involving Atlanta PD, DeKalb PD, GSP that went into the city of East Point.

WSB-TV carried the video live from their chopper as they picked up the chase on the downtown connector. The suspect wound up exiting at Langford. APD and GSP are on the Atlanta DTRS. GSP had no trouble coordinating with APD, DeKalb turned up as well.

East Point, despite being on the same radio system (ATL DTRS), had NO IDEA what was coming there way- a good 5 minutes into the chase, EPPD dispatch notified their units of "GSP in a pursuit somewhere on Stanton Rd" by this time, the suspect spun out and hit the wall on 166. GSP and APD had the suspect in custody and 166 shut down, another 3 minutes go by when EPPD arrive to find traffic stopped on 166WB.

Again, someone explain why NO ONE from APD, GSP or others involved switched to EPPD and advised them?

There is so much more to this "problem" of interoperability than going out and dropping money on radios.
 

procopper7005

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I am glad to hear there are finally changing attitudes at the state level...wasn't always this way.

A TRUE Project 25 trunked system (not one of the proprietary "one offs" some vendors peddle) would be a great start, especially if ISSI roaming were part of the backbone.

The other part of our issue isn't just the radio system itself but the psychology behind interagency interactions. As I write this, there was a high speed chase involving Atlanta PD, DeKalb PD, GSP that went into the city of East Point.

WSB-TV carried the video live from their chopper as they picked up the chase on the downtown connector. The suspect wound up exiting at Langford. APD and GSP are on the Atlanta DTRS. GSP had no trouble coordinating with APD, DeKalb turned up as well.

East Point, despite being on the same radio system (ATL DTRS), had NO IDEA what was coming there way- a good 5 minutes into the chase, EPPD dispatch notified their units of "GSP in a pursuit somewhere on Stanton Rd" by this time, the suspect spun out and hit the wall on 166. GSP and APD had the suspect in custody and 166 shut down, another 3 minutes go by when EPPD arrive to find traffic stopped on 166WB.

Again, someone explain why NO ONE from APD, GSP or others involved switched to EPPD and advised them?

There is so much more to this "problem" of interoperability than going out and dropping money on radios.

Because GSP Atlanta comms center is staffed with a skeleton crew of radio operators who make 13 dollars an hour and can barely answer the phones during busy times.

GSP and APD pursue cars all the time in the city and GSP troopers almost always monitor whatever zone they are in as well as the APD SOD main TG.

Here is a link to a nice pursuit in 75/85 initiated by an APD DUI unit with GSP joining at some point:
Atlanta Police Chase 1-20-08 - YouTube

and another one with GSP helping out:
Atlanta Police Chase 5-23-08 - YouTube

enjoy
 

radiofan1

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I'm pretty sure GSP is using narrowband analog
on it's VHF freqs, at least up this way in north Georgia. The transmissions from base and mobiles sounds pinched, just like narrow analog does on other services. In any event, they sound much different than they used to prior to reshuffling dispatching to regional coms centers.
BG..

That's because Motobridge systems sound like narrow and pinched, Butch. The GSP sites I was involved in a couple of months ago are indeed wideband, the base stations are motobridged to 1 centrally located post for dispatch.
 
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