New Newton County system

[mr10pt]

Follow up to previous post: the sds200 is connected to an external discone. Tried the stock antenna and have zero bars. Also have no signal on the sds100 with a Remtronix antenna from my home (by Uncle Johns Flea Market on 41). Driving distance to the north tower is 19 miles. Line of sight probably 15 miles. Guess I'll keep the analog freq's on the 100 which I can receive.

 

[19K10Tanker]

Follow up to previous post: the sds200 is connected to an external discone. Tried the stock antenna and have zero bars. Also have no signal on the sds100 with a Remtronix antenna from my home (by Uncle Johns Flea Market on 41). Driving distance to the north tower is 19 miles. Line of sight probably 15 miles. Guess I'll keep the analog freq's on the 100 which I can receive.

That's strange, I have the analog frequencies programmed in on an old scanner, I can no longer hear them, But I am still hearing them on the Safe-T system. I am getting full bars on my SDS100 using the stock antenna, and full bars on my SDS200 using a cheap discone I bought off Amazon, but then again I am only about 3 miles from north tower.

 

[I_Am_Infinite]

Follow up to previous post: the sds200 is connected to an external discone. Tried the stock antenna and have zero bars. Also have no signal on the sds100 with a Remtronix antenna from my home (by Uncle Johns Flea Market on 41). Driving distance to the north tower is 19 miles. Line of sight probably 15 miles. Guess I'll keep the analog freq's on the 100 which I can receive.

15 miles is pretty far for any rubber ducky antenna and some external antennas, so ya ur at it's fridge north boundary. Just uncle John's is probably 10 miles into lake county and it's essentially 2 miles from lake, newton county border.

 

[mr10pt]

15 miles is pretty far for any rubber ducky antenna and some external antennas, so ya ur at it's fridge north boundary. Just uncle John's is probably 10 miles into lake county and it's essentially 2 miles from lake, newton county border.

But i can hear KanCom (Kankakee County FD) no problem on the sds100. I must be in a "null" here

 

[I_Am_Infinite]

But i can hear KanCom (Kankakee County FD) no problem on the sds100. I must be in a "null" here

My signal strength changed a lil, with the CC change. I know it definitely got a boost in erp the other day, down lil seems since around 2pm yesterday and to this point about same but a good decode and 5 bars full. maybe they will bring it back up more erp and do balancing etc.

 

[speedway_navigator]

These sites have coverage prediction programs to see what signal loss you can expect from a certain tower height and location.
The general industry rule for UHF and above is max distance in miles = the square root of the antenna height in feet.
A 200' antenna would be about 14 miles, VHF tends to run about 10% more.

RF Line of Sight - SCADACore

RF Line-of-Sight provides radio path information for mapping long distance SCADA radio communications by using antenna height and topography.

www.scadacore.com

Radio Mobile Online

www.ve2dbe.com

RF Toolkit - Nautel Support

support.nautel.com

 

[19K10Tanker]

I think there is a few more bugs to work out, on and off throughout the day I am hearing someone talking about I74 on the new system EMA Ops 6. Now I heard what sounded like a dispatch for Lafayette #2

 

[19K10Tanker]

Now they mentioned SR47, passing sugar plains friend church, which is in/near Thorntown, IN

 

[I_Am_Infinite]

Now they mentioned SR47, passing sugar plains friend church, which is in/near Thorntown, IN

I think there is a few more bugs to work out, on and off throughout the day I am hearing someone talking about I74 on the new system EMA Ops 6. Now I heard what sounded like a dispatch for Lafayette #2

Ya that's a patch to Region D Mutual Aid talkgroup from SafeT system being broadcast, like patched onto the new county system. It's actually one of the longest active TGs on the system. It was patched or however they connected it essentially 3 months or so around when the control channel first came online

My personal belief is maybe this was a way to watch the system during build out, and kinda like give some data, can have some live traffic to test and watch consistently. EMA Ops 6 is probably what it Shud be but still has the lingering patch.

I'd think it cud possibly be like the ISP Scan, Jasper Scan, Lake Scan so the units cud monitor it. Maybe it was meant to be like these TGs to monitor another department or agency. Ud think they wud had Region A Mutual Aid not Region D since we are in Region A. So there's no telling really

 

[Indianabrad]

So I had heard a lot more talking in the past few days on the new Newton Co system, so this morning I put the complete TG list for it into my SDS200. If anyone wants to listen to my BCFY feed, they can do so here.

Jasper County Sheriff, Indiana State Police Districts 13 & 14 Live Audio Feed

Jasper County Sheriff, Indiana State Police Districts 13 & 14 Live Audio Feed on Broadcastify.com

www.broadcastify.com

 

[Napalm]

P25 today on 158.805 with NCSD dispatching. Is this just a VHF link to the system?

 

[Napalm]

Give me a couple of hours I'll have a broadcastify calls node set up for this system LOL. I'll add it to the three SAFE-T nodes, the three LCPS nodes, plus the Calumet City nodes I run

 

[I_Am_Infinite]

P25 today on 158.805 with NCSD dispatching. Is this just a VHF link to the system?

Like it has p25 audio now not analog? If yes I wonder if the north and south VHF frequencies will go to p25 also. Maybe it is because it's rebroadcasting from the new system. I'll have look into it

 

[Napalm]

Is the new NC system audible for you? I've got nothing up here in Crown Point.

Yes, 158.805 is carrying P25 NCSO comms. The radios have properly formed radio IDs (56xxxxx) and dispatch (from memory) is using RID 3001. Nothing since midnight last night though.

I don't even have a faint signal at all on any of the 700MHz CCs from NC so I'm SOL unless it's down at the moment.

 

[I_Am_Infinite]

Is the new NC system audible for you? I've got nothing up here in Crown Point.

Yes, 158.805 is carrying P25 NCSO comms. The radios have properly formed radio IDs (56xxxxx) and dispatch (from memory) is using RID 3001. Nothing since midnight last night though.

I don't even have a faint signal at all on any of the 700MHz CCs from NC so I'm SOL unless it's down at the moment.

Ya it's operational. That's cool about the p25 on 158.805 its not even licensed for it, the north vhf frequency is thou but I've not heard nothing on that since they switched over.

On the state system and this new system I noticed the Radio IDs are almost if not identical, except dispatch using 3001.

So u had good signal and now just have nothing?

 

[Indianabrad]

So, does anyone know what the Scan TGs on the new system actually are?

 

[west-pac]

Newer simulcast systems are designed to keep the signals inside the county. They're specifically designed to not broadcast the signal far and wide outside of the county. A good simulcast system may only be receivable for a few miles outside of the county.

If you look at the FCC licenses for Grant county, or K-county, you'll see power outage wattage listed. Grant county is 30 watts on all 3 sites. K-county is 30 watts on one site, 12 watts on another, and 8 watts on the 3rd.

The people who are not in Newton county may have a hard time receiving the system.

 

[Indianabrad]

@west-pac what are the TGs on the new system of SCAN-ISP, SCAN-JASPER and SCAN-LAKE ?

 

[I_Am_Infinite]

Newer simulcast systems are designed to keep the signals inside the county. They're specifically designed to not broadcast the signal far and wide outside of the county. A good simulcast system may only be receivable for a few miles outside of the county.

If you look at the FCC licenses for Grant county, or K-county, you'll see power outage wattage listed. Grant county is 30 watts on all 3 sites. K-county is 30 watts on one site, 12 watts on another, and 8 watts on the 3rd.

The people who are not in Newton county may have a hard time receiving the system.

Yep, im thinking your right. The South tower will probably be more watts than the north tower and the north tower is more directional since it's only around 2 miles from the lake county border to the north.

I think it's why I don't have booming signal inside on a handheld scanner with just the stock antenna. I'm WNW of the tower so not in a good zone. I'm essentially on the border with lake county within Newton County. I think the antennas on the north tower are meant to keep the signal to the west, southwest, south, southeast, east for sure in the main patterns. And northwest, North, northeast are in not as strong zones.

Although my signal is better they did something last Friday to boost the signal. I did notice omw by there, the 2 white antennas from my pictures, now have mounts from the tower over to the top of the antennas. The silver one by the microwave dish area that is directional also is attached at the top of the antenna to the tower, not just from the bottom of the antenna. So I figure they probably lined everything up, tightened everything up, turned it up a lil more.

Cud be why some lost signal to the northern County to us, cause that north tower got the radiation pattern and everything adjusted last Friday. Probably keeping the signal more in the county like u said.

I did some testing a couple weeks ago I had to drive my friend to the courthouse and noticed the signal all the way from essentially Morocco to Kentland on 41 is 5 bars booming. I had my psr800 in my lap with a stock antenna from my SDS 200 and it was pegged out while driving down the road, even with the tower behind me coming up to Kentland.

That south tower is putting it out, my guess it will have a higher erp and more omnidirectional. The north tower being lower ERP than the south tower and more directional antennas. There is no where I can drive near the north tower and have my scanner in my lap like that a get signal that good, just wish I got signal pegged like I did from that south tower.

 

[west-pac]

@west-pac what are the TGs on the new system of SCAN-ISP, SCAN-JASPER and SCAN-LAKE ?

No idea, I don't live anywhere close to Newton county. What is SCAN-ISP, SCAN-LAKE, SCAN-JASPER?