flinx
Member
I have been trying to get Apco 25 Phase II working on my Whistler WS1088 ever since I gave my PSR-500 away (8 months ago). I had my local FD, PD, and other systems all working on it. Although the database here says that my system (Maricopa counter Regional Wireless Cooperative) is Phase II simulcast it appears that is not exactly the case.
I got fed up with trying to get it working on my WS1088 and bought a Pro-651. I uploaded my old p500 file and after fixing some minor issues where my Pro-651 seemed to be slightly different than my old PSR-500 I found that I was not reliably receiving p25 on it either.
I swear I had everything working on my PSR-500. l cannot confirm this because my old radio is 1500 miles away in the hands of my nephew and reprogrammed.
For the people with short attention spans these are the settings (in win500) that finally got it to work in my Pro-651:
Setting the control channels to narrow FM this is what got the most results.
Setting the dwell times to 200 (shows as 2 in the scanner).
AGC on
Supertrack on
Trunking tables default
multisite mode off (though roam worked with hi set to 85 and lo set to 50).
delay enabled and set to 2000
all listed system frequencies entered
In Ezscan for the WS1088 for the effected p25 system:
System Attenuation off
Sytem AGC set to per site
dwell set to default .8s
talkgroup AGC all set off
Mode NFM
Multi-Site settings Low 50 High 85 (applied to all sites)
digital AGC off
Advanced DSP settings:
DSP level adapt 70
ADC Gain +2db
DAC Gain -4db
To sum up:
on the Pro-651 the biggest issue was not using NFM This was confusing as all the other p25 systems I had programmed were set the same (FM) and all of them generally worked:
3 systems in the MCRWC
APS
Luke AFB
Topaz
AZwins
Maricopa county
I had tried several combinations of antennas, antennas and a Jim M-75 amplifier. The amplifier sometimes made things worse with CRC errors. Squelch was a factor as well, and very touchy being set too high or low. What helped a lot was having 2 scanners and the CC dump in win500, this allowed me to tell if a setting made a difference or not, and whether the system was transmitting at the time.
The only other issue is that when scanning (with either scanner) anything other than a single P25 system I still don't pick up much from them, except Luke AFB. Although I can set a TGID to priority I can't find a setting to set a system as priority. If any of the RWC systems are selected as the only system I scan they work just fine.
But at least now it's working on both scanners.
My setup is a diamond discone, and a center loaded scanner antenna of some kind. The discone is about 23 feet AGL, and the scanner antenna is 3 feet directly below it and 1 foot to the SW. 2 seperate runs (uninterupted) of RG59u with bnc connectors. I have to manually change the antennas, every antenna switcher I have tried made things worse.
This information might help people with a WS1080, pro-106, Pro-197, Pro-652, PSR-600, PSR-800 TRX-1, or TRX-2.
I got fed up with trying to get it working on my WS1088 and bought a Pro-651. I uploaded my old p500 file and after fixing some minor issues where my Pro-651 seemed to be slightly different than my old PSR-500 I found that I was not reliably receiving p25 on it either.
I swear I had everything working on my PSR-500. l cannot confirm this because my old radio is 1500 miles away in the hands of my nephew and reprogrammed.
For the people with short attention spans these are the settings (in win500) that finally got it to work in my Pro-651:
Setting the control channels to narrow FM this is what got the most results.
Setting the dwell times to 200 (shows as 2 in the scanner).
AGC on
Supertrack on
Trunking tables default
multisite mode off (though roam worked with hi set to 85 and lo set to 50).
delay enabled and set to 2000
all listed system frequencies entered
In Ezscan for the WS1088 for the effected p25 system:
System Attenuation off
Sytem AGC set to per site
dwell set to default .8s
talkgroup AGC all set off
Mode NFM
Multi-Site settings Low 50 High 85 (applied to all sites)
digital AGC off
Advanced DSP settings:
DSP level adapt 70
ADC Gain +2db
DAC Gain -4db
To sum up:
on the Pro-651 the biggest issue was not using NFM This was confusing as all the other p25 systems I had programmed were set the same (FM) and all of them generally worked:
3 systems in the MCRWC
APS
Luke AFB
Topaz
AZwins
Maricopa county
I had tried several combinations of antennas, antennas and a Jim M-75 amplifier. The amplifier sometimes made things worse with CRC errors. Squelch was a factor as well, and very touchy being set too high or low. What helped a lot was having 2 scanners and the CC dump in win500, this allowed me to tell if a setting made a difference or not, and whether the system was transmitting at the time.
The only other issue is that when scanning (with either scanner) anything other than a single P25 system I still don't pick up much from them, except Luke AFB. Although I can set a TGID to priority I can't find a setting to set a system as priority. If any of the RWC systems are selected as the only system I scan they work just fine.
But at least now it's working on both scanners.
My setup is a diamond discone, and a center loaded scanner antenna of some kind. The discone is about 23 feet AGL, and the scanner antenna is 3 feet directly below it and 1 foot to the SW. 2 seperate runs (uninterupted) of RG59u with bnc connectors. I have to manually change the antennas, every antenna switcher I have tried made things worse.
This information might help people with a WS1080, pro-106, Pro-197, Pro-652, PSR-600, PSR-800 TRX-1, or TRX-2.
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