New Oakland system

[Retired911Guy]

Minor update:

Site 101 is now GONE, only site 303 appears as a neighbor. Hoping that 1 of 2 things may be up.

1.Site 101 controller out for updating or out to be replaced with a new controller for the NEW Gwin Simulcast that the Oakland Doc's and FCC Doc's suggest.
or
2.If Gwin is part of the Broadway-Seneca Simulcast, then maybe it is NOT listed as a neighboring site, maybe it is part of Site 202 Broadway and Seneca simulcast as many of us believe and is listed just as Site 202.

-Neighbors
#Format: TowerID,TowerIDHex,System ID,Channel,Frequency,Tower Name
303,"T0303",136,"00-0088",852.11250,""

Stay Tuned...

Dave

 

[officer_415]

If Gwin is part of the Broadway-Seneca Simulcast, then maybe it is NOT listed as a neighboring site, maybe it is part of Site 202 Broadway and Seneca simulcast as many of us believe and is listed just as Site 202.

This was my understanding after reading the documents. They were adding the APL/Seneca simulcast frequencies to the Gwin site, creating a 3-site simulcast system (Site 202).

 

[inigo88]

This was my understanding after reading the documents. They were adding the APL/Seneca simulcast frequencies to the Gwin site, creating a 3-site simulcast system (Site 202).

Sounds like it to me too. Have you guys noticed any difference in the sound quality of the control channel? Is the system decoding any better? Since you're more in line of sight with Gwin than downtown, that might indicate the change has already taken place.

But you won't notice any changes on Pro96Com other than a lack of site 101 from now on. Each site of a simulcast zone doesn't show up on control channel monitoring programs. Consider all the sites simulcasting in MERA east zone, which collectively appear as "site 001."

I did have another theory about site 303 recently (3-003). On a large multisite trunking system I know of down in southern CA, the radio techs have their own dedicated intellirepeater site located at the radio shop within a very small coverage area. Normal system radios won't affiliate with this site, but the tech's radios will and they can use it to test various things. I would be curious to see if Oakland decided to try the same thing, and if site 303 is a similar "test site" located in the radio shop. It might explain why we never heard a control channel for site 303 (even driving on 580 near Castro Valley). However the only way to tell for sure would be to visit the fire station near Lake Chabot (where the license says 852.1125 is located) or the Oakland radio shop and see if we could hear the control channel at either location.

 

[Retired911Guy]

Just a quick reply on the reception, no there has NOT been a increase or clearing up of reception for my location and knowing my location, turning Gwin on with it's MUCH higher location should drop right down over the "HILL of DOOM".

I'm going to have to look over the Doc's in question re: the Seneca vs Broadway you TWO guys are talking about to see if you're picking on me or just "correcting me again"

(I was under the knife again the Thursday before last and the special happy pills I'm taking MAY have clouded my judgment on what the doc's said, luckily this one was negative unlike the other two, but was "atypical" tissue and probably on it's way in the future to being the same.) (sorry for the personal data, just why some of my posts are confusing or have way to many happy faces on them, or humor, without that I'd be lost)

But we do agree on Broadway and Seneca as Site 202 simulcast, and that when Gwin does come up it will become part of Site 202.

With Happiness,
Dave

 

[officer_415]

I have not noticed any improvement in the quality of the audio or control channel. The system is still useless on my BCD396XT. I'm also skeptical about whether the addition of Gwin to the simulcast will improve my reception of the system or not. If anything it will only add to the multipath interference that seems to be the problem right now.

As for Site 303, I was going to ask Inigo about that. There is only one frequency licensed to Fire Station 28, and I've been wondering what the use is for a one-frequency site on a P25 Phase I system. I've heard the phrase "single-frequency P25 system" before, but I was under the impression that was really a conventional system using multiple NACs. If Site 303 only has one channel, wouldn't it be unable to carry any voice traffic? I was up on West Peak the other day and didn't hear anything on 852.1125

 

[inigo88]

There was an Intellirepeater option on Motorola 3600 systems called "voice over control channel" for single frequency sites. Basically the control channel would only be broadcast when there was no voice traffic and when there was, the CC would shut off to allow the voice transmission. Obviously that extremely limits what the system can do while the CC is shut off (and was kind of a silly option in my opinion). However I'm not sure if this option was retained with P25 Phase I or II. Wayne would know.

Edit: The feature is called "Voice on Control" (VOC), and according to the Michigan thread below it is supported by P25 Phase I:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Type_II_VOC

http://forums.radioreference.com/mi...m/122212-how-many-tgs-supported-one-time.html

The wikipedia intellirepeater article on VOC brings up the point that the user radios all have to start internal timers during a voice channel grant, because if contact can't be reestablished with the CC then the radio must either display "out of range" and/or search for another site to affiliate to.

 

[WayneH]

Motorola Type II VOC - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This looks vaguely familiar...like someone ripped it off from an old message of mine. :roll:

Anyhow, I don't believe there's a VOC feature with P25 trunking. (Re: that second thread: N_Jay says it's possible <shrug>)

 

[officer_415]

Anyhow, I don't believe there's a VOC feature with P25 trunking.

So what would be the use of a single-frequency site at Fire Station 28?

 

[inigo88]

This looks vaguely familiar...like someone ripped it off from an old message of mine. :roll:

Anyhow, I don't believe there's a VOC feature with P25 trunking. (Re: that second thread: N_Jay says it's possible <shrug>)

Ah jeeze, I'm sorry. I don't doubt it, I think I vaguely remember the post you wrote it in.

 

[WayneH]

So what would be the use of a single-frequency site at Fire Station 28?

A waste of money. If it's in fact a VOC style of site I would imagine it's coverage for them. The proper way would be to use a BDA or a conventional repeater tied in to the system. Much cheaper.

 

[inigo88]

A waste of money. If it's in fact a VOC style of site I would imagine it's coverage for them. The proper way would be to use a BDA or a conventional repeater tied in to the system. Much cheaper.

Emphasis added. It never ceases to amaze me how much departments will pay (excluding Homeland Security grants) for an unnecessary radio system.

 

[inigo88]

Update:

New system: Gwin was definitely absorbed into the city simulcast site 202. Sounds marginally better from the north bay. Marginally. Meaning, if I delete all the control channels except the current one, ensure multi-site mode is off, and turn the squelch ALL the way down, I can hear every tenth word and get some garbled digital. Occasionally an entire sentence makes it through. This is due cause for celebration when it happens.

Old EDACS System: Has been completely abandoned by OPD and Oakland Fire. The Police and Fire dispatch talkgroups are rebroadcasting audio from the P25 system through one single radio ID on each talkgroup. At the moment, the EDACS system is patching Patrol 1 and Patrol 5 to Patch TG 15-154. ALL audio on this talkgroup is being rebroadcast from the P25 system through RID 1001. Service 1 & Service 2 are being patched into Patch talkgroup 15-155, but no rebroadcast audio is being heard. Oakland Fire Ch 1 audio is being rebroadcast from the P25 system via RID 16051.

It is also extremely noteworthy to mention that the system admins have disconnected ALL OPD Tacs (1 thru 10) and Patrol 2, 3 and 4 (and possibly Service 1 & 2) from the EDACS system. They are now exclusively on the P25 system. The radio affiliations on the EDACS system are now exclusively public works users. I have a feeling that the Oakland PD Citywide Dispatch Patch (TG 15-154) and Oakland Fire Ch 1 rebroadcast (TG 13-021) are being retained as receive only talkgroups for some public works purpose.

On the plus side, a lot of new PW talkgroups have shown up. Maybe you guys can help me identify the following:

13-046
14-023
14-024
14-041
14-043
14-061 - Identified as Public Works - Traffic Signals & Signs
14-081 - Radio Techs
14-141 - PW Sewers
14-142
14-143
14-145 - PW Streets
14-146
15-081
15-082

Update: OPD has broken the citywide dispatch patch for the morning, and I did briefly see Patrol 2 appear on EDACS with P25 rebroadcast RID 16001, but it still looks like anything LE Tac or Car-to-Car related is P25 only. So be advised that from now on listening to OPD or OFD on EDACS, you are actually listening to a rebroadcast of the real thing, and may be missing other associated talkgroups.

 

[Retired911Guy]

On the plus side, a lot of new PW talkgroups have shown up. Maybe you guys can help me identify the following:

13-046
14-023
14-024
14-041 <------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1
14-043
14-061 - Identified as Public Works - Traffic Signals & Signs <-- 2
14-081 - Radio Techs
14-141 - PW Sewers
14-142
14-143
14-145 - PW Streets
14-146
15-081
15-082

These two are in the db already, do you dispute them ?

 

[inigo88]

These two are in the db already, do you dispute them ?

Certainly not. That was a typo on my end. Anything below, in bold, was found by Unitrunker and still needs to be identified.

13-046
14-023
14-024
14-041 - Parking Enforcement
14-043
14-061 - Identified as Public Works - Traffic Signals & Signs
14-081 - Radio Techs
14-141 - PW Sewers
14-142
14-143
14-145 - PW Streets
14-146
15-081
15-082

 

[officer_415]

I am listening to EDACS right now and I'm seeing the following:

12-021 Patrol 1 - RID 16000
12-023 Patrol 3 - RID 16003
12-025 Patrol 5 - RID 16005

13-021 Oakland Fire 1 - RID 16051

15-001 OHA Police 1 - RID 16100

Most traffic is going out via the radio IDs listed above, but I am occasionally seeing other RIDs. I believe the P25 radios have the ability to revert back to the EDACS talkgroups, and some officers are still using those talkgroups. This is what determines which talkgroups are simulcast on EDACS at any given time.

 

[Retired911Guy]

Certainly not. That was a typo on my end. Anything below, in bold, was found by Unitrunker and still needs to be identified.

Thanks, as Anderson Cooper says, "just keeping them honest'

Most of the ones listed are dispatched by PW "Call Center", and by OFD after hrs, and are used as calling chls or status chls for minor calls.

At least of two maybe three of the un-Id'd ones are tac chls for PW for larger projects and maybe one or two may be PW admin for different PW divisions or something of that type.

One of them heard lots of Spanish speaking and some key words like "mower" and other English words that made me think they are landscape people.

Another was definitely admin as one was giving the other how he wanted a job done.

None of the above un-ID'd Chls I talked about above talk very much, so it's hard to ID them, never could ID exactly who they were or which Depts they were with, so never submitted.

 

[Danny94103]

I just received my scanner master pre-programmed 396XT last week as well as the ARCxt Pro software. I am noticing that my Oakland P25 also is not receiving well, it either intermittent or non at all. It was pre-programmed using the RR database as currently shown. It appears with these threads, that this is typical now, due to their tweaks during this transition. Is there a quick fix I should do to add additional frequencies to get P25 working fully? I'm currently using the EDACs system, but as noted above, I may not be getting all the coms there as it is being re-broadcasted. I guess, until they finally complete the transition I will not be able to monitor all their coms. I just hope that my 396XT will be able to work completely on Oakland P25 when it is finally fully working.

Previously used Pro2052 and BC245 for years and had to upgrade to new 396XT when they stopped working for Oakland.
Thinking of getting the 996XT, but maybe should wait until all these transition tweaks settle down.

 

[Retired911Guy]

Send your Beatcat back and get a GRE 500 or 600

BC's do NOT WORK with p25 simulcast unless you are line of sight with one site only, or close enough to one site that it over powers the other site and then your BC will pick up only that site and will not receive interference from the other sites.

This problem is caused by time delay of the signals your scanner is receiving from the multiple sites, it's like a simplex channel and 2 or 3 people try to transmit at the same time.

A simulcast system relies on VERY tight time synchronization and the mobiles are designed and programed to handle system time sync.

GRE seems to have included simulcast time syncing in their hardware or software, while BC apparently did not.

Some people with BC.s will argue this point saying that they get OAK P25 on their BC just fine, but as I said above if you are receiving one site only or close to a site that's overpowering all other sites a BC will work fine, but I know a couple of 396xt or 996xt users that receive all OAK P25 sites but out of time sync due to distance and can NOT pickup P25.

My GRE 600 works just fine, even at a distance while receiving all sites, as I said GRE seems to have seen simulcast coming and put time syncing in their scanners while BC didn't.

Just my observations (including several other of this tread that try to monitor OAK P25 with BC's vs GRE's).

Dave

BTW: Same thing going on now with the East Bay Regional System. BC's NOT picking up simulcast, IF you receiving many or all site of a zone and are out of time sync area.

 

[officer_415]

Unfortunately the reception problems with Uniden scanners are not caused by any temporary issues with the system itself. They are caused by the format of the digital signal. Uniden scanners were designed to decode C4FM modulation used on Motorola Smartnet and Smartzone systems. The new Oakland system uses CQPSK modulation, also known as Linear Simulcast Modulation (LSM), which is supposed to be compatible with C4FM, but the scanners do not handle it as well. As Dave mentioned, it is possible use a Uniden scanner to monitor the system if you are receiving a signal from only one site, but if you are in range of multiple transmitters, the multipath interference renders the scanner fairly useless.

As for the status of the new system, public safety users are fully transitioned to the P25 system. The EDACS and P25 systems are patched together and some radios are still operating on EDACS, which provides for pretty reliable reception of the main dispatch channels (Patrol 1, Patrol 5, Oakland Fire 1, etc.) on EDACS, but the tactical channels are hit or miss depending on whether any radios are affiliated to that particular talkgroup on an EDACS site. The system is pretty much in its final configuration, with the possible exception of the site at Fire Station 28 (we have not verified the status of this site).

 

[SIG]

To the last two posters, thank you for this info. I recently purchased a BC396XT and have not been able to monitor Oakland's P25 system well and have been disappointed, not knowing why I am having poor reception and choppy audio in some cases. Thanks for the additional technical details on why this is so. As this is the system I monitor the most (for several decades), I will now go with a GRE500. I'll do some reading up on the GRE800 (haven't really researched the GRE models), but the GRE500 has ARC software that I would like to use to help programs systems and seems like a good choice.