Maryland FIRST 700mhz TRS

[EyeSpy]

So it was user error... I figured out what went wrong and it was user error...

Since then, wildcard is picking up TGRP 7105 on the system. Nothing else so far and no hits from the Cecil County site.

Sent from my DROID3 using Tapatalk 2

 

[troymail]

Drove up to Cecil County... Currently sitting just north of the Hatem. It's been incredibly quite ... both Harford and Cecil....


1202... Now hearing 7101 on Harford and just got calling announcement for 7104 (MSP JFK) on both Harford and Cecil sites.



$6 to cross the river! What a ripoff!

 

[troymail]

Confirm 7105 is MdTA @ Hatem bridge.... I can see the traffic stop I'm hearing

Also hearing this TG on both Cecil and Harford as expected.

 

[troymail]

Slow day - drove the loop around the Bay - surprised to see that MdTA Bay Bridge (7106) was active on the Kent County (107) site.

Also noticed a few radios affiliating on the Kent County site but no voice. The radio IDs were 228xxxx and the couple of talkgroups that these radios appeared to affiliate to were 128xx.....

Listened to the Kent conventional sheriff and fire frequencies for a while -- it's going a to take a long to to identify the Kent County talkgroups (when they go live) with so little activity over there....

BTW - I questioned that site 106 was really Ft McHenry tunnel when I saw it get updated as such on RR -- but I can confirm that 774.34375 was a solid CC the whole way through the old Baltimore Harbor Tunnel (BHT) -- so I guess it's at least in that tunnel - probably both. I'll test the Fort McHenry Tunnel (FMT) in a few weeks hen I get back up that way.

Also just noticed that I referred to MSP JFK as 7104 earlier -- I meant 7304. I'm really surprised I heard the tunnels, port, as well as MSP JFK all over Cecil County. Must have been a radio up there listening to these talkgroups they couldn't ever hear from up there before.....

 

[troymail]

Another serious incident ... man these guys are busy....

Trooper Saves Man From Burning Car In Fatal Accident « CBS Baltimore

 

[doctordave]

Troy,

How close to Kent were you when you picked up their towers? In the area of Hatem? I think one of the Kent 700 towers is located in Still Pond, which is just across the water (sorta) from APG. Did you hear any testing of the Kent system? They go live 12/4 - -so there should be plenty of testing going on next week.

 

[doctordave]

Mobile reception of site 001 (Balt Metro towers) throughout northern Towson, Lutherville & Hunt Valley is still rather choppy/poor. Will be interesting to see if this further improves - - or if this is just how it is going to be. I don't offhand recall if ALL of Balt Co is included in the intitial project phase-in....perhaps not.

........I flipped to the MD 700mhz project page....and sure enough, MSP "R" is indeed part of 1A. Has anyone been able to actually copy the 001 towers from farther north in Balt Co - such as Monkton, Parkton, MD Line?

 

[troymail]

Troy,

How close to Kent were you when you picked up their towers? In the area of Hatem? I think one of the Kent 700 towers is located in Still Pond, which is just across the water (sorta) from APG. Did you hear any testing of the Kent system? They go live 12/4 - -so there should be plenty of testing going on next week.

I stopped in Perryville just north of the Hatem bridge for about an hour. Then drove north on 40 and down Rt 213 to Chestertown. I then parked in Chestertown (McDonald's lot) for 40 minutes or so.

I didn't spend too much time trying to "hear over" to the next area. I mostly just listened to Harford in Harford, Cecil in Cecil, Kent in Kent, etc. since I was going through each anyway. I did think about going down the river in Perryville to see if I could hear Kent but decided not to. I was getting some Kent CC reception at the Hatem but it wasn't that good.

According to the docs I've found, there is a Kent tower in Still Pond along with Chestertown, Rock Hall, and Massey.

Based on the towers in Harford and Cecil from that same document showing them nearly all along I-95, I can now see why the reception was lacking coming down Rt 213 from Elkton into Kent County.

The only thing I heard on the Kent site is MdTA Bay Bridge. Pro96Com was showing several additional radios affiliating (but no voice). As I mentioned earlier, they came up affiliating with TGs 128xx and the (corrected) radio IDs were 248xxxx (vs. 228xxxx that I reported earlier).

12/4 live date, eh? Well, I guess I'll be making another trip soon. I'll be on the shore the first couple weekends in December and I've already warned my wife we'll be making a trip through Chestertown... I sure hope there's more activity than what I'm hearing today. I found that the Kent feed on RR is back up so I'm starting to spend time listening to see if there are any announcements or other indications of changes/dates, etc.

 

[troymail]

Mobile reception of site 001 (Balt Metro towers) throughout northern Towson, Lutherville & Hunt Valley is still rather choppy/poor. Will be interesting to see if this further improves - - or if this is just how it is going to be. I don't offhand recall if ALL of Balt Co is included in the intitial project phase-in....perhaps not.

........I flipped to the MD 700mhz project page....and sure enough, MSP "R" is indeed part of 1A. Has anyone been able to actually copy the 001 towers from farther north in Balt Co - such as Monkton, Parkton, MD Line?

I don't think there is any coverage out west. Although the doc shows a tower at Pikesville, I think that's only because it's Hqts and not because there is adequate mobile coverage in the area.

"R" is Golden Ring I believe. Are there still "R" units? I think there is a tower there but I don't think they've moved onto the system - similar thing in Northeast.

I haven't heard any other MSP units (routinely) except "M" units.

Any idea there are really "R" and "F" units? Are these by any chance carried on a trunked system like "P" (Glen Bunrie/Annapolis) is carried on the Anne Arundel trunk system?

EDIT: I also wonder if coverage/reception will improve or is it just that we're using scanners... I have a tower north of me (BWI Airport) and another south (Crownsville) but reception is still spotty at my house. This might be due to interference (I'm not too far from a couple of cell towers). Hard to say.... I did read somewhere, however, that once built out, there are supposed to be something like 139 towers across the state. Right now there only seems to be about 22.

 

[doctordave]

Interesting observations, Troy. Since MSP "F" (Northeast) covers essentially all of Cecil, it sure sounds like they are not immediately ready to fully transition over to 700 MHZ, if the Cecil 700mhz towers only cover the I-95 corridor right now.

"R" is Golden Ring - their units patrol much of the Balt Beltway and some other highways.....and they patrol all the way to the PA line on I-83.....so perhaps they are not quite ready to fully go-live with the 700 system either. Right now, they exclusively operate on low band 39.44mhz. Northeast "F" units still operate on low band (39.84) and I believe they are also equipped with Cecil's VHF digital radios - though it's a system that is not monitorable.

 

[doctordave]

Troy,

How was your reception of Bay Bridge units while sitting in Chestertown? I'm going to pop over there next week & see how the system testing sounds. Were you able to pick up the QA Co towers from Kent - - or did you even try them while sitting in Kent?

 

[riveter]

WHOA I had no idea that Cecil has VHF EDACS... drool.

Back on track.. the 248xxxx RIDs are unheard of in the area before, so I believe that's the introduction of a new agency- probably Kent themselves checking it out before they come online, based on those numbers and the 5 digit TGIDs.

Also RE coverage, industry portable and mobile reception and transmission strength is generally MUCH more than appears on our scanners. These scanners are optimized for finding and hearing lots of things across lots of bands in quick and dirty ways, while those radios are specifically designed for one purpose. This makes for software differences and very notable hardware differences... for one thing I have NO idea why scanner manufacturers insist on only making scanners with BNC antenna connections.. they are truly horrible. If we had scanners factory-produced (you can always do a sloppy refit) with proper portable-grade SMA type connections that don't get worn down so easily or warped/worn out, I'm pretty sure you would notice a difference.

 

[troymail]

How was your reception of Bay Bridge units while sitting in Chestertown?

Perfect on the Kent site.

Were you able to pick up the QA Co towers from Kent - - or did you even try them while sitting in Kent?

I did try but nothing.On several trips up/down 50/31, I get a signal to about the outlet mall on 301 and down to about 404 on 50. I believe there is only a tower on Kent Island right now (per the doc) to support MdTA at the Bay Bridge while on the shore. I'm sure there will be more towers later.

 

[troymail]

WHOA I had no idea that Cecil has VHF EDACS... drool.

Back on track.. the 248xxxx RIDs are unheard of in the area before, so I believe that's the introduction of a new agency- probably Kent themselves checking it out before they come online, based on those numbers and the 5 digit TGIDs.

My thought as well.....

Also RE coverage, industry portable and mobile reception and transmission strength is generally MUCH more than appears on our scanners. These scanners are optimized for finding and hearing lots of things across lots of bands in quick and dirty ways, while those radios are specifically designed for one purpose. This makes for software differences and very notable hardware differences... for one thing I have NO idea why scanner manufacturers insist on only making scanners with BNC antenna connections.. they are truly horrible. If we had scanners factory-produced (you can always do a sloppy refit) with proper portable-grade SMA type connections that don't get worn down so easily or warped/worn out, I'm pretty sure you would notice a difference.

I'm pretty sure that's somewhat true. It's probably not the antenna connection so much but more the receiver itself. Many earlier threads (specifically when PG's new system came on line if I recall) some folks chimed in about the significant difference in the receivers in the scanners vs. the high-end/expense radios actually used by users on the system. I think the real issues continue to be the timing issues and the radios being confused by signals hitting it at different times and the scanners don't ave the ability to compensate for it. This is a huge change from the days when a tower blasted the signal out so we could hear things more easily and clearer at longer distances. Those days are obviously over. We're just not going to hear things that are far away anymore - at least not without alot of effort. On the other hand, under certain conditions, we'll hear more. I've never heard activity all the way up in Harford and Cecil County until this system went in. Of course, that doesn't mean I'll be able to hear activity in Kent County (unless a radio on the AA or Baltimore site affiliates with a Kent talkgroup).

Having said all that - who knew we'd be walking around with 1+ Ghz processors in our cell phones? Who knows what the future holds....

 

[troymail]

I'm going to pop over there next week & see how the system testing sounds.

Cool. I'm sure you'll report your findings!

 

[dcr_inc]

No one affiliated in the area could be the other cause of silence..

 

[troymail]

No one affiliated in the area could be the other cause of silence..

Correct.

 

[doctordave]

Makes sense that you didn't hear much in QACo, Troy.....QA is part of the second wave of 700mhz system implementation. Like you suggested, perhaps only tower(s) down near the Bay Bridge, for MdTA PD use, are as yet running on FIRST in QACo. Sure shouldn't be any great sense of urgency for QA getting the 700 infrastructure installed anyway - the UES 800 system that is shared by QA/Talbot/Caroline and MSP "S" / "I" works marvelously.....right now, the state's target date for finishing the Eastern Shore 700mhz buildout is January 2013.

 

[troymail]

I think I recall reading somewhere that UES and Wicomico were considering coming onto the state system at some point...

 

[doctordave]

I've also heard from some folks involved that the UES does intend to integrate into MD's 700 system at some point.....but the timeline for this is a bit fuzzy.

Also, in addition to the ridiculously numerous standardized/nationwide 700mhz interop simplex/repeater freqs,
( http://apcointl.org/about-apco/annual-reports/doc_download/171-apconpstcans1-104-1webpdf.html )

there will also be a statewide call channel ("MD-CALL") and 6 statewide tac channels ("MD TAC 1-6").....it appears these will actually represent TGs on the state system.


I wonder what came about of the plans to establish some standardized aviation "guard" channels on 700mhz in Maryland? Haven't heard anything further on this. When this was proposed a few years back, as a means of simplifying air-ground coordination, there were some FCC hurdles to overcome.....maybe this is tabled for now.