Morristown expected to go digital

[fireairmedlistener]

Hey everyone I just heard that the mayor of Morristown is gong to try to switch the emergency communications from analog to digital does that mean I won't be able to scan Hamblen county anymore.

 

[Remington12G]

Hey everyone I just heard that the mayor of Morristown is gong to try to switch the emergency communications from analog to digital does that mean I won't be able to scan Hamblen county anymore.

That depends. If they go with Land Air then more than likely they will encrypt. If they go-to TACN then you should be able to hear them. If they take the route like Knox County then... Sorry Charlie

 

[fireairmedlistener]

I barley saw the Tribune article (thanks to subscribtions) but I think they might go 5he way Knox county did because they mentioned some kind of incident earlier this week in the article, which I heard of no incident but because I use a phone app for my scanner does that still mean that even on TACN that I would not be able to listen

 

[surfacemount]

digital is just a different way of sending the signal. There are plenty of options to receive most digital broadcasts. On the other hand, encryption or scrambling is intentionally to keep us from listening, and if they do that, then you are out of luck until you go to county commission and make them understand.

 

[fireairmedlistener]

Thanks for the info

 

[WX4JCW]

The question is what system will they use

 

[fireairmedlistener]

The question is what system will they use

That's something I'd like to know myself I know my neighbor is a dispatcher so I might just ask him, does the system effect our ability to scan

 

[zachgallop]

Looks like they are exploring two possibilities by the article. Looks like Morristown City Council has the option of joining TACN or creating their own digital system. This is the link to the article: Purkey to conduct city study on comms system . Hamblen County Dispatch has Kenwood NX-5300 radios for portable use and the Sheriff’s Office uses Kenwood radios, so I thought initially they might go Nexedge. You should be able to scan whether it is Nexedge, P25, or DMR, as long as the channels will not be encrypted. Hopefully, they do not go with Landair's Nexedge system; if that comes up as an option.

 

[fireairmedlistener]

Looks like they are exploring two possibilities by the article. Looks like Morristown City Council has the option of joining TACN or creating their own digital system. This is the link to the article: Purkey to conduct city study on comms system . Hamblen County Dispatch has Kenwood NX-5300 radios for portable use and the Sheriff’s Office uses Kenwood radios, so I thought initially they might go Nexedge. You should be able to scan whether it is Nexedge, P25, or DMR, as long as the channels will not be encrypted. Hopefully, they do not go with Landair's Nexedge system; if that comes up as an option.

Well knowing that I'd probably say that they would join TACN

 

[Shawnlin20]

I really need a reason to buy an APX radio.

 

[INDY72]

Hamblen is going to TACN. Should all be on by 2022. Fully expect Morristown to go TACN also. It actually is the cheaper option. LAC would need to completely build out from scratch, whereas there is already pretty decent TACN coverage already. Expect TG's in the 500XX range.

 

[fireairmedlistener]

Ok

 

[KN4EHX]

Reviving a semi dead thread.

As milf already said TACN. Allegedly APX Next is being tested. I haven’t seen it with my own eyes, but that came from a reliable source. I don’t foresee that being a standard issued item. Presently we use V/UHF analog, but TACN has strangely better coverage inside of buildings as I experienced today. I was able to hear THP from inside a metal building, but MPD UHF analog was mostly static. Very impressive considering the UHF repeater is across town and the TACN site my radio was receiving was on Short Mountain - about double the distance.

It makes sense to go 7/800 since there is a few other 7/800 sites around us, but having the V/UHF pairs might still come into the equation. There is a VHF TACN site a couple counties west. Logically the vendor would want to change as much as possible so 7/800 would be better for their pockets.

I don’t predict going with NXDN on Land Air’s system, but I have been fooled before. Morristown - Hamblen has Kenwood NX series radios so it is possible. Again the price of equipment makes me think paying for the license to enable P25 Phase II and trunking might still be less than going 7/800 with new radios. Take that with a big pinch of salt because that is only my opinion. Someone with more experience in rules of switching analog pairs to digital pairs would be a better resource on that subject. I would guess the FCC probably has specific frequency blocks for analog and digital.

Some are not too thrilled about the prospects of going digital, but the infrastructure has seen better days and I think the added capacity will benefit everyone.

If anyone knows what TGs are being used for testing I’d be interested to know.

Again a lot of opinion, hearsay, and speculation in my post so don’t bet the farm on anything I wrote.

 

[fireairmedlistener]

Reviving a semi dead thread.

As milf already said TACN. Allegedly APX Next is being tested. I haven’t seen it with my own eyes, but that came from a reliable source. I don’t foresee that being a standard issued item. Presently we use V/UHF analog, but TACN has strangely better coverage inside of buildings as I experienced today. I was able to hear THP from inside a metal building, but MPD UHF analog was mostly static. Very impressive considering the UHF repeater is across town and the TACN site my radio was receiving was on Short Mountain - about double the distance.

It makes sense to go 7/800 since there is a few other 7/800 sites around us, but having the V/UHF pairs might still come into the equation. There is a VHF TACN site a couple counties west. Logically the vendor would want to change as much as possible so 7/800 would be better for their pockets.

I don’t predict going with NXDN on Land Air’s system, but I have been fooled before. Morristown - Hamblen has Kenwood NX series radios so it is possible. Again the price of equipment makes me think paying for the license to enable P25 Phase II and trunking might still be less than going 7/800 with new radios. Take that with a big pinch of salt because that is only my opinion. Someone with more experience in rules of switching analog pairs to digital pairs would be a better resource on that subject. I would guess the FCC probably has specific frequency blocks for analog and digital.

Some are not too thrilled about the prospects of going digital, but the infrastructure has seen better days and I think the added capacity will benefit everyone.

If anyone knows what TGs are being used for testing I’d be interested to know.

Again a lot of opinion, hearsay, and speculation in my post so don’t bet the farm on anything I wrote.

Morristown is kind of already hard to hear anymore even outside a building, because a month after the announcement was made, a Lifestar helicopter flew relitivly low over a house I was at and when I went on my phone to use my Morristown scanner trying to see if any info was given about a LZ or something it was all static, but I was between 2 hills too.

 

[KN4EHX]

The broadcastify feed of Hamblen County is pretty rough. There definitely is some dead spots in the county especially when trying to use a hand held. Lifestar uses TACN so you should pick them up from Short Mountain as well. Wings is a bit of a mystery to me. Personally I’m looking forward to the switch I just hope they elect to keep things in the clear.

 

[fireairmedlistener]

The broadcastify feed of Hamblen County is pretty rough. There definitely is some dead spots in the county especially when trying to use a hand held. Lifestar uses TACN so you should pick them up from Short Mountain as well. Wings is a bit of a mystery to me. Personally I’m looking forward to the switch I just hope they elect to keep things in the clear.

Wings to Highlands will always be a mystery. and a scanner app I use has Lifestar but never works and I'd like to know a good app I can use for Lifestar along with Hamblen county.

 

[KN4EHX]

Another example of how TACN will be useful to us. Although UT has great interoperability capacity with their onboard radios the transition of selecting the right talk groups will become easier for them. Presently they have to juggle between picking the right frequency. In my experience there has been issues with tones and offsets when they have tried to coordinate with our neighbors.

As far as a scanner app for TACN receiving anything east of Knoxville I’m unaware of any. Getting a SDR with OP25 would likely be the cheapest way to monitor local trunked voice. Most stuff around here is not simulcast so you could get by with something less than a sds 100 or 200. Not that any P25 Phase II scanner is particularly cheap.