is Myrtle Beach P25 phase II now

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chuckinnc

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I have tried entering 859.7125 as a wildcard and P25 in my pro106, but don't hear anything. Signal strength is good, also tried 854.4125 856.2125 858.9625a 859.2125a 859.4375a listed in the RR database
however still nothing. My pro106 only does P25 phase 1 so has MBPD changed to phase II ?
 

chuckinnc

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Till unable to get any audio on P25

Something still not right, I cleared all data in my pro106, re entered control channel as wildcard several times I can see the freq being received and strong signal strength but no audio, When I got back home with the scanner, once again cleared all data and programmed in P25 for my county, NC state viper system,ect. everything worked as it should. Must be something different about the newer P25 system in Horry county/Myrtle Beach.
 

troymail

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Something still not right, I cleared all data in my pro106, re entered control channel as wildcard several times I can see the freq being received and strong signal strength but no audio, When I got back home with the scanner, once again cleared all data and programmed in P25 for my county, NC state viper system,ect. everything worked as it should. Must be something different about the newer P25 system in Horry county/Myrtle Beach.

Yup - VIPER (to my knowledge - at least in my area) is not simulcast like Horry. VIPER appears to be a bunch of stand-alone towers. Picture a bunch a large overlapping "circles" of coverage. Generally, you are always in at least one of those circles of coverage from a single specific tower - but usually, more than one. In that scenario, each tower is transmitting on different frequencies even if they are carrying any given talkgroup on multiple sites/towers. Real user/subscriber radios are only "listening" to a single site at any given time.

Horry County is a "countywide simulcast system". Essentially, it's just one big "circle" (not really a circle but you get the idea). There are multiple towers transmitting the exact same thing and all on the same exact frequencies all at the same time. There are tweaks made to these signals such that they transmit at ever so slightly different times to provide better coverage for the area ("the county"). Scanners are not designed to properly handle these signal tweaks in timing and the fact they are "off" by just that little bit essentially results in multiple signals hitting your scanner and "cancelling each other out" (think like - what does +3 and -3 equal? = 0).

Best I understand - these simulcast systems (or individual sites in a system) function this way to both provide better coverage ("in building vs. "on the street" like VIPER) and to reduce the footprint of the transmissions outside the area of intended coverage.

Hopefully this makes sense.
 

chuckinnc

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Thanks, back at the beach again and can only pickup MBPD using laptop SDR Sharp, DSD, works great but the Pro106 scanner is still silent. I think you nailed it, but for whatever reason the cheap $10 rtl-sdr
dongle can to what $300 scanner can't.
 

cobra

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I am not familiar with how the PRO 106 works, but I am getting the Horry County simulcast (Myrtle Beach)
traffic on my Uniden BCD 996T down here in Georgetown but only after programming it as a re-banded P25 P1. The Georgetown County P25 P1 system is another story however. It comes in garbled and I think that they must be using CQPSK modulation.
I hope this helps.
 
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kc4jgc

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I have tried entering 859.7125 as a wildcard and P25 in my pro106, but don't hear anything. Signal strength is good, also tried 854.4125 856.2125 858.9625a 859.2125a 859.4375a listed in the RR database
however still nothing. My pro106 only does P25 phase 1 so has MBPD changed to phase II ?

I'm not understanding how you program a frequency as a wildcard. Looking at the RRDB, 859.7125 is the primary control freq, and should be listed in your system freqs. Wildcards refer to talk group ID's within a system.

I have a '106 and use WIN500; no way to program "wildcard freqs".

That being said, Troymail is correct in that digital simulcast distortion is the bane of existence for us trying to monitor these systems. My reception of simulcast systems on my '106 has become worse in recent months. Non-simulcast systems like STARS in VA and VIPER in NC I have no trouble.
 
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chuckinnc

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I program NC viper system as a wildcard

Where I live in Catawba Co,NC there are 3 towers, I program the 3 as wildcards and select the one nearest
me. Youtube has some old vids of how to program a wildcard for Pro 106/197.. This works great and picks up everything coming of the tower, however in MB,SC this dosent work. 859.7125 control channel shows up like a constant carrier, and to receive P25 audio I have to monitor the other frequencys listed in RR database like 857.2125 857.4375 857.7125 857.9625 858.2125 858.4375 instead of the CC or alternate.
 

kc4jgc

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Where I live in Catawba Co,NC there are 3 towers, I program the 3 as wildcards and select the one nearest me. Youtube has some old vids of how to program a wildcard for Pro 106/197..
Please link the video to which you refer. I'm not understanding how one enters a wildcard frequency & how it works.
This works great and picks up everything coming of the tower, however in MB,SC this dosent work. 859.7125 control channel shows up like a constant carrier, and to receive P25 audio I have to monitor the other frequencys listed in RR database like 857.2125 857.4375 857.7125 857.9625 858.2125 858.4375 instead of the CC or alternate.

Sounds to me you're programming everything as conventional, not trunked. The control frequency will have have constant data; in order track the control has to be programmed as a trunked system. This is where you're losing me ;the only place to enter wildcards is where one would program talkgroups within the system.

Again, the point to be made is that municipal P25 trunking systems are generally simulcast, meaning all sites have the same frequencies. Our Pro-106's like many scanners, have difficulty with receiving digital simulcast systems. The statewide systems, such as VIPER are not simulcast; each site have separate freqs. Therefore, the simulcast distortion does not exist.
 

chuckinnc

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OK here it is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FVdanCy-pM, this guy Mister Twister has good vids on how to manually program a Pro106, it works great on NC P25 systems but not at Myrtle beach, I have to use RTL-SDR
and cheap $10 dongle to decode SC P25 systems,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4lrm_TxYuc this guy has a spoonfed way to set on up on any PC or laptop, it uses DSDplus which also decodes DMR, lots of that in MB and Horry county
 

kc4jgc

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FVdanCy-pM, this guy Mister Twister has good vids on how to manually program a Pro106, it works great on NC P25 systems but not at Myrtle beach,....

At the 4:18 mark on the video, Mr.Twister never entered a wildcard frequency, he entered the control frequency for his local system under system freqs. He did, however, enter a wildcard on talk groups.

I take it you do not have software to program your scanner. I do have a file that's "somewhat" updated, in that Horry County is updated. The SC Palmetto statewide I'm still working on, though Troop 5, which covers that part of SC is up to date. If you have WIN500 I can send you a file, if you'd like.
 
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chuckinnc

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Yep, I was sending one of Mister Twisters vids I had handy, you can lookup his other one's for the wildcard
that's how I program my 106, I bought the cable but never got the software so I do all mine manually, my
area in NC is going to P25phase 2 so I may get rid of the pro106. If I decide to keep it, then I would like to get the file from you, my email is good on QRZ
Chuck / n4aeq
 
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