Pasadena PD only comes across one site. But no one else does.

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Cruiseomatic

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Got the radio programmed for the most part but discovered something strange. Pasadena TGIDs only come across Houston PS south east tower. Not even there own, Not only that, But no one else like SO or CO agencies do. Makes reception very difficult. Check all the settings and everything is good. Anyone have any ideas? It was hard enough getting delay time figured out.... 0 as reccomended was to fast and 5 was a little slow. Finally went with 3 and so far so good. Fighting with Freescan is getting old though....
 

Ensnared

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What sites are you programming? I would imagine the Pasadena site would be a good one to try. However, if you are wanting to hear Harris County, you will need to program the sites that intersect your listening area. Enlarge the following map to see which sites are nearest: https://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?action=siteMap&sid=4563&type=rr

Make sure you are not programming the "General Government Services Simulcast" or anything with "Houston Public Safety." From what I understand, the Houston Public Safety talk groups are specific to HPD when they roam outside of Houston.

Although I have tried, I cannot seem to wrap my mind around the memory structure on the radio you are using. Otherwise, I would have offered to program it for you.

It looks like Pasadena has some very interesting talk groups with limited encryption.

Also, make sure you have enabled the radio program.
 

Cruiseomatic

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I have all the sites on the east side of Harris County programmed in. I can pick them all up just fine. Oddly enough, All the Houston PS sites carry all traffic just fine. Only issue I have is Pasadena is only coming across the one site. That and Freescan is refusing to work with my radio most of the time. I'm lucky now if I can reflash it. Control is impossible now. It used to work.
 

hiegtx

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I have all the sites on the east side of Harris County programmed in. I can pick them all up just fine. Oddly enough, All the Houston PS sites carry all traffic just fine. Only issue I have is Pasadena is only coming across the one site. That and Freescan is refusing to work with my radio most of the time. I'm lucky now if I can reflash it. Control is impossible now. It used to work.
Which version of FreeSCAN do you have? Newest version, which has been out a while, is 2.19b1. I have used it in the past on my 325P2, However, now I almost exclusively use ProScan, since FreeSCAN does not fully support DMR. I have several DMR systems of interest to monitor here in the DFW area.

Notes I had on Pasadena, from either here on RadioReference, or from posts on the HoustonScan Yahoo group, was to use the sites below for that city:
Pasadena RFSS Layer 3 SE Simulcast
Site 3-03, also 1-52

I have not been down that way in quite a while, so I have not personally verified the above.
 

Cruiseomatic

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Yes, Its the newest version. And I have both sites programmed in. Only 3-03 works. 1-52 does not. 1-52 is Harris central which a couple of PD TGIDs do come through but not both dispatch TGIDs. 3-03 is so far from the house I can BARELY pick it up. At work it runs great. So does central. I've checked all the settings and everything is right. Noticed most of the traffic here runs off central though.
I'm still trying to figure out why Freescan doesn't want to play nice with the radio lately on two different machines. Going for a firmware reflash when Uniden servers come back online. Really need to get this figured out as I work with PPD.
 

Cruiseomatic

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Still been trying to figure this out. Not coming up with much. Downloaded all site info from RR directly. Is there something I might be missing?
 

motorola_otaku

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Couple of things...

a) The Pasadena entry is a mess... there are a lot of duplicated and unused talkgroups listed. tl;dr primary dispatch for PD and Fire are on the 387xx talkgroups on Zone/RFSS 3, site 3 as you've observed. The duplicated 3xxx talkgroups for PD and Fire dispatch are not used.

b) Pasadena PD and Fire do use a handful of back/tac channels and PD surveillance/narcotic talkgroups on Zone/RFSS 1. Not all of them are listed. Some are encrypted. They are carried on Zone 1, site 52. They are NOT primary dispatch channels. You can listen to the 387xx talkgroups and hear 99% of what's going on in Pasadena.

c) Talkgroups above 30000 are carried ONLY on Zone 3 sites. IDs below 30000 are only carried on Zone 1 and 2 sites. They do NOT roam between zones. Additionally, many sub-30000 talkgroups on Zone 1 operate in dual FDMA/TDMA mode. Think of TxWARN as two separate systems sharing a system ID... zone 1/2 is the "county" system, and zone 3 is the "city" system.
 

Cruiseomatic

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And I've only got a problem with one site... Maybe there is a setting or something I'm missing? Is there somewhere that lists everything needed to properly configure the radio? Such as bandplan, APCO mode, site modulation, etc...
 

Cruiseomatic

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Update: If I scan 2 or more systems, it keeps dropping 3-03, however, If I hold 3-03, It "works" for the most part. This is also the only system that when a transmission comes in, it has an analog squelch break sound. And randomly and rarely hear another TG come across as PPD but I know it's not. I also get a high error rate but low threshold value.
 

w5wht

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I have site 3-03 programed in and hear PPD an, fire I also understand they use analog but I don't know where to look to add them.
Thanks
 

motorola_otaku

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Pasadena FD has a VHF patch on 154.01, but the audio sounds pretty rough. PD is only on P25.

La Porte PD has a VHF patch on 154.65 (also with bad audio) otherwise every PD in southeast Harris County is on TxWARN exclusively.
 

w5wht

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Yes, Its the newest version. And I have both sites programmed in. Only 3-03 works. 1-52 does not. 1-52 is Harris central which a couple of PD TGIDs do come through but not both dispatch TGIDs. 3-03 is so far from the house I can BARELY pick it up. At work it runs great. So does central. I've checked all the settings and everything is right. Noticed most of the traffic here runs off central though.
I'm still trying to figure out why Freescan doesn't want to play nice with the radio lately on two different machines. Going for a firmware reflash when Uniden servers come back online. Really need to get this figured out as I work with PPD.


What do you do with PPD?
 

Cruiseomatic

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What do you do with PPD?
Wow. I never got an email notification for this.....
I take criminal vehicles into their custody for various reasons. I talk directly to the dispatchers just like officers, Have my own call numbers like them, Everything.
What gets me is, I can have my APX 7000 and BCD325P2 sitting beside each other and the APX always works where as the P2 either doesn't or is slow at picking up the TG. For some reason, the site we use, 3-003, Never works reliably on the P2 but the Harris Central site is rock solid no matter where I am or what I'm doing. Map for 3-003 shows I'm well within the range but nothing. My APX always works and shows an RSSI of 90-120 all the time. I've tried antenna's, programming, everything that I know of.
 

IAmSixNine

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Probably suffering from simulcast distortion as the 325P2 is not capable of decoding a system like that properly. SDS100 or 200 would be the next best option. Or a G4. Thats why your APX works so well, its designed to handle it.
Test this, hold on a single site, then drive away from the system, making sure your in range of just one of the sites your holding onto. It should work well once your out of range of other 3-3 towers and are just picking up one.
 

Cruiseomatic

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Heres the thing, I only have problems with the one site. All the others work fine. No other towers use the same frequencies as the trouble site does either.
 

IAmSixNine

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Just so we are clear you are using site 3-03 which has 6 different tower locations. Your APX picks it up just fine and your P2 has issues.
If you insist its not LSM then ill just keep watching and see how this turns out. What your are explaining is a perfect example of scanners not designed with the proper hardware to handle LSM issues. Apx works, P2 does not. Apx has the hardware to work, P2 does not.
 

Cruiseomatic

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Right, But we use site 3 unless a radio goes into another site range as its closest. If I manually search on the APX, I can just barely tap site 3-03 (4) but it won't stay. It goes right back to 3.
 

IAmSixNine

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So here is the problem. 3-03(4) is not a valid site. Your APX is happily connected to 3-03 as its in the area of Pasadena. Site 3-04 is southwest Houston and farther away. Your APX does not like that so its going back to 3-03 which is closer. Now here is the important part, the part where your scanner fails and your APX works. Site 3-03 has 6 different tower sites. Simulcast Distortion. LSM. Scanner noworky. LOL
The number in () is the Hex number. So 3 (3) are the same. 3(4) is not valid.

EDIT to add info

Going back to the original Pasadena not passing on Pasadena site.
Because this is a wide area system, with multiple layers (RFSS) its likely the network admids programmed up the Pasadena radios with a preference for RFSS 3 - xx as the primary or preferred sites with RFSS 1 - xx as the fall back or lower tier to use or as back up. Its a possibility and just my guess.
 

Cruiseomatic

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Like I already wasn't confused enough....
I was mentioning 4 as an example of what it does When I try to change sites.
The way our radios are programmed displays rssi then which site I'm on. Given our TG is above 30000 were on level 3 sites. However, Houston P.S. Southeast is closest, it locks onto it. Which is the one and only one I'm having a issue with.
I don't know if it's the site or system type I might have wrong as I've tried motp25 and p25 standard, just about everything.
Maybe there is a setting I need to adjust freescan doesn't have access to maybe?
Just getting fed up and frustrated.
 

IAmSixNine

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There is nothing you can do. Your trying to listen to a multisite simulcast system. Your scanner does not have the hardware capabilities to deal with this properly. If your subscriber unit is working just fine and the scanner is not that is further proof of the hardware limitations of the scanner. Unication G4/G5 and SDS100/200 are the alternatives. Well also the BK KNG-P800 or KNG2-P800.

As far as the TG being 3xxxxx that is irrelevant. The system administrators have so many options to set that any talk group can work on any RFSS of the system,if they so choose to have it set up that way. Proper planning and good fore thought are keys to that.
While it is possible and likely they have set up TG to coinside with the RFSS layer its not required to be that way.
 
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