I'm not complaining. And I didn't say the system is garbage. In fact as a subscriber I'm quite happy with it. I'm not thrilled with scanner manufacturers for having not kept up with the technology as well as they arguably should have, but that in no way reflects poorly on the system itself.
And yes TDMA does make infinite sense for Livingston Co. Once you've decided to go P25 trunking the choice between FDMA and TDMA... TDMA makes a lot of sense when you have to coordinate every frequency through Canada.
Sorry, my bad, I wasn't paying attention to who said what really. I just lumped everything into one as my reply to yours.
From my point of view, it would make sense for the either a, Livingston Co to create patch talkgroups to cross that gap between the 700/800 TRS and your VHF-Hi system, if your range from the towers would allow you to still have the proper talk back to your TRS while in their county, or b, spend the extra money and buy dual band radios. Cross-band interoperability is an definitely an major issue, especially if your departments run a lot of mutual aid. You are surrounded by 700/800 TRS systems, or a VHF-Hi system, which your now on.... so dual band may be the way to go....
What is the scheduled cutover?
No worries.
There has been talk of trying to create a patch to Ontario. Our radios work pretty well into our system from the areas over there we are likely to go mutual aid.
Monroe is going to be a different story. We don't have coverage, even on mobiles, at the Monroe County hospitals. I'm told this may improve as reflectors are adjusted/removed and power outputs are bumped up.
Dual band radios would be a huge help, but are cost prohibitive for individual departments to buy more than a handful of. For my department we tried to push for two dual band radios and were turned down. We may try again now that the system switchover is much closer.
Let me point out a very important point that many agencies over look and the radio vendors are not clear on telling agencies looking to purchase them. In these dual band radios, you only have one receiver path. So if your using the VHF portion and there is activity on the receiver, your NOT GOING TO BE ABLE TO HEAR THE 700/800 CONVERSATIONS AT THE SAME TIME. Until the VHF traffic stops and the squelch closes, the scan function will lock on the active channel. If it it important to hear both sides (VHF and 700/800) at the same time, you had better have 2 radios.
This is an issue with these expensive toys that only make the radio vendors a fat bank account and leave the users holding a radio that doesn't meet their requirements. If your only needing one band at a time, then yes, these dual band radios will function for you. But you can probably be better off money wise with 2 different radios if you only need one band at a time.
Any reports from the front lines on how the cutover has been gone? I hear lots of requests for retransmits, or no response, and lots of static on the new analog Fire/EMS frequencies. Still tuning my digital setup.
Ontario has a 700 to 400 patch for the dispatch channel that allows for use of 400mhz radios and pagers with the 700mhz system. Does Livingston use something similar, like a P25 patched to a non-P25 VHF Hi channel? Sorry for my lack of proper radio terminology, I'm just a consumer...lol. Our Livingston County mutual aid can use the 400 patch to communicate with us without spending thousands of dollars on radios and I was hoping to be able to do the same.
You can get paging, FG 8, 9, and 11, as well as FAST. You will not be able to get the ops talkgroups which are on system and not repeated back to off-system channels.
Your location says you are in Watertown, NY. It is highly unlikely that you'll hear anything of the Livingston County system at that distance.Hey, I just purchased a Phase II scanner, I am extremely tech savy but I have not been able to get my scanner to monitor the new system. Has anyone had any luck with this? I'm using a Whistler WS1088, I found if brand new for 375$