Hillsborough District School Bus Radio

[nuclearrat]

I saw a couple of news articles that mentioned that Hillsborough County spent $1 million on radio upgrades to a new "digital" system for all of its school buses. 462.125 and 464.100 are now silent. Wondering if anyone has found their new freq./system type, or if they're truly all-digital and we'll never hear them again. Below is a link to the article that I saw about the new radios. I *thought* they were going to move over to the Hillsborough EDACS, but I do not hear them on the west side system.

Hillsborough installs digital cameras in school buses

 

[TampaTyron]

They are on a 2 repeater, 4 slot UHF Motorola Capacity Plus Digital Radio System. I designed it approx 3 years ago and it was installed shortly after that. I no longer work for that shop, but you can find their contact info on the new license. DMRdecode works nicely on figuring it out and programming your own Mototrbo radio to follow it.................. TT

 

[nuclearrat]

Thank you for the information and prompt response!

 

[CanesFan95]

Hearing lots of school bus activity on 464.100 and 462.125 with DSD+ on a PSR-800. It sounds like trunking though. Is there a control channel frequency, or do they use rest channels?

 

[TampaTyron]

They went from a 2 channel Capacity Plus to a 4ch Capacity Plus system a few weeks ago. Capacity Plus has a "Rest Channel" that is basically a control channel. It hops from Channel to channel based on time or system activity. You can tel which repeater is the rest channel by the bursts every 1-2 seconds. TT

 

[CanesFan95]

Thanks. Do you know what the 4 frequencies are and if there's anyway to follow the trunking?

 

[TampaTyron]

464.100, 462.125, 460.1375, 454.650
I follow it with several Mototrbo radios, which is by far the easiest way to track the system. I would have used DMRdecode to work out the system details if I didn't already have them from a previous life........... TT

 

[CanesFan95]

Awesome, thanks. Now I'm wondering if there's software that can track DMR systems. So I guess there's 8 voice paths which could accommodate many more talkgroups and a given talkgroup could end up on either slot 1 or 2. It seems like a lot of these DMR systems aren't in the database yet unless I'm missing something. I wonder if there'll ever be such thing as a DMR capable scanner.

 

[kd4efm]

Awesome, thanks. Now I'm wondering if there's software that can track DMR systems. So I guess there's 8 voice paths which could accommodate many more talkgroups and a given talkgroup could end up on either slot 1 or 2. It seems like a lot of these DMR systems aren't in the database yet unless I'm missing something. I wonder if there'll ever be such thing as a DMR capable scanner.

8 voice paths, 8 talkgroups all at one time. 9th TG S.o.L.
Cap Plus radios around to the next open channel (poor mans LTR or SMARTrunk)
It's not quite Dispatch and it's not quite Control Channel trunking.
It's a $35,000 controller that Motorola prides its self on.

Just My Opinion.

Long Live NXDN Type C trunking!

 

[CanesFan95]

Well hello there KD4EFM. I've sandbagged you on the big stick giving weather reports a few times. I guess I have some learning to do to get up to speed on the more recent types of systems.

 

[TampaTyron]

8 voice paths, 8 talkgroups all at one time. 9th TG S.o.L.


Currently, this customer has less than 20 talkgroups. The chance of 20 talkgroups busy-ing out an 8 channel trunking system is very small. That being said, they busy-ed the crap out of their old 4 channel system.......TT

 

[AESFTW]

So I got to program the 4 Channels into the CPS. From that point what should be done next? I am using a XPR-6550. Im not all that familiar with the C+ (Capacity Plus) system. Does anyone have a sample codeplug or that can lead me in the right direction?

 

[JRayfield]

Not sure what you mean by "it's not quite dispatch".

Capacity Plus and LInked Capacity Plus do not use controllers. Everything is in the repeaters.

Connect Plus uses a controller at each site. The multisite controllers are about $50,000 each, MSPR.

John Rayfield, Jr.
W0PM

8 voice paths, 8 talkgroups all at one time. 9th TG S.o.L.
Cap Plus radios around to the next open channel (poor mans LTR or SMARTrunk)
It's not quite Dispatch and it's not quite Control Channel trunking.
It's a $35,000 controller that Motorola prides its self on.

Just My Opinion.

Long Live NXDN Type C trunking!

 

[AESFTW]

Wondering same thing...

 

[AESFTW]

Does this system currently use two "rest channels" or has it been upgraded to four channels. Currently have two programmed and at times the radio is receiving full signal then minutes later out of range. I am sure it uses four though.

 

[AESFTW]

Control/Rest Channels

So I got to program the 4 Channels into the CPS. From that point what should be done next? I am using a XPR-6550. Im not all that familiar with the C+ (Capacity Plus) system. Does anyone have a sample codeplug or that can lead me in the right direction?

Please disregard this question.....What im wondering is if there are 4 "rest channels" or is there currently just two? I have 460.1375, 454.650 currently programmed and at times i can get in and receive at full scale and then seconds to minutes later the radio goes into Out of Range. If I could guess that would be the issue because on my yaesu Ft-90r at home i can hear mototrbo on 464.100 and 462.125. If anyone has any info on this i would be grateful.

 

[TampaTyron]

All of the channels can be rest channels. In order to track CAP+, you must have all channels with the proper frequency, color code, and channel number programmed (is each frequency 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, etc). Then, you have to be aware of the talkgroup IDs used on the system. I set up a receive list and use a specific channel with a RX list of all the talkgroups as a "SCAN" function. TT

 

[AESFTW]

Does this system currently use two "rest channels" or has it been upgraded to four channels. Currently have two programmed and at times the radio is receiving full signal then minutes later out of range. I am sure it uses four though.

Sure enough that turned out to be the case. I entered all four instead of just the two and now im getting full coverage on all talk groups.