Morris County 700 MHz Simulcast Discussion

[APX8000]

Overlook (looking at topology map) would have similar coverage problems into Stirling and Millington that Buxton would have had.

Not for Long Hill. Overlook for New Vernon and Green Village since Buxton is off the table from NIMBY babies.

 

[rr60]

Not for Long Hill. Overlook for New Vernon and Green Village since Buxton is off the table from NIMBY babies.

No question +++. Just as a second site for Chester is planned, so too should fine tuning occur for the new gap. Warren site is doing a fine job backfilling RF into that pesky ridge. What needs to be done is back fill directional within existing system RF contours. About 270-330 degrees would be perfect from Overlook. Small money.

 

[K2NEC]

They are multiband radios with only two bands enabled. If an agency wanted to add VHF, they could pay for it. The problem doing that is the radio will be listening to the crap on SPEN instead of where they should be listening.

I know of a few that have all bands enabled. But do tell, what's the purpose of having SPEN in a portable and accessible to a user anyway?

 

[RocketNJ]

Interoperability carrying one radio. The disadvantage as I pointed out is, if a user is listening to SPEN, they could miss an important message from dispatch. That’s why the IC at a fire should have multiple radios for their use.

with MIRS in just about every emergency vehicle in the County, SPEN is not needed for in county interoperability, but bordering towns outside the county could find it useful. But use a dedicated radio for SPEN separate from the dispatch radio. Using scan there is enough delay going between conventional and trunking systems that it is not recommended. We’ve proven you can miss short, but important transmissions.

as far as Overlook, it comes down to $$$. If a site were to be put in for every dead area it would be exponentially more $$$.Site build out, equipment, backhaul (recurring expense if not a microwave link). Putting a site in is not cheap, even if rent is free. I haven’t seen the coverage maps after testing but evidently it was sufficient coverage to meet the design goal for that area.

 

[rr60]

The amount of money is a thimble as it relates to the total amount of taxes levied. Even less so if bonded for. Depends on risk level one willing to accept.

I know one County that has an ASR in every single school.

How is the in building coverage over at Chatham High School and the school next door?

All that Federal CV relief money spent ?

 

[EagleStrikeX23]

Interoperability carrying one radio. The disadvantage as I pointed out is, if a user is listening to SPEN, they could miss an important message from dispatch. That’s why the IC at a fire should have multiple radios for their use.

with MIRS in just about every emergency vehicle in the County, SPEN is not needed for in county interoperability, but bordering towns outside the county could find it useful. But use a dedicated radio for SPEN separate from the dispatch radio. Using scan there is enough delay going between conventional and trunking systems that it is not recommended. We’ve proven you can miss short, but important transmissions.

as far as Overlook, it comes down to $$$. If a site were to be put in for every dead area it would be exponentially more $$$.Site build out, equipment, backhaul (recurring expense if not a microwave link). Putting a site in is not cheap, even if rent is free. I haven’t seen the coverage maps after testing but evidently it was sufficient coverage to meet the design goal for that area.

I’d love to have the radio techs come out to the Chathams and have them on a 9-1-1 call and try keying up inside a house only to get bonked and or garbled audio. I really don’t care if you can key up from the middle of the street, 90% of our work is done inside a structure and the signal is so weak the second your portable is separated from gods blue sky, even by an inch of sheet rock, it’s game over. Portable RSSI 30-40s, mobile 60s. But in Morristown portable RSSI can be up to 130s. Something needs to change for this area. Others are complaining but I don’t think to the right people.

 

[rr60]

The good people do not need to leave the comfort of the office for that. Everything pertaining to system performance and subscriber QOS is continually recorded and can be reviewed. The performance by site is well known.

 

[grf0608]

It appears that using a single Airspy R2 with SDRtrunk isn't enough for the Morris County 700 system. Can anyone confirm if that's true? I do seem to get good results with a second dongle, which is an RTL-SDR, but would prefer to use a second dongle (perhaps upgrading to another Airspy R2) for other systems/channels. I'm thinking that the need for two dongles may be due to the Control Channel being P25-1 and Voice Channels being P25-2. I do see lots of call and other activity scrolling by in the Events section, but the Status section above only shows the P25-1 Control Channel and there's no call activity or sound. I see a message "Tuner Unavailable - Phase 2 Channel Grant. I'm still pretty new at this and learning, so any tips or guidance would be appreciated.

 

[davejl2001]

It appears that using a single Airspy R2 with SDRtrunk isn't enough for the Morris County 700 system. Can anyone confirm if that's true? I do seem to get good results with a second dongle, which is an RTL-SDR, but would prefer to use a second dongle (perhaps upgrading to another Airspy R2) for other systems/channels. I'm thinking that the need for two dongles may be due to the Control Channel being P25-1 and Voice Channels being P25-2. I do see lots of call and other activity scrolling by in the Events section, but the Status section above only shows the P25-1 Control Channel and there's no call activity or sound. I see a message "Tuner Unavailable - Phase 2 Channel Grant. I'm still pretty new at this and learning, so any tips or guidance would be appreciated.

What do you have the bandwidth set for? This systems bandwidth is 6MHZ

 

[grf0608]

I'm not seeing where the bandwidth is set or adjusted. Can you point me in the right direction?

 

[davejl2001]

You need to go to the tuner tab, and then you will see sample rate on the right side. When you do this make sure the tuner is not in use and then restart the application.

 

[grf0608]

You need to go to the tuner tab, and then you will see sample rate on the right side. When you do this make sure the tuner is not in use and then restart the application.

The Sample Rate dropdown has two choices: 2.50 MHz and 10.0 MHz. I switched it to 10.0 MHz and that seems to be working. There is some extra noise now appearing on the waterfall, so I may need another tweak. Thank you!

 

[RadioDitch]

The list of agencies using EMS Dispatch 4 seems to have gone missing from the listing in the database. Can anyone refresh my memory as to which municipalities utilize it? Thanks!

 

[GTR8000]

It's there, it was missing the carriage return when it was submitted, and I guess no one including myself noticed it.

 

[RadioDitch]

It's there, it was missing the carriage return when it was submitted, and I guess no one including myself noticed it.

View attachment 151467

Ugh. Thank God I'm getting new glasses tomorrow... (facepalm)

 

[yrless]

I’d love to have the radio techs come out to the Chathams and have them on a 9-1-1 call and try keying up inside a house only to get bonked and or garbled audio. I really don’t care if you can key up from the middle of the street, 90% of our work is done inside a structure and the signal is so weak the second your portable is separated from gods blue sky, even by an inch of sheet rock, it’s game over. Portable RSSI 30-40s, mobile 60s. But in Morristown portable RSSI can be up to 130s. Something needs to change for this area. Others are complaining but I don’t think to the right people.

I have a discone in the attic not 2 miles from the township water tank and most of the time the signal is garbage.....also the 700 LTE AT&T site on borough hall raises the noise floor through the entire band. I don't have this issue with the NJ Interop system.

 

[Roveer]

So I just picked up a Uniden SDS200 and will use the built-in database to scan the Morris County system. When I add the database entry for Morris county it also includes a section called "UHF Simulcast". My understanding from reading forums is that this was used during the transition from old to new. Now all traffic is on the "700 Simulcast" frequencies. Should I remove the UHF Simulcast from my Favorites list? If I keep it there won't the scanner devote resources to checking those 400mhz frequencies for signal when there should be none?

Set me straight on this. Right now I've removed it from my FL and it seems to be working. I just don't want to do something that would limit what I receive.

Many thanks.

Roveer

 

[richee2000]

So I just picked up a Uniden SDS200 and will use the built-in database to scan the Morris County system. When I add the database entry for Morris county it also includes a section called "UHF Simulcast". My understanding from reading forums is that this was used during the transition from old to new. Now all traffic is on the "700 Simulcast" frequencies. Should I remove the UHF Simulcast from my Favorites list? If I keep it there won't the scanner devote resources to checking those 400mhz frequencies for signal when there should be none?

Set me straight on this. Right now I've removed it from my FL and it seems to be working. I just don't want to do something that would limit what I receive.

Many thanks.

Roveer

Yes remove the UHF. The Morris county system is exclusively 700 MHz.

 

[Mboy00]

I know of a few that have all bands enabled. But do tell, what's the purpose of having SPEN in a portable and accessible to a user anyway?

Atleast from a fire side, SPEN 4 usually the Medevacs operate on, and it’s a common channel incase they don’t have a Fireground channel

 

[jslezak]

Just wanted to say thanks for all the heavy lifting to keep RR updated with all the changes lately. Much appreciated. Explains why my OP25 on my pi is a lame duck when I run my normal go to bash script to listen to Morris Co via SDR.... thanks again everyone.