MARCS-IP ("New MARCS") Site and Talkgroup Discussion

wa8pyr

wa8pyr

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Mark-Ohio said:
Lancaster, Ohio MARCS tower on Christmas Rock road seems to have went silent. I can get sheriff and OSP off surrounding towers but not on the one local to me. Anyone heard anything about this? Looking at FCC there are four additional freqs listed for the tower but assume they are maybe receive rather then transmit freqs? I'm not up to speed on exactly what I'm looking at below as to if the database needs an update or if the tower is just off air for repair at the moment. :unsure:
Click to expand...

Do you have all of the control channels (primary and alternate) programmed in? Lancaster site is on line, channel 1 is currently control.

Once they're programmed, control channels are rarely if ever physically changed; making such a change would potentially involve reprogramming every radio in the state...
 
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M

Mark-Ohio

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I believe I do have the controls in there okay. Have the most recent db update and they are showing also in the scanner. You can see in my log I'm pulling from Sugar Grove and Millersport but still nothing from Lancaster tower. Been working okay until a day or two ago. Thought maybe I had a bug in my favorites list but also getting the same results using the full database scan. Hmm, maybe I need to reset the radio and memory card and reload everything. When I try to tune the control channel main and alternate directly I just get dead air, no digital data sounds.
 

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mtindor

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Mark-Ohio said:
I believe I do have the controls in there okay. Have the most recent db update and they are showing also in the scanner. You can see in my log I'm pulling from Sugar Grove and Millersport but still nothing from Lancaster tower. Been working okay until a day or two ago. Thought maybe I had a bug in my favorites list but also getting the same results using the full database scan. Hmm, maybe I need to reset the radio and memory card and reload everything. When I try to tune the control channel main and alternate directly I just get dead air, no digital data sounds.
Click to expand...

You might want to check all of these frequencies licensed to the Lancaster site, to see if one of them are suddenly a control channel:

771.35625 WQRC673
771.36875 WQRC673
771.63125 WQRC673
771.64375 WQRC673
852.575 WPQF785
852.8375 WPQG674
853.6125 WPQF785
854.1125 WPQF785
856.9625 WPQE350

769.15625 blanket license
769.55625 blanket license
769.90625 blanket license
773.83125 blanket license

In the RRDB currently are quite a few 700 mhz freqs that are off of the blanket license. Maybe they removed the ones that were on the blanket MARCS license and replaced them with ones specifically licensed to the site. Or maybe they added some freqs to the site and changed the primary/alt CCs when doing so.

Please check the above freqs out and see if you get a Lancaster control channel on one of them.

Thanks
 
M

Mark-Ohio

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Well, I tried just entering all those in for the heck of it and still nothing from the Lancaster tower. So walked away for a while then came back. For grins and giggles I opened up Sentinel and done a full database reconstruction and rewrote my favorites and now I'm getting some data decoded from the control and audio from the local tower. But still not showing any signal indication from it and if I go on the inside duck antenna no signal at all again. Seems to be reduced signal from it for some reason as normally get at least 2-3 bars. Checked to make sure attenuation was turned off and it is. I'm getting one bar signal from the Millersport tower which is normal. So can't really figure the scanner has weak ears for some reason and still get the other towers being on their fringe reception zones. Still not sure what to make of it other then learned I should leave at least Millersport tower loaded as a backup when I loose reception on Lancaster tower. (I had only one tower loaded in order to speed up the scan of other non MARCS channels.)

I will monitor and post back if I find something more conclusive. :unsure:
 
n8yid

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RayAir

RayAir

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Tg 32061
Unknown fire dispatch talkgroup dispatching to a burning complaint.
RID: 5190596
 
P

phask

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zanesville
Dresden site seems to be offline (for last few weeks). I still showed it as a peer last week, but have not checked this week.
 
IStebleton

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TG 13510 off the Cuyahoga Simulcast site yesterday. It sounded like a blank key-up. It's in the range of County interop channels.
 
al_35

al_35

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Catching today unid talk group 53129. hitting off the montgomery county site. Radio id 9301xxx. Dont remember the whole radio id.
 
IStebleton

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Ohio Veterans Home Sandusky I believe may be operating on MARCS TG53438. A unit keyed up as "11 to Central" with RID 2290007, the other units I've logged have been in the 890xxx range, or the base is in the 900xxxx range. Is this enough evidence yet?
 
tazz

tazz

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New talk group for Jackson County Ohio

26037 Jackson County EMS Paging
Radio ID Number 4090257

Logged on Ohio MARCS Jackson Site on 769.58125MHz
Logged on Ohio MARCS Indian Camp Site on 851.7375 MHz and 769.50625 MHz
 
A

amcferrin90

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tazz said:
New talk group for Jackson County Ohio

26037 Jackson County EMS Paging
Radio ID Number 4090257

Logged on Ohio MARCS Jackson Site on 769.58125MHz
Logged on Ohio MARCS Indian Camp Site on 851.7375 MHz and 769.50625 MHz
Click to expand...
There must be an endless supply of TGIDs or something. IDK.
 
K

kf8yk

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amcferrin90 said:
There must be an endless supply of TGIDs or something. IDK.
Click to expand...

The Project 25 protocol defines a bit over 65,000 talkgroup ID's per system, however the most recent version of Motorola Astro25 is limited to 16,000 talkgroups provisioned per system.

The RRDB has a little over 5,600 talkgroups identified for MARCS-IP.
 
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