PA Statewide P25 Phase 2 System

[HM1529]

Lots of activity on DCNR D13 regarding a forest fire and talking about bringing in a helicopter.

FD12 Tiadaghton, not FD13. Look for simplex comms on 159.285 for the helo.

Also, it seems DCNR patched the Air East, Air Central, and Air West VHF repeaters into P25 for fire season. NR Statewide (Air West), NR Harrisburg (Air Central), and NR Inventory (Air East) have been used to implement the patches.

 

[smorris]

Lots of activity on DCNR D13 regarding a forest fire and talking about bringing in a helicopter.

A lot of the state is under a RED flag warning. I think tomorrow too. Expect to hear a lot of radio traffic.

 

[W7FDX]

FD12 Tiadaghton, not FD13. Look for simplex comms on 159.285 for the helo.

Also, it seems DCNR patched the Air East, Air Central, and Air West VHF repeaters into P25 for fire season. NR Statewide (Air West), NR Harrisburg (Air Central), and NR Inventory (Air East) have been used to implement the patches.

You're right that was a typo on my part. I'm unfortunately not close enough to hear the helo comms (159.285) or any of the VHF air repeaters. And there's no PLs listed for the air repeaters in the RRDB. Also is there a PL on 159.285 or is it CSQ?

 

[One13Truck]

And I’m in a dead zone here. Very rarely do I even hear anything from PennDOT or the Game Commission. Maybe once or twice a day someone from the game commission calls Dallas Base to report themselves 10-41 or 10-42. But that’s been it here.

 

[HM1529]

You're right that was a typo on my part. I'm unfortunately not close enough to hear the helo comms (159.285) or any of the VHF air repeaters. And there's no PLs listed for the air repeaters in the RRDB. Also is there a PL on 159.285 or is it CSQ?

You'll sometimes see a 156.7 PL on the helo transmit side. But, it is CSQ on receive, so any transmit PL is kind of pointless.

I don't want to drag this out since it is straying away from the thread topic, but here is video of N653HA working the fire in Lycoming today.

A helicopter dumps water onto a mountain fire in Cogan Station on April 28. | By NorthcentralPa | Facebook

A helicopter dumps water onto a mountain fire in Cogan Station on April 28.

fb.watch

 

[mtindor]

New Site app: MCKE## - Bradford, PA

ULS Application - Public Safety Pool, Trunked - 0010027695 - Commonwealth of Pennsylvania - Frequency Summary

151.265
154.68
154.755
154.2125

• Same freqs as Site 104 Rew but different location
• New location doesn't have any existing state assets on it, so I don't know the MCKE##
• Even though same freqs as 104, it's not "replacing" 104
• because same license is adding 154.2125 to Site 104 Rew, giving it same channel lineup as the Bradford site
• The tower that the new site is on is owned by " Area Transportation authority of North Central PA "
• simulcast ?

M

 

[HM1529]

New Site app: MCKE## - Bradford, PA

ULS Application - Public Safety Pool, Trunked - 0010027695 - Commonwealth of Pennsylvania - Frequency Summary

151.265
154.68
154.755
154.2125

• Same freqs as Site 104 Rew but different location
• New location doesn't have any existing state assets on it, so I don't know the MCKE##
• Even though same freqs as 104, it's not "replacing" 104
• because same license is adding 154.2125 to Site 104 Rew, giving it same channel lineup as the Bradford site
• The tower that the new site is on is owned by " Area Transportation authority of North Central PA "
• simulcast ?

M

McKean County will be migrating to STARNET over a the next several years like Warren County and ECEN.

 

[Torzetti]

I have been monitoring the Warren County simulcast repeater in Cobham WARR35A and have not picked up anything. The site does not list a NAC. I have tried using the NAC's of the adjacent towers and also tried leaving it blank and still receive nothing. I am using a raspberry pi and OP25

Any ideas

Thanks

 

[N2MLP99]

I have been monitoring the Warren County simulcast repeater in Cobham WARR35A and have not picked up anything. The site does not list a NAC. I have tried using the NAC's of the adjacent towers and also tried leaving it blank and still receive nothing. I am using a raspberry pi and OP25

Any ideas

Thanks

is the radio picking up other stations?

no antenna?
incorrect programing

more information please

 

[Torzetti]

The radio works great on other stations with or without programming in a NAC. The problem is only with the Cobham WARR35A station. It is labeled a simulcast station and has no NAC listed. I am well within the coverage area and the FFT plot shows that I have a great signal level.

When I receive the other stations, I also receive the system Frequency List and the Adjacent Sites list, but nothing on the simulcast site.

I have tried changing from CQPSK to C4FM and back again, however nothing seems to work
Thanx

 

[N2MLP99]

if you listen to the freq open SQ is there data on the freq?

 

[Torzetti]

While listening to the open squelch as you recommended I realized that something was interfering with the signal. The repeater that I was trying to receive is on a frequency of 151.3475 and is about 25 miles from my location. Then finding that there is another repeater 3 miles from my location on the frequency of 151.3400 led me to realize that the poor selectivity of my SDR is the issue.

Thank you for support

Tom

 

[dmason04]

Are there any new plans for new 800 MHz towers? I've been looking over the state and noticed that there are quite a few 800 MHz systems in the state and was curious if STARNet would be introducing any new plans. We've had a number of wildfires here lately and the company I run with doesn't have a good way to get a hold of DCNR since they are on STARNet VHF and we are on an 800 MHz system. It would be nice to have access to the DCNR fire channels so we can communicate with them since all we have are APX 6000s and XTS 2500s in 800 MHz.

 

[a417]

Are there any new plans for new 800 MHz towers? I've been looking over the state and noticed that there are quite a few 800 MHz systems in the state and was curious if STARNet would be introducing any new plans. We've had a number of wildfires here lately and the company I run with doesn't have a good way to get a hold of DCNR since they are on STARNet VHF and we are on an 800 MHz system. It would be nice to have access to the DCNR fire channels so we can communicate with them since all we have are APX 6000s and XTS 2500s in 800 MHz.

Wouldn't going thru official channels in your county yield better results? This sounds like an inter-op/safety issue and should be handled accordingly, and not thru a resource you "are no longer participating in", or whatever you wrote on your website...

 

[dmason04]

Wouldn't going thru official channels in your county yield better results? This sounds like an inter-op/safety issue and should be handled accordingly, and not thru a resource you "are no longer participating in", or whatever you wrote on your website...

I'm simply asking what the plans are for STARNet. Your commentary is duly noted. Since everyone wishes to be a keyboard warrior, I'll go through the Chief for more information.

 

[a417]

I'll go through the Chief for more information.

Chain of commands are necessary, to prevent 'keyboard warriors' from taking information on the internet and causing absolute chaos. Have a good day!

 

[One13Truck]

Wouldn't going thru official channels in your county yield better results? This sounds like an inter-op/safety issue and should be handled accordingly, and not thru a resource you "are no longer participating in", or whatever you wrote on your website...

So the proper way then would be have the County units contact their dispatch who then has to contact DNCR who will contact the DNCR field units who will reply back to DNCR who will then get back to that County who who’ll then contact the field units again instead of everyone being able to actually talk and work with each other directly with no delays at all? Got it. Makes perfect sense. Hooray for interoperability in Pa!!

 

[GTR8000]

So the proper way then would be....

You completely missed the point of a417's post. By "the proper way", he was referring to the fire company reaching out to DCNR/SRND to find out how they might be able to better communicate between agencies.

It's unlikely that the state is going to build out 800 MHz infrastructure in Centre County just so a volunteer fire company can talk to DCNR. Besides which, the XTS would be useless as the STARNet P25 system does not allow FDMA talkgroups. The system also uses radio authentication, which requires the APX subscribers to have the AES algorithm.

If they really need to directly communicate with DCNR that badly, the FD can simply obtain some cheap VHF analog radios that they can use on one of many good old fashioned simplex VHF nationwide interop channels.

Final point...the DCNR fire ops talkgroups are encrypted, and so it's pretty unlikely that they're going to permit anyone outside the agency to get their key loaded into radios they have no control over.

Oh and also, consider the source asking the question lol.

 

[mtindor]

Oh and also, consider the source asking the question lol.

The source is the horse, of course of course

 

[mtindor]

VENA08 Rocky Grove PA (Venango) 800 mhz
- added this new site to WRAJ230 but the app is still pending at this time
- same site location as the Rocky Grove 700 AG site

ULS Application - PubSafty/SpecEmer/PubSaftyNtlPlan,806-817/851-862MHz,Trunked - 0009995259 - PENNSYLVANIA, COMMONWEALTH OF - Frequency Summary

854.0125
854.2875
854.5375

So I don't know if they are just adding 3 800 mhz freqs to the existing site, or if this will be a separate site.