No Austin PD George (Downtown) Sector Radio Traffic

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cbritton

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I've been listening to Greater Austin/Travis Regional Radio System (GATRRS) in Austin for years. One of the busiest channels is always Austin PD George (Downtown) sector -- talkgroup ID 986. For the past few days, I have not heard a single hit.

I verified that I had not inadvertently locked it out.

Has George sector moved to a new talkgroup ID that is not in the RR database yet?

Is it somehow possible for a scanner (BCD396T) to fail in such a way that it stops decoding a specific talkgroup without affecting other talkgroups on the same system?

If you are successfully hearing traffic in that talkgroup, I would appreciate hearing about it.

Otherwise, I'm stumped.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
 

Russell

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Austin PD 986 is no longer used for the George Units(Downtown) they are now on 3421
 

TLF82

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I just did some listening and I've heard some traffic on 986 and none of 3421...
 

rvacs

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I did see that GATTRS and Licenses there was a new one posted for Downtown Austin PD.

And it is:
3421 d5d D AusPD Law 6 Law 6 (George units, Downtown) Law Dispatch

But I guess it could be wrong? Could it be going encrypted and scanner skipping over? Just thinking out loud.
 

TLF82

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I'm listening right now and hearing normal traffic on 986...
 

cbritton

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Thanks everybody. This is good information. Given that someone else is hearing traffic on 986 and I'm hearing traffic on almost 200 other talkgroups including all other APD sectors, it sure seems like I have something configured incorrectly and am just overlooking it. I didn't make any changes before this started happening though.

I've verified that 986 appears in only one group in a single system and that it is not locked out.

I think my next step is to drive around other areas of town and see if I get any hits on TGID 986. (Even though it is a handheld unit, I normally only ever listen at home near Parmer Lane and McNeil Drive.) After that, I'll probably factory reset, re-apply the latest firmware, and re-download my configuration. Any other suggestions appreciated.

Thanks again!
 

TLF82

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If you are listening to Travis county and APD just use Site 1. It's the main site for the county. With where you live your are right underneath that tower...
 

Russell

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There is also a chance that the talkgroup 986 was administratively "pushed" over to Site 2 for load balancing purposes. I've seen this done on GATRRS several times during major events, say like multiple shootings downtown, I saw this a few years ago w/UniTrunker when shots fired was called on UT campus. System administrators manually tweaked the system to allow more freqs/talkgroups in Austin proper. I'm sure quite a few bonks were heard by non-emergency units all over the county.
 

Russell

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Better stated: SysAdmins can push talkgroups to any site as needed; it's not uncommon to see APD and Travis County talkgroups pushed from one Simulcast Layer to the other for load balancing, typically during emergency situations where large numbers of units are on the air using more talkgroups than normal.

Best to program 101 and 102 in separate "banks" with no other sites and then enter the same talkgroups of interest for both sites. You'll hear more.
 
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rbarker

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A few Friday nights ago during all the Black Lives Matter protests and talk of blocking off IH35 and other protests they suddenly moved all George Radio traffic to 3421. I figured this was temporary but it was not labeled at all in the Radio Reference database and that means unless your radio can go to an open or wildcard mode you will never hear it. Looking at the sequence of numbers prior to that Law 1-5, I submitted it as Law 6 just until we could identify it more and the radios like the BCD436 would receive it.
Now it seems like they may have moved George Radio Traffic again to one of the other ops talkgroups. I believe they are doing this because of protestors and those guys that keep filming the police downtown. All can say is be prepared that they may keep moving it and if we talk about it to much they may end up going encrypted. This update with Law 6 was just submitted a week or so ago so if you don't update your radio weekly (every Monday night) you may miss updates.

Also if you have the 436 there has just been a new firmware upgrade to 1:11:15
 
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TLF82

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I'm listening again and I'm still hearing it on 986. I also am not listening on a scanner...
 

NC5267

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I was there up in Austin a week ago and all George traffic was on 3421. I guess APD has a reason for jumping the George sector traffic to different channels. or patching to different ops channels.
 

cbritton

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Found it. I hear them on 1596. I submitted an RR DB update request.

Thanks for your responses.
 

Russell

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1596 D AusE1 R PS11 Public Safety Interop 11 Interop Interoperability

It looks like they are bouncing around Interop channels.

If you're not using a scanner then they may be using Dynamic Regroup.

Russell
 

NC5267

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I think they are also trying to keep the George channel off of any online feeds by bouncing around. Have heard other cities around Texas talking about a certain channel saying "can you hear this one on the scanner app." So departments do pay attention to this site as well as the feeds.
 

rbarker

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Whoever took George Radio off of 986 we need to put it back. That is George radio. They just sometimes go to other channels to avoid being broadcast on Broadcastify due to that group that video tapes them downtown.

986 3da D AusPD Geo DT APD Dispatch George (Downtown) Deprecated Austin Law Enforcement ****** THIS IS NOT DEPRECIATED ******
 
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