NFRRSA and 436 radio...

[WK4U]

Hey everyone.

I'm wondering how others in the area are hearing the new NFRRSA system? I live in extreme NE Cobb county. With a rubber duck, I get a so-so signal inside my home, but pretty much full scale outside. I have a commercial grade 800 MHz antenna on the roof that lets me hear multiple TRS's around town. When tuning into the new Fulton system, I get an absolutely full scale signal, but no decode. Not sure if it's multi-path &/or multi-site issues? My decoding is choppy at best with a rubber duck outside. Also earlier today I went mobile into Fulton. Took the radio with me. Used an external 800 MHz scanner antenna on the roof. All around good signals, but terrible decode [for the most part].

I also realize this is a Uniden general purpose radio, so I don't expect results like an over priced Motorola radio. But with the default settings, and a good signal, I'm not getting very good decode. Cobb's TRS on the other hand does decode very well. Even moving mobile. So at least the latest firmware from Uniden has done something right.

Other than trying different antennas (multi-site issue) or moving my physical location (multi-path issue), what are you guys doing to get a better decode? I even have my radio set to ID searching (vs ID scanning) and opened the squelch up all the way. No changes noticed. Maybe some other software settings need to be tweaked for better performance? Again, I've got a Uniden 436HP hand held radio.

I know the Fulton analog TRS is old, but at least I could hear everyone on it. Starting to miss it.

Tim, WK4U

 

[MTS2000des]

I'm wondering how others in the area are hearing the new NFRRSA system?

In SE Cobb (closest NFRRSA site is on the Riverwood building near Cumberland Mall), I have no issue hearing the NFRRSA on both my Pro-668 with a rubber duck and of course my APX6000 setup for no affiliate scan. On the APX I can hear the NFRRSA in some places in Cobb better than our own county Astro 25 network, but I can't view the actual RSSI in no affiliate scan.

I have a commercial grade 800 MHz antenna on the roof that lets me hear multiple TRS's around town.

That may be part of the issue, the NFRRSA has a high density number of sites in North Fulton, saturating the area with coverage. You are just outside it and likely equally distant from all the sites. Your high gain antenna is getting bombarded with signal from all of them, combine that with the deficient design of consumer digital scanners (lack of an I/Q demodulator) and the result is nothing comes out of your radio.

When tuning into the new Fulton system, I get an absolutely full scale signal, but no decode.

You won't hear much other than the radio techs and radio managers on 5B2 at this point. I think the go live is planned for sometime next month or August but don't quote me on that. 192C is where all the county action still is as of today.