New Newton County system

[west-pac]

Here's the screenshots of pics, crappy I know, but u can see the new microwave dishes put up, barely on the first pic and decently on the second pic from yesterday. Also based on comparing pics from yesterday and other days, the dishes a about if not the same height but bigger than old ones

Where do those dishes point to? One points to the other tower. Where does the other dish point to? I don't want a guess. I want you to take an interest and go find where it points to some time. At the other end there will be another dish at the 3rd location pointing back to both towers. The 3rd location may be the 3rd tower.

 

[I_Am_Infinite]

Where do those dishes point to? One points to the other tower. Where does the other dish point to? I don't want a guess. I want you to take an interest and go find where it points to some time. At the other end there will be another dish at the 3rd location pointing back to both towers. The 3rd location may be the 3rd tower.

Yep one toward the other tower (SSW) and other toward the the government center (SW), the same direction as before just bigger dishes... I have a good idea where they point, there is only so much in the direction they are pointing. I know there are 3 other microwave points around the county, for what, I'm not sure, been in use forever though.

As far as going to drive around and try to find these other microwave spots, I'll get on that, just cash app me the gas to go driving around. I go by the tower (north one) on the way to my Dr for the most part, I have made a couple unplanned just go visit to the north tower 4 miles away, but that is barely, it's usually omw to the oncologist, ENT or other Dr's i see or if I gotta l run errands.

I don't have gas to just drive around all over, especially at 4$ gallon, I might do a lil investigation into things, but it's well with 10 miles, unless I'm omw to something else that I gotta do.

As far as another tower that is another transmit site of the simulcast system, like there is 3 towers not 2, there just ain't, so there's no point to look for that.

If anything @speedway_navigator will probably have way more knowledge and understanding and not have to drive around for hours wasting 4$ a gallon gas. If I had the money I would, but I don't.

It must be one them days for ya, even so, I hope u have a good night

 

[speedway_navigator]

The microwave system forms a loop, in normal operation when dispatch hits the PTT it goes by the link to north tower, then the site controller sends PTT and audio to the local repeater by a cat 5 cable and by microwave to the south tower. The north site has a delay to make sure it TXs at the same time the south does.

This map shows the approximate distance between the sites. RF travels about 5.34µs per mile so our delay is (or should be) about 100µs, 5.34*18.7.

 

[I_Am_Infinite]

Has been more testing recently. Mostly Morocco area or south of there on different days. 4/2, 4/7, 4/8... . Testing in Morocco elementary and North Newton Jr/Sr High School was on 4/8....

Will be some more work to be done thou, 99% of the traffic is on SafeT and VHF and just patched to the new system.

I noticed the ISP Scan wasn't working with region D Mutual Aid 1, I seen it on the scanner on the Monon site but not on the newton county site. A few hours later I noticed ISP Scan in pro96com logs but didn't catch if it was still region D Mutual Aid 1 or if they switched to region A Mutual Aid 1.

They may have a reason for it being Region D Mutual Aid 1 and not the actual Region we are in, I'm not sure.

Still logging radio IDs as best I can since most times I don't get the IDs cause they are on the old systems. So far I have 247 and some but not to many with the units they belong to, and couple I think down to portable and mobile.

 

[I_Am_Infinite]

Just heard Region D Mutual Aid 1 on Monon site and not on Newton County System, so maybe ISP Scan is offline again or it got changed to the right Regional MA TG. I'll keep a watch.

 

[I_Am_Infinite]

I wanted to try to test signal strength from the system using the scanner I scan the system with daily and the only way I figured to do this on that psr800 is turn on ATT and let it run and watch to see each frequencies signal strength as they talk.

Not windy today, 5-10mph winds, so shouldn't do nothing out of the norm then like it usually does when winds are this speed.

So 770.09375 and 772.70625 have the strongest signal doesn't budge ever really off 5 bars.

770.08125 and 771.09375 have a pretty good signal, 4-5 bars back and forth some, but sometimes steady 5 bars

771.08125 and 772.20625 are essentially 3-2-4 bars back and forth but up a lil at times, this is junk.

Again all these are with ATT on.

So the only thing that makes any sense is and I know I been told this ain't the case by a couple of people, but it seems like the antenna on top is 770.09375/772.70625 since best signal strength.

Then 770.08125/771.09375 are on the side, but my side of the tower, it being on southwest side of tower me being WNW of tower. Being about 50 ft or more lower than the top antenna it makes sense to be somewhat lower signal strength.

Now, 771.08125/772.20625 are on the southeast side of the antenna and also has a shorter mount so it's mount makes the antenna be closer to the tower. So being on the opposite side of the tower from my location its signal has to pass thru the tower causing probably multipath and signal loss.

Also an officer was on a traffic stop at 950 north us41 and at one point and at same time I had a signal drop out on the dispatches transmission on 772.70625 and the officer experienced the same thing. Next transmission, different frequency fine.

Makes me wonder because I haven't heard it while listening but wouldn't they when testing a location make sure to try each frequency, or more specifically just each channel that's on each antenna.

Usually I hear the techs do radio checks from locations but it's just one and move on, why not make sure all frequencies are working good.

Again, I have no clue how all this works, so it's my brain just wondering, Im most likely wrong how I'm looking at it but that's the only thing that makes sense in terms of signal strength on each frequency and my wonderings/thoughts about radio techs and how they coverage test.

Another side note have not heard ISP Scan yet today so will see if they switched regional MAs on that TG or not.

 

[speedway_navigator]

The transmit antennas are mounted on the east and west side of each tower about 250' AGL. 3 repeaters are on each antenna due to their frequency spacing. Each repeater TX port goes to a combiner which has 1 output to the lightning protector and then the antenna. A hybrid combiner can have very close freq spacing for each input but has about 7 to 8 dB insertion loss.

That means 100W going into the combiner has under 25W out. A star combiner has less loss but needs more separation.

http://txrx.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/800-mhz-datasheet.pdf

This spec sheet shows a 1 MHz separation has 1.5 dB less loss for 4 channels that 250 kHz.
In theory each repeater should show about the same signal strength but fading comes into play.

 

[I_Am_Infinite]

The transmit antennas are mounted on the east and west side of each tower about 250' AGL. 3 repeaters are on each antenna due to their frequency spacing. Each repeater TX port goes to a combiner which has 1 output to the lightning protector and then the antenna. A hybrid combiner can have very close freq spacing for each input but has about 7 to 8 dB insertion loss.

That means 100W going into the combiner has under 25W out. A star combiner has less loss but needs more separation.

http://txrx.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/800-mhz-datasheet.pdf

This spec sheet shows a 1 MHz separation has 1.5 dB less loss for 4 channels that 250 kHz.
In theory each repeater should show about the same signal strength but fading comes into play.

I like the way the antennas are on the south tower which is very much east and west mounted. The north tower are a lil different, there more like southeast and southwest on tower, I think because it's only 2 miles from the county line to the north of the tower.

This first pic from essentially the west side of the tower, I'm bout 100ft south of directly west of the north tower in this pic. I guess it can be said that the antennas are kinda on the east and west because in a way they are but I'd say more like southeast and southwest.

The tower being a triangle and the peak of that pyramid on the north the 2 bottom points of the triangle are southeast and southwest. And the antennas are angled to the southeast and southwest not like the south tower they are like essentially off to each side of the tower. In pic 2 you can see position of antennas a lil better when they were the white ones, it's essentially the same now besides being Omni's, but the position is the same besides the southeast antenna, the one farthest from the picture now don't hang as far off and is mounted closer to the tower structure and the other looks like they used exactly the same type if not the same exact mount on the southwest antenna.

I know u will be back up here eventually, and i know, at least seemed that most if not all testing happened middle county a few miles from south tower, mostly around Morocco, next time ur up here can u take a look at the north tower in person before u go back home.

Wish I cud get u over here in sumava to look at the location to see what might help me get perfection on this system. I figure it is some sort of fade because that's what it looks like.

I'll try get some pics of each channel on the scanner with ATT on so the difference between frequencies can be seen.

Tbh like I said before I just wish they put all the antennas on the top, like that one on the north side of the top of the tower, then signal wud been equal.

Thanks again for you information as always it's appreciated

 

[speedway_navigator]

We did a walk test of downtown Morocco, even under the metal covered entry for the snowmobile museum.
We tested inside Mel's, they have great burgers and fries.

 

[I_Am_Infinite]

We tested inside Mel's, they have great burgers and fries.

That they do, some other good stuff to, but I don't eat there to much thou, just out of my way.

 

[I_Am_Infinite]

Just realized how bad pic 2 was after I downloaded it to repost.... but if u want to compare, the south tower pics are in post #109 they were taken from the driveway for southbase med shed standing a couple hundred feet essentially directly north of it. The tower isn't exactly aligned to north like the other tower who's north point of the structure points north. It's antennas are essentially off each side "kinda" west and east. I say "kinda" because it's more like they hang off to the Southwest ish and northeast ish.

And post #120 is pics of when the north tower had the white antennas, it's easier to see them hanging off the southeast and southwest points of the north tower, compared to the Omni antennas that are teal colored up there now that depending on the angle u look they disappear against the tower unlike the white ones.

I just don't get why the antenna on the southeast side of north tower don't hang off as far as the other antenna hanging off the other corner. Why not make it equal, I figure there is a reason but 🤷🏻‍♀️

 

[I_Am_Infinite]

I confirmed today that ISP Scan is now what it should have been, and back to Region A Mutual Aid 1.

 

[Napalm]

I finally got the yagi pointed south and some LMR400 feeding it. The Newton County PS system is now on Broadcastify Calls. Gordon's scanner app should update within 24 hours or you can make your own calls playlist. It's feeding everything so if you're a premium member nothing is off limits lol.

 

[Indianabrad]

A few days ago I added the Scan-ISP TG to this system on my SDS200, but haven't heard anything on it yet. Do they not use it much.?
I Do hear radio traffic on the other TGs of this system, everyday though.

 

[I_Am_Infinite]

A few days ago I added the Scan-ISP TG to this system on my SDS200, but haven't heard anything on it yet. Do they not use it much.?
I Do hear radio traffic on the other TGs of this system, everyday though.

No not much at all, it's only ISP Region A Mutual Aid 1, not like ISP 13 dispatch or something. It's not very busy, where region D Mutual Aid 1 is kinda busy, Region AMA 1 isn't.

 

[Napalm]

Why does it look and sound like the NCSO talk group is a patch from SAFE-T? is there a plan to switch once it's all up and running and tested fully?

 

[Napalm]

No not much at all, it's only ISP Region A Mutual Aid 1, not like ISP 13 dispatch or something. It's not very busy, where region D Mutual Aid 1 is kinda busy, Region AMA 1 isn't.

It would make more sense to put D13 on that patch.

 

[I_Am_Infinite]

Why does it look and sound like the NCSO talk group is a patch from SAFE-T? is there a plan to switch once it's all up and running and tested fully?

It is a patched type setup. There is only a few units from PD and FD etc that actually use the new system, u will notice more fire units on it, to use the fireground TGs. The majority of them are on SafeT and VHF for dispatch.

 

[mr10pt]

A few days ago I added the Scan-ISP TG to this system on my SDS200, but haven't heard anything on it yet. Do they not use it much.?
I Do hear radio traffic on the other TGs of this system, everyday though.

Region A-MA1 is used as the former State point to point channel and ILENE (chase) frequency

 

[speedway_navigator]

Tower crew said it was too windy to climb today, waiting for next opportunity.