Narrow Banding

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larry52

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I read this article this morning on the web.
"Be prepared when the FCC Narrowbanding mandate goes into effect on January 1, 2013. You'll need to make decisions soon about how to adjust to Narrowbanding.

Nationwide licensees operating on 25 kHz radios systems will need to operate using 12.5 kHz efficiency channels." Does anybody what effect this will have to those of us who like to listen to scanners?
Larry
 

Rt169Radio

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I was wondering what effect it will have on scanner listening to?
 

KK4ELO

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it wont have any effect at all. all newer scanners will do the new freq splits, and most even have a narrowband option to keep the audio from dropping out.
 

JoeyC

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You will not have the high fidelity wideband sound that you may be used to, otherwise you should hear just fine.
 

kb2vxa

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Not exactly, I've not noticed any difference in "fidelity" for technical reasons that go beyond the scope of this discussion. The only noticible difference is a reduction in volume when listening on a "wideband" receiver. Eh, haven't noticed any dropouts either but the narrow band feature comes in handy for equalizing volume between narrow and wide band. Hopefully this answers your question beyond a simple "no".

Don't hold your breath waiting on that mandated cut-off, it's not written in stone. Quite a few waivers have been applied for and at least one that I know of has been granted. With agencies strapped for funds in this crappy economy I'm not surprised, like the IRS, the FCC doesn't have a heart of stone.
 

sfd119

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My Uniden scanners handle both the Wide and Narrow transmissions flawlessly. Unfortunately, my Motorola radios sound crappy when one agency is using wideband on a narrow band mutual aid frequency.

Some counties up in NW Wisconsin won't be able to meet the narrowband deadline and thus there are some radio issues dealing with multi-agency responses on the mutual aid channels in WI.
 
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DaveNF2G

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Someone is just asking about this now? We have only been discussing it in the various forums for a few months.
 

sfd119

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Someone is just asking about this now? We have only been discussing it in the various forums for a few months.

Not everyone is up to date on radios and scanners as others. Judging by his 12 posts in the last 2 years, I'd say he's a causal visitor to these boards :)
 
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DaveNF2G

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That does not impede his use of the forum search function.
 
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DaveNF2G

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The Search link appears at the top of every page. What slack?
 

nd5y

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What is this narrow and wide band talk?

In the private land mobile 2-way radio industry "wideband" means an FM signal that is transmitted at 5 kHz deviation and occupies 16 to 20 kHz wide bandwidth and "narrowband" means an FM signal that is transmitted at 2.5 kHz deviation and occupies 11.2 kHz bandwidth.

Narrowband and wideband can have other meanings in other radio and broadcasting services.

For more information on the FCC narrowbanding mandate see our wiki page at Narrowbanding - The RadioReference Wiki
 

kb2vxa

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"Unfortunately, my Motorola radios sound crappy when one agency is using wideband on a narrow band mutual aid frequency."

If your Moto was receiving in wide band mode the only thing you'd notice is a slight reduction in volume on narrow band transmissions. No particular problem, but when a wide band signal deviates out of the narrow IF passband clipped sidebands sound rather nasty. That makes me wonder if transmit and receive can be programmed differently, if receive is wide and transmit narrow the problem is resolved and the unit still in compliance with narrow band as per FCC rules & regulations.
 

sfd119

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"Unfortunately, my Motorola radios sound crappy when one agency is using wideband on a narrow band mutual aid frequency."

If your Moto was receiving in wide band mode the only thing you'd notice is a slight reduction in volume on narrow band transmissions. No particular problem, but when a wide band signal deviates out of the narrow IF passband clipped sidebands sound rather nasty. That makes me wonder if transmit and receive can be programmed differently, if receive is wide and transmit narrow the problem is resolved and the unit still in compliance with narrow band as per FCC rules & regulations.

Yeah, it is clipped when the transmit. It's readable, but still doesn't sound clean/crisp.
 

larry52

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To everybody's friend, David T. Stark,

You sir are one arrogant SOB. People come to the forums seeking answers or help with a problem. To have someone like you on the forum boards can be detrimental to the whole reasoning of why we have forums. While I'm not in the position to reprimand you of your actions of how you treat others on the forum. I would strongly recommend to our moderators that this child like bullying from people like this should not be tolerated and he should given a warning and if it keeps happening deny him access to the forums. Radio Reference has always been there in the past for me with helpful advice and caring people who truly want to help and having people like Dave deter others from asking questions would be in my mind harmful to R.R. David, having the title of educator does not mean you are one and you sir are the perfect example of this.
Thank You,
Larry52
 

radioman2001

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"Unfortunately, my Motorola radios sound crappy when one agency is using wideband on a narrow band mutual aid frequency."
To anyone who uses a real radio on a mixed system of narrow and wide band users I suggest the following. Since this is not a one time quick fix our agency has played with various solutions and found that just turning down the deviation of a radio still programmed for wide band solves all the associated problems of a mixed system (radios both programmed for wide and narrow) with the exception of the lower RX audio coming from a narrow banded radio. The reason is that rather than have a totally narrow banded radio you still have a wide band RX but you meet the FCC requirements of 2.5kc TX deviation, and your radio will not cut off on a loud speaking person who is still in wide band TX. Eventually you will have to go through all your radios again and make them true narrow both TX and RX, but that should be after 1-1-13 when hopefully all other users are reprogrammed for true narrow band.
How this effects scanners is not an issue since they are more than wide band, and may just have lower RX audio, maybe pick up 2 frequencies at once, and have a audio level difference depending on whether the radio is transmitting as a narrow or wide radio.
As far as some members here being in the dark about it, not everybody is a radio person, some are as stated casual listeners and are not having to deal with such issues. They just want to be sure their scanner works.
 
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