Laurens County, GA - MOTOTRBO

[nunyax]

I keep the old Walton County Sheriff's frequency of 156.135 in my scanners and this morning it was being blasted with MOTOTRBO digital signals. There was a tremendous VHF band opening this morning (heard a ham north of Atlanta that talked simplex to another in south Georgia in Colquitt County.) I was curious where it was coming from and searched the FCC database for that frequency in Georgia with the MOTOTRBO emissions designator and came across license WSL511 for Laurens County. Looks like they now have a multi-site MOTOTRBO system. The RR database doesn't show it so hopefully someone in that area can confirm this. I did find this from their county commission back in December, 2009:

Commissioner Mullis explained that the purpose of the called meeting was to discuss the approval of the new public safety radio system. County Administrator Bryan Rogers explained to the Commissioners that after much research and consultation with various agencies, he and EMS Director Terry Cobb, EMA Director Don Bryant, and Sheriff Bill Harrell were ready to make a recommendation on a public safety radio system that would satisfy Laurens County needs for many years to come and meet all FCC compliance issues set to take place in 2013. He explained that the system was based on constructing three new towers and utilizing an existing tower of Oconee EMC for the purpose of strategically placing a Motorola mototrbo repeater backhaul system in the County. The system should allow portable radio coverage throughout the County. The system would be purchased through the Motorola state contract with Macon Communications being the vendor. The price of the system would be $715,407 with a $34,800 rebate which would bring the total cost of the system to $680,607. Terry Cobb, Don Bryant and Johrmy Davis all voiced their support for the radio system. Mr. Rogers informed the Commissioners that the propagation radio map studies would be made part of the contract with Macon Communications and they would be held to the coverage standard depicted on the maps. Commissioner Brower made a motion to approve the purchase of the system and Commissioner Adams seconded the motion. All voted in favor of the motion. Commissioner Lake also phoned in to voice his support for the radio system. There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned.

And this case study from Motorola may be for Laurens but it doesn't specifically id the county:

MOTOTRBO™ Digital Radio System
Offers Reliable Coverage for Rural
County’s Fire, EMT and Sheriff’s Office

 

[MTS2000des]

interesting, Laurens county goes MotoTRBO.

yesterday was quite an opening to the southeast. I usually keep my Kenwood TM-V71A dual bander tuned to my UHF repeater on one side and my VHF crossband frequency on the other. I kept noticing the VHF signal strength meter lighting up (but I use DPL so it didn't unmute). I turned off DPL and heard a station who turned out later was in Thomasville on a mobile talking to his wife (I could not hear her at all). They were simplex,not sure of the power he was running but I assume it was a typical 50 watt mobile setup. He was fairly solid most of the time.

Spinning the dial, I heard repeaters on every pair, the 147.06 in Roswell was being covered up by the Macon 147.06. I could key it up with a portable. I didn't get to work much of the band as I was doing other things but I heard an unknown agency on the old Smyrna Fire dispatch on 154.16, could never ID it.

Speaking of Smyrna fire dispatch, about 6 months ago, there was another repeater output on the same input as their old VHF fire repeater (154.415) and it was coming through SFD loud and clear. Smyrna had just done the morning radio test and they left the VHF up on the console. The dispatcher was clearly getting irritated trying to let the other agency know they were on "Smyrna fire" radio. the other agency gave their call (remember those days!) at the top of the hour. A ULS search showed it to be in a small county in Southern Indiana. Sure enough their repeater output was the same as the old SFD input, obviously the same PL.

I called into SFD and let them know. The lady seemed surprised. I guess she had never used a VHF radio system and experienced this. It seemed more like meteor scatter than tropo as this was during the early winter and only lasted for a brief period. Tropo can go on for hours in the spring and summer.

 

[tmiller_478]

I live close to Laurens County and I know that here recently they did switchover to a digital system so what you are hearing is true

 

[AerialEars]

Crap. My wife is from there, so I guess it's no more monitoring when we go to her mom's house. I'll listen the next time we go.

I read the Motorola article you linked, and they did have tornados like the ones described on that date. The law enforcement vehicle in the photo does not look like their county cars, though.

How many frequencies does a MOTOTRBO system use? What info do I look for to know which frequencies to monitor?

Your Athens-Clarke feed is busy, eh?

 

[AerialEars]

Just checked the land size of Laurens County. It's 819 square miles and the article says more than 800 square miles. I think Laurens is the second largest county in the state size wise, so I feel pretty sure the article is about them. I'll take the photo of the building at the beginning of the article and see if my wife recognizes it.

 

[nunyax]

How many frequencies does a MOTOTRBO system use? What info do I look for to know which frequencies to monitor?

Hey,

I don't know much about MOTOTRBO but have been interested in it since first hearing Monroe's public works and utilities switched over to it rather than moving to Walton's DTRS.

Monroe's municipal MOTOTRBO (WQJK514) has 1 site with 1 repeater output (FB2) but has 4 other (MO) frequencies on it so I'm guessing it just uses one for an input and the others are simplex.

There is a "Capacity Plus" type of MOTOTRBO system that is 1 site but has some trunking-type capabilities. I don't know if Monroe is a conventional DMR MOTOTRBO repeater or a Capacity Plus.

Then there is a "Connect Plus/IP Site Connect" type which is a multi-site multi-frequency MOTOTRBO system with sites being IP connected. Sites can be different frequencies or even different bands. This is what Laurens now has. Laurens' license has a bunch of FB2 repeater outputs for the various sites all only with the 7K6 emissions designator so they must not use any analog. The only analog I saw was this license 155.400 and 155.340 medical frequencies.

I know nothing about Linux but someday I hope to install it on a PC and try DSD to monitor Monroe's system but with my luck they'll probably be encrypted.

There is a ham MOTOTRBO yahoo group. Wanna put up a MOTOTRBO repeater on the EMC's Mtn. Creek road tower? I've got a 440 frequency pair ready, just need some money.

 

[SCPD]

Laurens County MotoTRBO System

In reviewing the FCC database for Laurens County Call Sign WSL511 it appears their VHF MotoTRBO System is a 12 Channel, four site system with three repeater channels at each site. My guess is they had to licensed each of the repeaters as FB2 because they could not meet the minimum 80 mile distance separation between licensees required by the FCC to license these as a trunked system under either radio service code YA, YP or YW. I ran into this issue when trying to secure two additional VHF frequency pair to add an XTEND site to the City's VHF Passport System to improve portable coverage in Marietta Power and Water's service area which is well outside the City limits into eastern Cobb County. When I orginally applied for the frequencies to add this site I put FB8 as the station class for the output frequencies and a few days later I received a telephone call from a Utilities Telecommunications Council (UTC) Frequency Coordinator advising me they could not find any VHF frequencies meeting the 80 mile separation required to license the two additonal output frequencies as FB8, but we could change the station class to FB2 and there would be several to choose from and still be able to trunk these. That is why you see FB2, FB8, MO and MO8 listed on the same license for the different frequencies for Call Sign KIJ464 which has a radio service code of YG.

Looks like Laurens County left many, if not all, of their analog conventional repeaters on the air, so I guess they could always use these for some routine ops, backup and interoperability with services from adjacent counties if one or more of these agencies came into Laurens County on an EMS call, fire, high speed pursuit, man hunt or other type of mutual aid request.

Just my thoughts.

 

[GaRebel]

Laurens County goes digital

With a 996t how so you find the digital freq to program in? Is there a way it can search for them?

 

[nunyax]

With a 996t how so you find the digital freq to program in? Is there a way it can search for them?

Unfortunately MOTOTRBO can't be decoded on a scanner. There is a software package that runs on Linux called DSD (Digital Speech Decoder) that can work if the system doesn't use encryption.

 

[AerialEars]

In Laurens County a few hours Saturday. Did not hear a peep on the old analog repeaters. Did not hear any data on 156.135.

 

[nunyax]

I wonder why there was nothing on 156.135 that day. It, along with 154.115 and 155.355 are the repeater outputs listed for the location #11 site:

"ANTENNA TOWER LAURENS COUNTY 911
DUBLIN, GA LAURENS County "

What's weird is that I heard the MOTOTRBO again on the morning of 4/4. I checked the Walton feed archives and it lasted from about 04:00 to 06:00. It was a MOTOTRBO repeater with the beacon feature enabled as it would transmit a 4 second databurst every 60 seconds. There was some activity on it in addition to the beacon. A sample can be heard here: sample

 

[gdog25]

Laurens county alright. Bill Harrell is the sheriff, Don Bryant the EMA director. Rogers is the county manager.

 

[trayu]

laurens update

talked to the motorola installers told personally there is no way to pick it up on digital scanner.

 

[Napsterbater]

I can confirm Laurens County has a 4 site MotoTRBO IP Site Connect System.

 

[gdog25]

So, is there any way to scan these types of systems?

 

[Napsterbater]

There is a program out for Linux that allows you to hook a scanner to a computer (running Linux) and it can decode MotoTRBO, but if they are encrypted it wont help, I dont know about Laurens County but Baldwin County is running encrypted.