Onondaga County Trunked Reception

[bradjtrammell]

I bought several brand new Whistler WS1065 model desktop scanners and have them setup with an outdoor pole mounted antenna (that can be used for 25MHz to 3GHz or something similar, I've had the antenna for about 5 years I don't remember the specifics of it anymore), and I'm trying to receive the digital trunking channels for the Central New York Interoperable Communications Consortium (CNYICC). I can hear the Talk Around Channels (TAC's) at certain points with moderate to high success. But the Onondaga County Fire Control and EMS, Oswego County Fire/EMS Control can't be received on any of them and I'm not sure why. The scanners are all setup within 5 miles of the Cicero NY tower which I know is one of the core towers used for the new Phase II radio system so it really shouldn't be that hard to pick up a signal. I'm wondering if I'm too close to it? Or could something else be going on.

I can receive the analog channels, frequencies of all of these, including KSYR (Hancock Int'l Airport), and pretty much any other analog frequency I plug into it, but anything that's part of the Central New York Interoperable Communications Consortium (CNYICC) has reception problems. I've even tried lowering my squelch to see if maybe it's being filtered out by the squelch and that's not it either. What's even more peculiar is that it appears only to be that trunking system because I can add the others in the area, and receive them with no issues. Any insight would be greatly appreciated. I'd rather use these on the digital channels as not to hear the tones but if that's my only option I guess I'll have to stick with that.

** Edit: **
Adding this later, I don't believe this is an encryption issue because they will come through intermittently, but not all the time as they should.

 

[nacsr]

I bought several brand new Whistler WS1065 model desktop scanners and have them setup with an outdoor pole mounted antenna (that can be used for 25MHz to 3GHz or something similar, I've had the antenna for about 5 years I don't remember the specifics of it anymore), and I'm trying to receive the digital trunking channels for the Central New York Interoperable Communications Consortium (CNYICC). I can hear the Talk Around Channels (TAC's) at certain points with moderate to high success. But the Onondaga County Fire Control and EMS, Oswego County Fire/EMS Control can't be received on any of them and I'm not sure why. The scanners are all setup within 5 miles of the Cicero NY tower which I know is one of the core towers used for the new Phase II radio system so it really shouldn't be that hard to pick up a signal. I'm wondering if I'm too close to it? Or could something else be going on.

I can receive the analog channels, frequencies of all of these, including KSYR (Hancock Int'l Airport), and pretty much any other analog frequency I plug into it, but anything that's part of the Central New York Interoperable Communications Consortium (CNYICC) has reception problems. I've even tried lowering my squelch to see if maybe it's being filtered out by the squelch and that's not it either. What's even more peculiar is that it appears only to be that trunking system because I can add the others in the area, and receive them with no issues. Any insight would be greatly appreciated. I'd rather use these on the digital channels as not to hear the tones but if that's my only option I guess I'll have to stick with that.

** Edit: **
Adding this later, I don't believe this is an encryption issue because they will come through intermittently, but not all the time as they should.

Im a little North of Rome and use an SDS200 and an antenna mounted 10 or 12 feet high. I receive everything in Onondaga County. I get Fire Control, SPD and the Sheriff. I also get them on my Unications with the stub antenna. It has to be in your settings someplace. Did you load them from the databases in RR?

 

[KA1RBI]

they will come through intermittently, but not all the time as they should.

because CNYICC is simulcast and no Whistler scanner handles that modulation format properly?

 

[bradjtrammell]

because CNYICC is simulcast and no Whistler scanner handles that modulation format properly?

I would think if that would be the case then I wouldn't get them at all, but there will be large chunks of time (hours) where they'll come through cleanly. Matter of fact as I was typing this I was receiving Oswego County Fire Control clearly.

 

[bradjtrammell]

Im a little North of Rome and use an SDS200 and an antenna mounted 10 or 12 feet high. I receive everything in Onondaga County. I get Fire Control, SPD and the Sheriff. I also get them on my Unications with the stub antenna. It has to be in your settings someplace. Did you load them from the databases in RR?

I did load them from the RR database. I used PSREdit500 to program the scanner, and used the tool to get the correct frequencies. Unless it downloaded the wrong settings or setup incorrectly, I'm not sure what else could be incorrect.

 

[bradjtrammell]

Im a little North of Rome and use an SDS200 and an antenna mounted 10 or 12 feet high. I receive everything in Onondaga County. I get Fire Control, SPD and the Sheriff. I also get them on my Unications with the stub antenna. It has to be in your settings someplace. Did you load them from the databases in RR?

Here are my settings if you notice any issues. I am fairly new to this so it's possible I have it setup incorrectly.

 

[k2hz]

I would think if that would be the case then I wouldn't get them at all, but there will be large chunks of time (hours) where they'll come through cleanly. Matter of fact as I was typing this I was receiving Oswego County Fire Control clearly.

That is typical of simulcast reception problems.

 

[k2hz]

While I think the main issue is the inability of the scanner to handle simulcast unless you are fortunate enough to live very close to a tower, one thing that can aggravate digital reception problems with Whistler scanners is the squelch setting. Set the squelch wide open and don't try to also scan analog when you want to monitor digital.

The problem of simulcast P25 reception on scanners other than the SDS100/200 and Unication has been discussed extensively on here. See the recent post on the Monroe/Ontario County thread by sallen07 that sums it up in a few words.

 

[bradjtrammell]

Thanks. I'll give your suggestions a try. Maybe in a couple of years I can upgrade to an SDS100. Ha since I just dropped a lot on these.

 

[AESFTW]

Do we have a band plan for this? ie base frequencies, offsets, etc? Only really need base frequencies as Im loading it up for NAS for a vacation soon.

 

[AESFTW]

because CNYICC is simulcast and no Whistler scanner handles that modulation format properly?

See my previous post above. If I can get this info I can set up my APX8000 for non-affiliate scan. The radio is made for simulcast systems and I can see how well everything is actually being received without simulcast issues,

 

[GTR8000]

See my previous post above. If I can get this info I can set up my APX8000 for non-affiliate scan. The radio is made for simulcast systems and I can see how well everything is actually being received without simulcast issues,

The system works just fine, as there are many users with subscriber radios that work perfectly well on the system, as well as people in the area with SDS series scanners and Unication G Series pagers that also receive the system just fine, and software such as SDRTrunk and OP25 that have no trouble demodulating it. Older scanners and receivers that are not optimized for LSM tend to suffer when they don't get near full capture of a single simulcast subsite.

 

[bradjtrammell]

That is typical of simulcast reception problems.

I'm just curious , if this was the case, wouldn't I have problems receiving signals system wide? As all these channels are simultaneously being broadcast by the towers in my area, wouldn't it cause this distortion across the entire spectrum of the system? As of today, I am able to receive the Talk Around Channels with absolutely no problems, and with clean crisp audio. It's literally just the two Fire and EMS dispatch channels.

I also discovered I had the law enforcement channels locked out from scanning, which is understandable since I'm pretty green with this stuff. And those seem to also be coming in fine. It's literally just channel 1 (Fire Dispatch), channel 7 (EMS Dispatch), and the same for Oswego County. Everything else appears to work fine.

 

[k2hz]

I'm just curious , if this was the case, wouldn't I have problems receiving signals system wide? As all these channels are simultaneously being broadcast by the towers in my area, wouldn't it cause this distortion across the entire spectrum of the system? As of today, I am able to receive the Talk Around Channels with absolutely no problems, and with clean crisp audio. It's literally just the two Fire and EMS dispatch channels.

I also discovered I had the law enforcement channels locked out from scanning, which is understandable since I'm pretty green with this stuff. And those seem to also be coming in fine. It's literally just channel 1 (Fire Dispatch), channel 7 (EMS Dispatch), and the same for Oswego County. Everything else appears to work fine.

Yes, the simulcast problem should affect all Talk Groups equally. But, it is such an unstable condition it is hard to know what is happening. You may be hearing some, but not all, traffic from busy TGs such as Law but missing less frequent activity on Fire.

I assume you hear TGs 1 & 7 intermittently, vs not at all while hearing others.

First, you need to be sure that you have eliminated other issues that can degrade reception:
Be sure squelch control is set to full open position.
Scan only this system. Do not try to scan anything but the Onondaga trunked system.
Be sure you are scanning only Onondaga (Site 1) and all other CNYICC sites are locked out.

If the scanner monitoring of the Onondaga Control Channel is constantly interrupted by searching for other sites or conventional channels in the scan list you are likely to miss activity.

 

[bradjtrammell]

I assume you hear TGs 1 & 7 intermittently, vs not at all while hearing others.

Funny enough, all other channels appear to be clear with no drop outs or degradation that I can perceive. I'll keep an eye out and see if I notice some.

Be sure squelch control is set to full open position.

I have the squelch wide open, same issue.

Scan only this system. Do not try to scan anything but the Onondaga trunked system.

I have just those two channels setup on my scanner after a full factory reset of the scanner.

Be sure you are scanning only Onondaga (Site 1) and all other CNYICC sites are locked out.

I'm not sure how more I can lock this down but I have only the frequencies that are broadcast from my local tower in the configuration. Is there more I should do?

 

[k2hz]

As long as you only have the Onondaga Site frequencies programmed, there should be no problem. The "T" icon on the display should be on steady indicating it is receiving the control channel and there should be some bars on the signal strength indicator. Are you sure TGs 1 and 7 are programmed correctly and not somehow disabled?

 

[KA1RBI]

In post #6 of this thread there appears a screen cap of the configuration that existed at that time.

I'm sure it's just because I just don't understand these things (and not saying this is determinative), but why does the "Frequencies" area of your "TSYS Object Editor" page show all the Frequencies in the system? Shouldn't the scanner be programmed with the trunk control channel frequency(s) only?

AFAIK the control channel frequency doesn't change all that often, and I don't think this is a case where the scanner needs to know all the frequencies in the system (since that info would be expected to come from the CC broadcasts)... Is there a separate area in the configuration dedicated to defining the system control channel(s)?

Max

 

[k2hz]

Programming the voice channels is superfluous but does not affect performance once the scanner finds the CC. It is only necessary to have the active CC programmed with alternate CC frequencies also desirable in case the CC shifts. What can be bad is if you have the scanner also programmed with the CCs of adjacent sites and attempting to scan all so it is attempting to look for the other sites in addition to the local site.

Some download or stored database programs unfortunately default to all sites and frequencies active so I recommend you start with locking out everything except the local site. If a programmed site voice channel happens to be the same as CC at a site elsewhere in the area that can be a problem if the scanner does not verify the desired site ID matches the signal it finds. For non-P25 systems, Whistler scanners do not use the CC and simply scan all programmed frequencies looking for TGIDs so co-channel systems are a problem.

 

[bradjtrammell]

Apologies for the delay in response. Holiday season is among us and I've been very busy.

In post #6 of this thread there appears a screen cap of the configuration that existed at that time.

Correct. The configuration has been rearranged. The control channel is 460.500, with alternates set below them. The other frequencies were for the next county over, which operates on the same system, but who's tower is in the complete opposite direction as the one I'm attempting to connect to. It's since been narrowed down to just my local tower, however the issue persists on those channels.

If a programmed site voice channel happens to be the same as CC at a site elsewhere in the area that can be a problem if the scanner does not verify the desired site ID matches the signal it finds. For non-P25 systems, Whistler scanners do not use the CC and simply scan all programmed frequencies looking for TGIDs so co-channel systems are a problem.

I may be wrong, but I believe the CNYICC has the same control channel systemwide for each county, which means every tower is on the same frequency (in this case 460.500Mhz).

How would I got about locking down transmissions to a specific site ID with this scanner or is that not possible.

 

[k2hz]

I may be wrong, but I believe the CNYICC has the same control channel systemwide for each county, which means every tower is on the same frequency (in this case 460.500Mhz).

How would I got about locking down transmissions to a specific site ID with this scanner or is that not possible.

A simulcast system, by definition, uses the same frequencies for every tower in the county so there is no way to "lock down" reception to specific tower.