Montgomery County PSSM Program update

[Snaf]

MCPD Switched to the new Montgomery County P25 system. You should see a new MoCo P25 system in Sentinel software. He is saying that the 436 will still work but its not optimized for this type of system but it should still work.

The Talkgroups have the same layout A1, A2... etc.. But they are now on the MoCo P25 system... they moved from the P16 system last week and MCFRS moves this Thursday to the P25.

Thanks. I understood most of that from the rest of the thread. I updated the 436 with the P25 info but still get nothing from MCPD. Still getting the FD but I'm guessing that will stop on the 24th. I'm in the far south of the county if that makes a difference.

 

[Bjc123]

Oh my apologizes I just automatically assumed it was because you were still on the P16 my apologizes lol

 

[dwlipp]

Montgomery County Fire and Rescue will move to the P25 system as scheduled on Thursday 3/4 at 0700. The required tower work was completed over the weekend, so the transition will happen as planned.

 

[KR3E]

I've been listing with my 436 and a rubber-ducky for several days from a 5th floor apartment in Gaithersburg facing Southwest. I did well with the P16 system but the P25 has been very sketchy here. I've had something on each of the MCPD TGs but what I hear is usually broken-up and/or distorted. I know I'm totally missing a lot. I guess a need to upgrade (again). I can buy a good, 144/440 mHz ham HT for a lot less than a new scanner that's going to play nicely with P25.

 

[allen5565]

There are a handful more encrypted TGs in the LE configuration than before, but very few; for the most part if you could listen to it last Monday you can hear it still today.

dwlipp, are you in a position to enumerate the newly encrypted TGs, possibly? I am on the fence about investing in a G5, which I want primarily for monitoring MCPD. Open MHz's county police coverage makes it sound like PD radio traffic has fallen off a cliff since the switchover, a relatively few transmissions and nothing popping up on the Ops channels. Is Ops now encrypted? Can you --or anyone! Please chime in-- speak to the "build out" of the PD TGs? What stuff have you found? Gimme, gimme, gimme. The FD info is already comprehensive in the database, but PD remains mysterious and intriguing.

Yes, I am fat and lazy. (Well, lazy, at least. . . okay, a year of Covid eating means I'm pretty porky, too.) You folks do the hard work of monitoring, capturing, analyzing, & posting the new TGs, so deadbeats like me can whine about whether or not there's still enough radio traffic to warrant spending a year's worth of coffee money on a souped-up pager. Still, I'm dying to know if the new system is going to be transparent or not when it comes to regular, day-to-day police comms, and I'd be grateful for the feedback and as much detail from the RR community as you all are willing to type out, in terms of your experiences with the MoCo LE side of the new system.

 

[maus92]

I've been listing with my 436 and a rubber-ducky for several days from a 5th floor apartment in Gaithersburg facing Southwest. I did well with the P16 system but the P25 has been very sketchy here. I've had something on each of the MCPD TGs but what I hear is usually broken-up and/or distorted. I know I'm totally missing a lot. I guess a need to upgrade (again). I can buy a good, 144/440 mHz ham HT for a lot less than a new scanner that's going to play nicely with P25.

That is true. There are software packages that perform almost pristine decoding of P25 simulcast using 2 relatively cheap USB SDR dongles (or one AirSpy Mini.) You would need to dedicate a computer to the effort. If you're into Linux, one package only needs one dongle. Some of the software works better that scanners specifically designed for Phase 2.

 

[Snaf]

Oh my apologizes I just automatically assumed it was because you were still on the P16 my apologizes lol

Apologies unnecessary. My earlier post did not clarify that.

So, is there a succinct list of scanners that will work for MoCo's P25 system that the board would recommend for scrubs like me?

 

[maus92]

The Uniden SDS 100 portable and SDS200 base/mobile are pretty much your only choice of scanning receivers able to provide reliable tracking and decode of P25 Phase 2 audio (when the delivered audio is in fact 3.4 DAQ)

 

[Snaf]

The Uniden SDS 100 portable and SDS200 base/mobile are pretty much your only choice of scanning receivers able to provide reliable tracking and decode of P25 Phase 2 audio (when the delivered audio is in fact 3.4 DAQ)

Thanks. That's pretty much what my searches had found but I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something.

My first stop was Amazon where the price for a SDS100 was around $1300--Whew! a bit rich for my means. But I did find one for about $650 at another vendor.

I muse that municipalities might be in cahoots with manufacturers to cause scanners to be obsolete to sell new units. I bought the 436 because of the local rebanding around 4-5 years ago that silenced my PRO96.



I remain grateful to those who spend a lot of time gathering knowledge and being willing to share it so that casual users like me aren't completely lost.

 

[maus92]

Thanks. That's pretty much what my searches had found but I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something.

My first stop was Amazon where the price for a SDS100 was around $1300--Whew! a bit rich for my means. But I did find one for about $650 at another vendor.

I muse that municipalities might be in cahoots with manufacturers to cause scanners to be obsolete to sell new units. I bought the 436 because of the local rebanding around 4-5 years ago that silenced my PRO96.



I remain grateful to those who spend a lot of time gathering knowledge and being willing to share it so that casual users like me aren't completely lost.

$650 is the retail price - don't overpay. You *could* run up to Ham Radio Outlet in Wilmington DE and pick one up in person - and avoid the $40 sales tax and shipping charges. Could be a fun day trip. Call first.

 

[Snaf]

$650 is the retail price - don't overpay. You *could* run up to Ham Radio Outlet in Wilmington DE and pick one up in person - and avoid the $40 sales tax and shipping charges. Could be a fun day trip. Call first.

Thanks.

 

[firebal]

2 other options to consider.
RTL-SDRs running SDR Trunk or DSD+ Fastlane (requires a computer and is not mobile)
or
Unication G4 pager. (Not a traditional scanner and you are limited to "scanning" 64 talkgroups per knob position all from the same TRS)

 

[jeffkraussws]

There are other Montgomery County agencies that use the P16 system, such as the Detention Center and the snow plow road crews.
What are the plans to move them to the P25 system?

 

[maus92]

There are other Montgomery County agencies that use the P16 system, such as the Detention Center and the snow plow road crews.
What are the plans to move them to the P25 system?

A few weeks after the fire service moves over - which is today btw. The timeline is mentioned earlier in this thread.

 

[jeffkraussws]

As of a few minutes ago, MCFRS has moved to P25.

 

[Bjc123]

Are you hearing them on P25? I hear on VHF but I’m not hearing on P25 and not on Broadcastify or OpenMHZ?

 

[mocomdcitizen]

I'm seeing that MCFR dispatch was temporarily on tgid 209 and I think ops on 211. Announcement to switchover to P25 on tgid 209: OpenMHz

I think give it a couple of minutes for the cutover.

 

[Bjc123]

Ahhh I see now.

 

[wireless]

I had put the Ops and Dispatch channels as well as 7H Talkgroups in my Unication G4 So far Ops and Dispatch is good, waiting on a 7Hx transmission.
Thanks to all involved. You did it! ( And Capt Lipp Special Thanks to you, you helped people on RR immensely)

 

[mocomdcitizen]

I've temporarily added tgids 209 and 211 to the Fire group on OpenMHz. They'll have the tgid appended to the end, e.g. 7A1 Ops 1 (tgid 211).

On my G5, it's pulling from the correct tgids listed in RRDB. I'll check my SDR's configuration.