You know it wouldn't totally have surprised me if Bell had decided that in some of the more populated areas, like in Halifax or Sydney or wherever, to keep some of the 800 MHz repeaters active as standalone Motorola SmartNet systems, like maybe in Halifax keep the Geizers Hill repeater alive, just for business customers. Or maybe if a company like Maritime 2-Way purchased some of the equipment. Then again like Res21cue said one of the main reasons behind the new P25 system is obsolescence so it may not be economical for Bell or Maritime 2-Way to keep part of the system running. Although if they did they would have a lot of spare parts from the disused repeater sites at their disposal...
Maritime 2-Way does have an LTR system here in the city though, I wonder if they'll get some additional business when the TMR disappears.
Fair enough. Like I said I'm brand new to scanning (and amateur radio in general) so I still don't know the ins-and-outs of these things. Either way it looks like I'm starting off at a point where things are going to be changing so it's nice to be able to see the "beginning" of the new system in a glass-half-full kind of way.
Yep good point. When I got into the hobby, the current TMR system had been around for a few years, so the bulk of the talkgroups were already 'discovered'. What I love about this hobby is not necessarily listening to the police responding to a domestic violence dispute (although I do enjoy a good structure fire as much as the next person, as terrible as that sounds upon reflection), but like you it's the technical side of the hobby and discovering new things. This new P25 system is going to have all new talkgroups for us to discover and I'm really looking forward to that.
Hell I've written paragraphs both in public forums and emails with people, trying to analyze and figure out things like for examples HRM fire's VHF paging and backup repeater network, mapping out the location of the repeater sites and the UHF links between them.
What I'm not however looking forward to is not being able to use my analogue scanners on the new system. I have more than one scanner (check my signature block) and during major incidents they can often all be going. However I also love listening to aeronautical and rail, so they still have plenty of years of use left in them.
It's funny, I often go out to Halifax International to watch the action with a friend of mine, I bring my scanner along, he's interested in the planes and seeing what's landing and taking off, I'm glued to the scanner because I'm more interested in what runways they're using, ground vehicles getting clearances to move around on the runway surfaces, what vectors they're giving out to aircraft etc. Not too many people would admit this but I enjoy listening to Shearwater conducting PAR approaches with the Sea Kings..."slightly above glide path, correcting slowly... on track... slightly left of course... " hah
Also just to give you a bit of history Rob, originally (as of a few years ago) the plan was that the new radio system would actually cover all three maritime provinces and would be owned and operated by the provinces and not Bell.. but for various reasons that all fell apart as I believe PEI and NB dropped out and then NS decided to re-think things and are now partnering with Bell once again to operate this new system. I believe there was talk though that it may be extended to cover PEI as well, and possible more of NB than just the existing sites in Fredericton.
