LMRN - cannot pick up a control channel

[pokey]

I tried monitoring the LMRN on my G5 about a year or so ago, but noticed that the signal strength for the towers was awful, compared with the old system. I therefore ended up removing the programming from my pager. I recently added it again, and I can't even pick up a control channel. Out of curiosity, I entered the control channel frequency in a scanner, and it picks it up. With the import into PPS from the database on this site, there aren't really any system settings to tweak. I know that the internal antenna for the secondary band on the G5 is supposed to be poor, but it did work before.

Any ideas?

Wasn't sure whether to post this in the Unication Forum, or here, where others would be familiar with this particular system.

Thank you in advance!

 

[mciupa]

Try local help first. If you are not satisfied with this forum, I will move your thread.

 

[gary123]

Many of the LMRN sites are lower powered than the old FleetNet sites. I would do a basic test in CSQ mode and verify you can hear the tower at all. If you can, then you can try some of the ENC TG to verify reception. I forget what the setting is to unmute ENC but I seem to remember there is a way to configure it so you can hear the garble.

 

[pokey]

Many of the LMRN sites are lower powered than the old FleetNet sites. I would do a basic test in CSQ mode and verify you can hear the tower at all. If you can, then you can try some of the ENC TG to verify reception. I forget what the setting is to unmute ENC but I seem to remember there is a way to configure it so you can hear the garble.

That’s a good idea. At least that way I can determine if the G5 or system settings of some sort is the problem. I will try that. The talkgroups that I programmed in are just the MTO ones, so I would expect to hear them as I did before.

 

[gary123]

Agreed, the MTO should come through fine. You may have to wait a while before they talk as the TG are not super active. Let us know how it works out.

 

[EJB]

That’s a good idea. At least that way I can determine if the G5 or system settings of some sort is the problem. I will try that. The talkgroups that I programmed in are just the MTO ones, so I would expect to hear them as I did before.

Pokey: I've been a member here for a long time. Are you in Halton? Maybe north Halton up on the escarpment? If so, LMRN's towers are much weaker than the FleetNet towers, and I can remember that the escarpment area, the local towers didn't do well even with a mobile antenna that was decent.

So maybe with weaker coverage it remains hard to monitor.....sigh, the MTO.

Curious if I'm correct about this.

E

 

[pokey]

Pokey: I've been a member here for a long time. Are you in Halton? Maybe north Halton up on the escarpment? If so, LMRN's towers are much weaker than the FleetNet towers, and I can remember that the escarpment area, the local towers didn't do well even with a mobile antenna that was decent.

So maybe with weaker coverage it remains hard to monitor.....sigh, the MTO.

Curious if I'm correct about this.

E

Yes I am up that way. There is no tower that I could ever receive from my location, even on Fleetnet. I would drive towards Mississauga and the Mississauga tower would start to come in as I got closer.

A year or so ago, I imported the Mississauga site from RR, into my G5, and it worked fine while in Mississauga. I was only able to receive MTO chatter, of course. I ended up deleting it from my pager due to the limited signal strength of the towers.

This past week, I imported the system back in, but it could not find the control channel, even while in Mississauga. Yesterday, I tried what gary123 suggested, and programmed in just the control channel in CSQ mode. The signal came in loud and clear, while in Mississauga. Today, I found my old code plug from when it actually worked on my pager, and it no longer works; couldn’t find a control channel.

The only thing that I can think of is that something has changed on the LMRN and the G5 won’t track it anymore. No idea what that could be, but nothing else that it could be.

 

[gary123]

The Mississauga tower changed most of its frequencies when it transitioned from FleetNet to LMRN. LMRN is P25 P2 so you need to make sure your decoding that mode. The one bright side is that the control channels do not rotate so once you find the local one(s) you should be good to test reception.

try this map to see what is close to you.

Land Mobile Radio Network Trunking System, Multiple Locations, Ontario

Land Mobile Radio Network Trunking System Profile

www.radioreference.com

The red DB entries will give you the control channel frequencies for the site(s).

 

[EJB]

There are more towers, but each tower is weaker than the FleetNet towers from our glorious past 😞.

Outside of the Hamilton tower, I cant get anything like Brantford, Toronto, Niagara Falls or Mississauga unless on occasion, with a good antenna.

 

[pokey]

The Mississauga tower changed most of its frequencies when it transitioned from FleetNet to LMRN. LMRN is P25 P2 so you need to make sure your decoding that mode. The one bright side is that the control channels do not rotate so once you find the local one(s) you should be good to test reception.

try this map to see what is close to you.

Land Mobile Radio Network Trunking System, Multiple Locations, Ontario

Land Mobile Radio Network Trunking System Profile

www.radioreference.com

The red DB entries will give you the control channel frequencies for the site(s).

Those are the control channels that I have for the Mississauga tower. I am picking it up fine on CSQ mode but it won’t find the control channel when trying to follow the system. With the Unication PPS there are no system settings that can be changed. This is why I am baffled.

 

[Enjoi19]

There's been a variety of issues with at times some users not receiving anything due to a band plan not being transmitted (for random periods of time). Maybe someone local can confirm it's coming across currently or not. As far as I've seen from other Unication users, if it doesn't get a band plan, it won't lock.