MWIN reception question

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bama9999

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Milf, or anyone else that knows and can answer, I'd appreciate it. I live in the phase 3 area, and I know that's the last area to receive coverage. However, I'm far enough south in the phase 3 area that I'm close to where it shows a tower from phase 2 is going to be close enough for me to monitor. So hopefully it won't be too many more years before I can begin to monitor this system.

What I'm wondering about is with my being located in the Northern 3rd of the State, will I be able to hear traffic from the Southern part of the state, like MHP near the coast for example, on a regular basis on the towers in my listening area, or would something like that be used only in major emergencies? Would I hear, say the city of Jackson for example, on the towers/freqs in North MS?

Also, if agencies in the area that I reside in use this system, will I be able to monitor them when I'm in some other part of the state, if I have that areas towers programmed in?

Sorry if this appears as a dumb question, but I'm not really sure I completely understand how this system is going to work.

Thanks!
 

KE5TLF

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You'll only hear traffic pertinent to the area of the tower you are monitoring for the most part, and it is yet to be determined just how liberal (or not) these "areas" will be in most cases. As in which adjacent (e.g. fringe) towers will repeat a given agency.

Of course there are bound to be exceptions when events warrant them.

The only real day to day example of this is of course the BMR channels which are only repeated on the few towers that cover the coastline/waterways that are within their operating area.

Also the grid testing from a few weeks ago was not repeated across all towers in all of phase 1 either.
 

KE5TLF

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As another example:

Obviously all towers in Troop K counties will repeat Troop K traffic.

What, if any, overlap with towers into Troop J's district (and vice versa) will there be is yet to be surely determined by anyone not directly "in-the-know" since there is nothing for us scanner enthusiasts to monitor yet.

I would think that at least some of the towers in counties directly adjacent to a given district would repeat traffic from the adjacent district though.
 

teamleader

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MWIN Coverage Question

I am afraid some people will be disapointed with some aspects of how the MWIN will work, from what I have seen by using two radios to monitor with not all towers will repeat when a mic is pressed from a given talkgroup. The statement that all towers in phase 1 will broadcast traffic from MHP District 8 Troup K may not always be the case and this is why the only time any specific tower will broadcast the traffic from say Troup K on whatever talkgroup they settle on is if a radio from that talk group is affiliated to that specific tower and of course you the listener can receive that same tower. Now the case maybe that with as many mobile units that maybe on the road at any given time that most towers will repeat Troup K traffic all the time anyway. What I am hoping for is that when a lot of the the patrolmen go off duty that they will keep there portable radios on to monitor since really they have never had that capability before and it will keep as many of the towers affiliated as possible and will be easier to monitor everthing they say. The best way that I have come up with because I live in Jackson county is to get a good antenna with very, very good coax to cut down on loss and get it as high as possible so you can receive as many towers as possible. The other problem I think will prevent some long range monitoring is the fact that the data frequencies are used over and over again for different towers so if you receive a close by tower on say 774.8312 and towers say in Pearl River county have the same data frequency you will not be able to receive the PR county tower and therfore mis traffic broadcast from that tower completly unless a radio with the same talkgroup is affiliated to the tower you can receive. Then there is the question if you can receive radio traffic form say district 7 MHP units if you live down on the coast and I am afraid that if you can't receive at least a few towers in district 7 you won't receive district 7 traffic unless a patrol car from district 7 happens to get far enough south to lose affiliation with district 7 towers and affiliates with a tower you can receive in district 8. I might be totally wrong but this is the way the system keeps from overloading itself by not broadcasting traffic from every talkgroup to all towers when no radio is affiliated to a perticular tower. But we shall see.
 

ffemt601

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I am afraid some people will be disapointed with some aspects of how the MWIN will work, from what I have seen by using two radios to monitor with not all towers will repeat when a mic is pressed from a given talkgroup. The statement that all towers in phase 1 will broadcast traffic from MHP District 8 Troup K may not always be the case and this is why the only time any specific tower will broadcast the traffic from say Troup K on whatever talkgroup they settle on is if a radio from that talk group is affiliated to that specific tower and of course you the listener can receive that same tower. Now the case maybe that with as many mobile units that maybe on the road at any given time that most towers will repeat Troup K traffic all the time anyway. What I am hoping for is that when a lot of the the patrolmen go off duty that they will keep there portable radios on to monitor since really they have never had that capability before and it will keep as many of the towers affiliated as possible and will be easier to monitor everthing they say. The best way that I have come up with because I live in Jackson county is to get a good antenna with very, very good coax to cut down on loss and get it as high as possible so you can receive as many towers as possible. The other problem I think will prevent some long range monitoring is the fact that the data frequencies are used over and over again for different towers so if you receive a close by tower on say 774.8312 and towers say in Pearl River county have the same data frequency you will not be able to receive the PR county tower and therfore mis traffic broadcast from that tower completly unless a radio with the same talkgroup is affiliated to the tower you can receive. Then there is the question if you can receive radio traffic form say district 7 MHP units if you live down on the coast and I am afraid that if you can't receive at least a few towers in district 7 you won't receive district 7 traffic unless a patrol car from district 7 happens to get far enough south to lose affiliation with district 7 towers and affiliates with a tower you can receive in district 8. I might be totally wrong but this is the way the system keeps from overloading itself by not broadcasting traffic from every talkgroup to all towers when no radio is affiliated to a perticular tower. But we shall see.

Hum, that is an interesting concept but I don't see how a tower site could "poll" a radio to see what talkgroups it contains. I am not up to speed on P25 systems as my experience is with Moto type II, but this is the first I have heard of such a configuration.
 

teamleader

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I hope everyone has had a very Merry Christmas, and now back to the coverage question if the MWIN system was going to be a simulcast system like Jackson County has then all tower sites would broadcast the same traffic from all talkgroups but the MWIN in the early stages of deployment there would probably be no problem if it were a simulcast system but as other users, departments come on line more frequencies would be needed which might overload the system or cause a shortage of frequecies. The thing about a Motorola radio programmed on the MWIN is it may be able to receive more than one to several data channels from different tower sites but it will only affiliate to the (site) signal with the best signal to noise ratio and will operate like your cell phone and drop 1 data channel in lieu of the next best as the radio or patrol car moves up and down the roads of the state. A tower site from the time a radio is turned on knows which radios are affiliated to it, which talk group that radio is affiliated with by a radio # an electronic signature if you will and as soon as that radio PTT is pressed that signal with the talk group ID goes thru that affiliated tower 700mhz system then will go thru the microwave relay system which scanners can not receive to every tower that has another identical talk group ID radio affiliated with it and broadcast the radio trafic thru that tower. Take Wayne county for examle which has 4 MWIN towers and say an MHP unit is affiliated with the tower in the North East corner of the county off Hwy 84 and presses a PTT on his radio and no other MHP unit is affiliated with the other 3 towers in that county then no MHP traffic will be broadcast from the other 3 towers in the same county. That transmission will go thru that affiliated towers 700 mhz system onto the microwave relay system to every other tower that has an MHP District 7 radio affiliated to it and broadcast the radio traffic to all radios in that talk group even if a patrol car/radio is in Tupelo Ms once the system is built out thru phase 3. Systems that cover a large area such as a state have to work this way to prevent overload or a shortage of frequencies. It remains to be seen how the dispatch locations such as the new MHP Dist 8 headquarters office on Hwy 67 in Harrison county or MHP Dist 7 in Hattisberg will receive transmissions from the system, if they put up a microwave relay system with a 700mhz repeater system like they have at all other sites then the 700mhz repeater may broadcast traffic from the dispatch location and you could just try to receive that location and receive all of the MHP traffic.
Teamleader
 

bama9999

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Thanks for the info, Teamleader. I appreicate you posting. Maybe I just don't really understand it completely yet, but so far, it sounds like it's going to be somewhat of a nightmare to try and scan it.
 
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