Is the West Orange TRS down?

[Highpockets]

I recently purchased a new Uniden scanner and had it programmed to pick up WO EDACS and so far no luck... I am picking up the state police, county police and other municipalities but NOTHING for West Orange (and yes, I have the new frequencies for WO programmed).

Can anyone give me a clue as to what the heck is wrong here?

What Uniden did you get?

 

[SCPD]

I recently purchased a new Uniden scanner and had it programmed to pick up WO EDACS and so far no luck... I am picking up the state police, county police and other municipalities but NOTHING for West Orange (and yes, I have the new frequencies for WO programmed).

Can anyone give me a clue as to what the heck is wrong here?

Do you have it programmed as EDACS wide? In order to help you we need more information other than you have the rebanded frequencies programmed.

 

[gcr33]

I thought Nextel was told by the FCC the had to get off the 800 Mhz. band so as not to interfere with the public safety band, not the other way around!????

No, Sprint Nextel is paying for the move to clear the 866-868 band and some of the incumbents in the 851-854 band are being moved to other frequencies. Users of the 866-868 are being moved down exactly 15mhz from where they are. This sounds like one of the first to be moved in NJ. There will be others occuring. 866-868 band will be cleared.
It's not a matter of it making sense it's being done period.

 

[SCPD]

No, Sprint Nextel is paying for the move to clear the 866-868 band and some of the incumbents in the 851-854 band are being moved to other frequencies. Users of the 866-868 are being moved down exactly 15mhz from where they are. This sounds like one of the first to be moved in NJ. There will be others occuring. 866-868 band will be cleared.
It's not a matter of it making sense it's being done period.

Incumbents in the 851-854 band are being moved? That is odd since that is where they are moving everyone else to.

 

[robbinsj2]

851-854 incumbents need to be moved to make room for all the NPSPAC users moving down exactly 15 MHz. Others are affected by rebanding as well, there should be a good deal of info on the overall rebanding effort in the wiki here or at the 800MHz Transition Authority's web site.

Jim

 

[markjrenna]

I have a BC 780 XLT and I cannot listen to West Orange. Is it my scanner or do I have it programmed wrong?

Do I need a new Digital scanner? I would like to listen to Montclair too.

Any help would be great! Thanks.

 

[xpawel15x]

I have a BC 780 XLT and I cannot listen to West Orange. Is it my scanner or do I have it programmed wrong?

Do I need a new Digital scanner? I would like to listen to Montclair too.

Any help would be great! Thanks.

With your scanner you can listen to West Orange. Just program it in the LCD order as in the database and make sure each frequency is set to EDACS (ED). You need a digital scanner to listen to Montclair though. And possibly a cable and software to listen to Montclair because their system has two table ranges, can't program that manually.

 

[SCPD]

With your scanner you can listen to West Orange. Just program it in the LCD order as in the database and make sure each frequency is set to EDACS (ED). You need a digital scanner to listen to Montclair though. And possibly a cable and software to listen to Montclair because their system has two table ranges, can't program that manually.

The LCD and the LCN make no difference. Just make sure you have the correct frequencies. If you're off by one digit you won't hear it correctly.

 

[robbinsj2]

The LCD and the LCN make no difference. Just make sure you have the correct frequencies. If you're off by one digit you won't hear it correctly.

I do not understand what you are referring to. LCN order absolutely does make a difference for EDACS, it is critical. Motorola systems don't have LCNs so there is no such thing as an LCN order for Montclair. For reference, LTR also uses LCNs and the effect of having them out of order seems to vary by scanner.

markjrenna, are you using the current West Orange frequencies as currently listed in the database? They did change fairly recently. Once you have the four frequencies programmed into the proper channel slots in your scanner and have them set to EDACS, make sure the bank is set to trunk type EDACS WIDE and that you're in ID SEARCH mode. If you are then hearing everything, you may program in only the talkgroup IDs which you want to monitor and switch over to ID SCAN mode.

Jim

 

[markjrenna]

Guys,

I'm in Verona. I have never been able to get West Orange as good as I could back when they were on 15x.xxx or something in that area.

I have programmed in both the old and the new frequencies but nothing. I barely see any signal also.

For the record, I receive Verona just fine and they are EDACS Narrow. I get State Police just fine and I know they are a Type II Hybrid. So... I feel I know how to program my Scanner. I also use Trunkstar Pro.

Maybe I need to clear the band and start over. But to me it maybe a weak signal issue. I don't know why since I am on the border. Weird.

Thanks for all the help. I'll keep trying and if you guys see that I overlooked something please let me know.

 

[Markscan]

It is a weak signal

I'm in Verona also. West orange is one thats hard to pick up. For instance, in police headquarters, they do not receive West Orange on their BC-796. But I will pick them up with 3 bars on my BC-396 standing just 2 feet away from their radio. At the VRS building on Church street, they come in loud and clear on their BC-796. But again at firehouse #2, they are not able to recieve them at all on their BC-785. So all in all, I think it is a signal issue. And it has gotten worse since they changed frequencies.

 

[SCPD]

I do not understand what you are referring to. LCN order absolutely does make a difference for EDACS, it is critical. Motorola systems don't have LCNs so there is no such thing as an LCN order for Montclair. For reference, LTR also uses LCNs and the effect of having them out of order seems to vary by scanner.

markjrenna, are you using the current West Orange frequencies as currently listed in the database? They did change fairly recently. Once you have the four frequencies programmed into the proper channel slots in your scanner and have them set to EDACS, make sure the bank is set to trunk type EDACS WIDE and that you're in ID SEARCH mode. If you are then hearing everything, you may program in only the talkgroup IDs which you want to monitor and switch over to ID SCAN mode.

Jim

I have programmed both West Orange and Verona in different order and both have tracked fine. I usually program Trunked Systems highest freq. first numerical order with no trouble. Maybe the system itself has to do with it?

 

[SCPD]

I'm in Verona also. West orange is one thats hard to pick up. For instance, in police headquarters, they do not receive West Orange on their BC-796. But I will pick them up with 3 bars on my BC-396 standing just 2 feet away from their radio. At the VRS building on Church street, they come in loud and clear on their BC-796. But again at firehouse #2, they are not able to recieve them at all on their BC-785. So all in all, I think it is a signal issue. And it has gotten worse since they changed frequencies.

West Orange is 5x5 here in Parsippany.

 

[markjrenna]

Markscan,

Thanks for the detail. I know all the locations you mention but since I have a base unit I can't try them. My elevation is great (I think) where I live. Probably as high as anyplace in Verona and West Orange for that matter. So I have to attribute it to my scanner or just my specific location and/or the low output WO is using.

 

[robbinsj2]

I have programmed both West Orange and Verona in different order and both have tracked fine. I usually program Trunked Systems highest freq. first numerical order with no trouble. Maybe the system itself has to do with it?

No, EDACS is EDACS is EDACS. The control channel references channel numbers (the LCNs), individual radios store the information that Channel #1 = 850.0000 MHz, Channel #2 = 851.0000 MHz, or whatever. Scanners must be programmed with that information for every channel, and if they equate a wrong frequency with a channel number then it will go looking at the wrong spot in the spectrum for the intended transmission and you won't get it. You might get a simultaneous transmission on a different talkgroup or static or cochannel interference, but not the intended transmission. This is why there is no Control Channel Only option for EDACS.

I'm not convinced you were tracking them fine. If you are sure that you were and you are sure that the frequencies were programmed in to wrong LCNs in the scanner, I can only guess that your scanner can make use of the subaudible data on voice channels like the original Pro-92 did for Motorola systems. And if this is the case then I bet a lot of people on that scanner manufacturer's forum and on the EDACS forum would be interested in hearing about it, as I am not aware of a scanner that advertises that ability. It could give scanner users the priority function that actual EDACS users have.

In the meantime, please don't tell people that it does not matter what order the program the channels because for 99.99% of scanners it absolutely does matter. Thanks.

markjrenna: 800Mhz signals are notoriously touchy. My town is on 800 and moving just a few feet within a building can make the difference between crystal-clear transmissions and failed transmissions out. On the scanner side, the coverage map is not always intuitive. There are places in town where reception is borderline, while there are places dozens of miles away where reception is surprisingly good. So you can't really expect signals in different bands to be received with similar quality even if the transmitter locations and powers are the same.

If you haven't already, try an 800MHz antenna. I am quite happy with a small base one I got from Grove; the downside of it is that it performs abysmally outside of 800 MHz. Radio Shack has or had one designed for portables which did great on 800, very well on UHF, and reasonably well on VHF-high too.

Jim

 

[markjrenna]

Thanks Jim.

I'm looking to get either a GRE PSR-500 or a BC396T. Any thoughts (from anyone) on these two units?

 

[scannersnstuff]

mark see my response to your pm.

 

[scannersnstuff]

i forgot : my vote is for the psr-500.