yes they are until march 4th is planed cutover date for MCFD. They are still on the smartzone system but MCPD has already cut over to the new P25 system. I am using a Harris xg100 multiband radio to monitor them plus a kng2 p800
Montgomery County PSSM Program update
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Thank you both. I'm a total newbie here, trying to learn. I noticed I wasn't hearing any more MCPD channels yesterday, but I'm still hearing MCFRS & was curious about what's going on. I'm using a Uniden Home Patrol 1.
danesgs
Member
So I guess I am asking if they will still simulcast analog or does MCFD disappear as well on March 4th?
The Scan-DC folks should know that the plan was to transition the police to the P25 system first. The fire service is scheduled to transition next in early March, followed by the rest of the local government users. The fire simulcasts on VHF will remain as they are today, although the ops channel will change to a new frequency which is in the RRDB. AFAIK, they new system is working as intended, broadly speaking, although its introduction was delayed a few weeks for unknown reasons - not uncommon.
Your HP1 will not be able to receive the new P25P2 system that the county has installed, however the fire service VHF simulcasts will still be receivable as they are today, although the ops channel frequency will change. If you plan to upgrade your equipment, understand that there are certain radios that are much better at receiving P25 simulcast than others - but they also are much more expensive.
Thanks - Unfortunately, I've been looking into this all morning & MC going to P25P2 is what I was assuming I knew my HP1 didn't receive Phase 2, oh well. Guess it's time to read up & start shopping.
I noticed that there are unencrypted LEO tgs in use that are not yet in the rrdb - is your software capable of streaming unidentified tgs? AKA just the tgids? That might help the greater community id them.I've been quietly feeding both the P16 and P25 systems simultaneously to OpenMHz since about mid-January, as I was anticipating the switchover last month. So far, it's mostly accidental or test transmissions. Though the past few days, the radio shop and other TGs has been performing more tests.
TGs that haven't been identified yet, or I haven't gotten around to adding them to a TG list to identify them, will have just the TGID.
EDIT: the URL doesn't include all the TGs that have transmitted, just the ones that tend to be commonly used. Easy enough to add in the TGIDs to the end of the URL.
OpenMHz
openmhz.com
mocomdcitizen
Member
At the moment, there is no option to list TGIDs that are not organized into groups or not identified in a talkgroup file I've been updating and uploading to OpenMHz, however, there is a way manually add one or multiple TGIDs on to the end of the URL of the talkgroup filter, e.g.:
Code:
https://openmhz.com/system/mocomdps?filter-type=talkgroup&filter-code=6045,6225,6800So are you saying as a user of the stream, I can add random tgids to the url, and your host will add that tgid to the stream?
mocomdcitizen
Member
Yes.
To make sure I understand what you're saying... if you used that URL and add any number of TGIDs, it'll show any recordings that have been uploaded to OpenMHz with that/those TGIDs specified. I think you could even do something like:
Though, I'm not sure if the OpenMHz developer/site owner has a set limit to the number of TGIDs that can be added into the filter. The most I've done was about 15 tgids.
It can be ones that haven't been identified (like above) or ones that have already been identified, such as the county's six district police dispatches:
Hope that makes sense!
To make sure I understand what you're saying... if you used that URL and add any number of TGIDs, it'll show any recordings that have been uploaded to OpenMHz with that/those TGIDs specified. I think you could even do something like:
Code:
https://openmhz.com/system/mocomdps?filter-type=talkgroup&filter-code=0,1,2,3,4,5,...,1000,1005,1010,...,9000,9005,9010Though, I'm not sure if the OpenMHz developer/site owner has a set limit to the number of TGIDs that can be added into the filter. The most I've done was about 15 tgids.
It can be ones that haven't been identified (like above) or ones that have already been identified, such as the county's six district police dispatches:
Code:
https://openmhz.com/system/mocomdps?filter-type=talkgroup&filter-code=6000,6005,6010,6015,6020,6025Hope that makes sense!
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mocomdcitizen
Member
Yes, for P25.
For P16, I fed specific tgs, mainly the county police/fire dispatches, ops, the municipal dispatches, and other interops/talkgroups.
For P25, I have no such restriction set. Every transmission on P25 that is not encrypted is being uploaded to OpenMHz. At a later date, I'll either leave it as is, or feed specific TGs.
For P16, I fed specific tgs, mainly the county police/fire dispatches, ops, the municipal dispatches, and other interops/talkgroups.
For P25, I have no such restriction set. Every transmission on P25 that is not encrypted is being uploaded to OpenMHz. At a later date, I'll either leave it as is, or feed specific TGs.
Greg:
The switchover for MCPD occurred on Monday, as discussed on Scan-DC, but they discovered many units that had not been properly programmed, so they simulcast on both the old and new systems until Wednesday, when they got the radios corrected. PD has completely transitioned to the Phase 2 (P25) system. Most, but not all, PD talkgroups are encrypted on the P2 system, at least for now.
Fire & other users will stay on the old (P16) system until all radios have been programmed and checked, with a target date of early March (this week?). It is assumed that FD talkgroups will retain current status of encrypted or clear. I understand that due to the number of volunteer's monitors, (like Plectrons) they will continue analog simulcast of the dispatch and ops channels on 154.16 (with alert tones) and 153.95 until sometime in the future.
JK
**Paul Optiz "Scanman" you are forever in our hearts and minds**
OK, I'm going to revise my statement above to say that I've heard unencrypted transmissions on some tgs that also had encrypted comms. This suggests that encryption on at least some tgs is selectable. For example, I heard one unit address a dispatcher as "Rockville" on tg 6295, but the admittedly spotty history log I have for the tg also shows encrypted traffic.
boatbod
Member
Least expensive (but not very portable) is an RTL dongle and a PC or RPi4 running one of the many SDR programs capable of P25P2 decoding. Total cost around $50.
More mainstream solution... Uniden SDS100 / SDS200 for $650.
Alternative portable solution... Unication G4/G5 "pager" for $650-$750
Also, the "switchover" was executed on Tuesday the 23rd, not Monday (22nd.) These transitions typically take place during the middle few days of the week to avoid weekend overtime if possible, aka final prep on a Monday for a Tuesday rollout. Not unusual that some problems were encountered - particularly with police users who take their vehicles and portables home with them, and may miss reprogramming opportunities.
Several incorrect statements in this post. MC law enforcement users moved to the new system last Tuesday, not on Monday.
There were not many radios incorrectly programmed, there were 3 radios out of ~4000 that hadn't been programmed yet. That said, those three radios had nothing to do with the patching, the patches were left up for a little longer than anticipated to deal with a logging recorder issue, but they were all down by Tuesday afternoon. (The 3 radios were caught up by the end of the day.)
Overall the LE cutover went very smoothly with it being essentially transparent to the field users.
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.
All of the FD radios have been programmed and are ready to move to the new system (and they have been for quite a while); that is happening this Thursday at 0700. The weather cooperated enough that the needed work on the towers was able to be completed on Saturday.
FD will continue to simulcast on VHF as noted, but the current V7B/new 7V1 channel is changing Thursday morning as noted in the database. VHF pages career and volunteer command officers among many others and will continue to do so for a long time at this point.
I interpret this to mean that a 436 is now useless for MCPD.
I am sub-amateur in all this and noticed the lack of PD calls a few days ago. I've updated Sentinel and the 436 and am getting nothing from MCPD. Am I missing something or is this scanner now a paperweight?
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.
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.
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