Montgomery County PSSM Program update

[maus92]

Note that the old thread was closed for some reason.

The county will have a Phase 2 P25 system that is licensed for 21 channels, which translates to 40 talkpaths.

It is scheduled for coverage testing starting in September 2020 based on filings with the FCC dated March this year.

 

[Bjc123]

Do you know if they will still patch 7A on the analog frequency?

 

[maus92]

I do not know for sure, but I would guess that it will continue for redundancy.

 

[Bjc123]

Wonderful, thanks!

 

[maus92]

Seems like some preliminary configuration *may* be in progress for the new P25 system. Caught a primary control channel in the vicinity of the Black Rock site using 853.6875, and the site reported 853.8625, 853.8875, and 853.8625 as the alternates. WACN / Sys ID is BEE00-8E0, site 001-002, NAC 8E0. I only checked activity from the adjacent regional park, and I doubt all sites are up yet - the state ICC site doesn't have antennas. The new county tower sites are built, with some minor civvy work yet to be done. The Burtonsville tower site had techs on site today working in the shelter.

 

[maus92]

It appears that the tower site in Shady Grove is the source of the P25 system testing. The FCC issued a STA license for the site, and the signal is strong in the vicinity. Someone in MC who has Unitrunker or Procomm *might* want to invest in a cheap SDR or spare radio and log the system as it develops.

Two new traffic channels were observed today: 853.2750 and 852.9125, with two RIDs in the 2513xxx range. They logged onto two tgids: 6000 and 6475. No voice traffic, just Joins.

 

[dtscho]

Do you know if those two traffic channels are no longer in use for the P16 system? Thanks.

Dave

 

[maus92]

Do you know if those two traffic channels are no longer in use for the P16 system? Thanks.

Dave

They don't appear to be in use in the current P16 config. The attached are what I've seen over a couple hours over the past week.

 

[jkahn]

They don't appear to be in use in the current P16 config. The attached are what I've seen over a couple hours over the past week.

What are you logging with? I have been trying to run Unitrunker for a week but cannot get it to cooperate on my Windows10 laptop with an HP-1 or HP-2. I haven't used it for a couple of years, so the saved install file I used may be old (1.30.?). I made sure that the Uniden serial driver was loaded (Com4). I used to run it all the time (Window8) and contributed a lot of data when PG switched over to TDMA but not since then. If anyone is willing to give me a little time, I have lots of monitor time I can spend. I am within line of sight of the new tower at Silver Spring VFD station 16. I am not currently getting a control channel signal on 853.6875 although I think I did over the weekend. Dewey?? Kenny?? Bueller??

 

[maus92]

The only site that's up right now appears to be Shady Grove, but that should change soon. I lost a usable signal east of Georgia Ave on the ICC when using a crap antenna stuck to a window.

The monitoring was done with a older midrange Dell notebook running Win 10 Pro and Unitrunker 2 - the 64bit version that's in development. I use an RTL-SDR dongle as the radio. It's a bit complex to set up, but doable if you have some intermediate computer skills. There's a Google Group you can join to get access to the program and user help.

 

[FQ1100]

Is December still the timeline for the P25 system to go live?

 

[maus92]

Something like that.

 

[motorcoachdoug]

This morning i would say starting around 0800 72c the EMRC Call Channel on the county system was stuck open for about 20 minutes. All I could receive off that channel was an open carrier wave. Their was NO voice during that time. I turned on one of my portables and left it on 72D and the county units that used it had no trouble at all. I wonder what was going on? Any ideas?

 

[riveter]

Probably something disconnected or broke somewhere in the EMRC patch-to-talkgroup setup they have, tripping the PTT and not unkeying it. Happens, annoyingly, more often than one would like.

 

[maus92]

I was working in Rockville yesterday, and I did a check on the new county system. I noticed that there is another site that is using one of the county's control channels: 853.6875 It decoded to BEE008E0 Site 258. There was some test traffic on the site, and it was using county traffic channels. I am not confident in this finding, thus I am not submitting it to the RRDB. Someone in the area should try to verify the site, although I'm guessing it is temporary - maybe a SOW? Noticed some EXP Service Types, and what looked like Emergency Button activations.

Looks like some consoles in RIDs 701001-701003;
Some subscribers in RIDs 250xxxx-251xxxx - looks like the new state format
RIDs in the 16777xxx range which looks like system RIDs

 

[motorcoachdoug]

I was going thru a site search for the MD 1st system here in Aspen Hill using my Yagi antenna and their was one odd ball site that popped up. It said site 680 -1-1 and that's it. I was able to pick up sites in AA County plus pg,baltimore,howard, the monkey site plus a couple down south as well all with the id of the MD 1st system but that one.. Anyone have any idea? I was thinking it might belong to the Joint National Region system but not sure.

 

[maus92]

I was going thru a site search for the MD 1st system here in Aspen Hill using my Yagi antenna and their was one odd ball site that popped up. It said site 680 -1-1 and that's it. I was able to pick up sites in AA County plus pg,baltimore,howard, the monkey site plus a couple down south as well all with the id of the MD 1st system but that one.. Anyone have any idea? I was thinking it might belong to the Joint National Region system but not sure.

Need more specifics on "site 680" - what frequency? SYSID? WACN? Likely not JNCR.

 

[motorcoachdoug]

No its not part of the JNCR system. If you look in the montgomery county listing of radio systems in the county it appears as Unidentified Federal P25 (680) and its in the 700/800 band. I discovered that after I did the posting. Since I am here in the Aspen Hill area of Silver Spring, It could be anywhere in Montgomery,Prince George or DC area.

 

[riveter]

680 is DC-centric and afaik all of it is in the NTIA 400 band

 

[maus92]

No its not part of the JNCR system. If you look in the montgomery county listing of radio systems in the county it appears as Unidentified Federal P25 (680) and its in the 700/800 band. I discovered that after I did the posting. Since I am here in the Aspen Hill area of Silver Spring, It could be anywhere in Montgomery,Prince George or DC area.

Feds do not have spectrum in the 700/800 PS band afaik.