Outagamie Co. needs help

[triryche]

I think we should start a collection plate for Outagamie Co. communications. :roll:

This could possibly be the most half-ass radio system I have ever seen for Fire Protection for a county of that much population!!! No PL on a multi-site repeater system, base-simplex operation going on on the same frequency as the repeater, and frequent clipping of audio which I'm guessing is from a voter system?? Yikes.. Even seems like sometimes multiple voters are retransmitting.


Rant mode off..

 

[djeplett]

If you think Outagamie is bad you need to listen in to Waupaca Black once. Heterodynes and towers keying over eachother with extreme overmodulation. It's so bad that some agencies don't bother with Black and use Red channel or Blue instead. (And Blue isn't even repeated!)

I have finally heard officers using Sherrif 2. They must have gotten that fixed. Of course, you can still hear the annoying backfeed type burst on Sherrif 1 now and again...

But I have heard that Waupaca has repairs and upgrades planned for the near future. It's about time.

 

[RevGary]

How about the State WSP - If a mobile is 'between towers' and hits both at once, look-out... talk about signal beat !

I think that it is Kenwood that is working on a system that will eliminate that problem. It is a GPS coordinated system that monitors the location of the cruiser and tells the radio which CTCSS or DPS to transmit out to hit the tower assigned to a particular geographic area. All regional towers are on the same in and out frequencies - only the tone or digital numerics are different for each tower in that region. That way only one repeater fires up at once... and the operator does nothing to manually switch from one tower to the next - all automatic.

 

[triryche]

The State Patrol system is not designed to be heard car to car as a repeater system. It is a base to car, car to base system which has what I was told are "simulcast overlap" areas. State Boy could probably elaborate a bit on what they hear on the base end but I'm told it's not like what a scanner listener on the outside hears since the dispatcher is only hearing 1 tower. Correct?

 

[1268]

djeplett is right Waupaca sucks !!! , I know I used to use it, possibly the worst I have ever seen anyplace. Outagamie needs to bite the bullet and spend some money, it's the same everywhere in the country politicians whine about the money until someone gets hurt and even then it's always someone elses fault. Hey djeplett you need to record some page outs, no one will understand how bad Waupaca is unless they hear it !

 

[RevGary]

Hey - Mike: When I was at the District 3 Dispatch center in mid - 2003 on a tour, the console operator would hear ALL towers that ANY single mobile activated. Also, if a cruiser receives more than one tower at a time and is equal distance from two of them, the cruiser radio sounds like a CB channel with 10 people transmitting at once... Normally the FM capture effect will pick the one with the best signal, but if the signal strengths are nearly identical, the radio 'hunts' back and forth and it sounds REALLY bad...

 

[SCPD]

It could be worse. When I lived in Nebraska, six monthes ago, most counties use low band. That's not the bad part almost all the counties in the state do their paging on the same frequency 39.9. They also use the same frequency for fire dispatching 39.89. You should hear the radio traffic and everyone stepping on each other during a tornado out break. When that happens you hear about five different counties paging at the same time on 39.9. That's a mess.

 

[triryche]

Hey - Mike: When I was at the District 3 Dispatch center in mid - 2003 on a tour, the console operator would hear ALL towers that ANY single mobile activated. Also, if a cruiser receives more than one tower at a time and is equal distance from two of them, the cruiser radio sounds like a CB channel with 10 people transmitting at once... Normally the FM capture effect will pick the one with the best signal, but if the signal strengths are nearly identical, the radio 'hunts' back and forth and it sounds REALLY bad...

A cruiser (or us with a scanner) inevitably will recieve multiple towers if they are repeating another mobile unit, yes. But the dispatch center only transmits on one tower at a time thus allowing for clear communications between the two. When I toured the dispatch, the person at the console selected the tower to TX/RX after the initial call to dispatch came in from a mobile. What I saw was they basically monitored all and would hear all but selected the preferred site via console upon need. So the cars will hear the same garbage we do if they are hearing other cars via repeater..

Sheboygan county is pretty bad for the scanner listener if you want to monitor state patrol. About 75% or more of the activity in the region ends up coming over from multiple towers. Often times Chilton picks up just about anything in the district including the FAR north mobiles. I now monitor the Trunked patch only. Seems Sheboygan Troopers spend more time on the 800 radio with Sheboygan dispatch and with eachother than they do on WSP VHF but that's good.. Making use of the 800 system, mize well smoke 'em if you got 'em!

 

[OpSec]

The State Patrol system is not designed to be heard car to car as a repeater system. It is a base to car, car to base system which has what I was told are "simulcast overlap" areas. State Boy could probably elaborate a bit on what they hear on the base end but I'm told it's not like what a scanner listener on the outside hears since the dispatcher is only hearing 1 tower. Correct?

Close.

I get the voted F1 audio at my desk, along with a visual indication of which tower(s) are being lit up and which is the voted receiver. I have never seen a comm center display that level of info to the dispatcher about the radio system (not saying they don't, just that I've never seen one). They display in same colors as the /\/\ voter that feeds it....green (voted), yellow (rx'ing) and red (failed).

Our setup in the SE region is supposed to allow for complete repeater coverage anywhere in the region. There are two tower sites that serve as repeaters, one north and one south. The repeated audio sounds terrible, as the two transmitters are not timed/synched with each other and the signals crash into each other, producing a mostly un-usable signal anywhere in the middle where total capture of one or the other is not possible by the mobile radio.

I could go on ranting, but I know others from the bureau in charge of the mess also read this forum.

 

[SCPD]

I could go on ranting, but I know others from the bureau in charge of the mess also read this forum.

Tell us more:lol: