Pickens County Upgrades

Mitch618

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Jul 6, 2015
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Can someone explain how this system works? Is it multicast and do I need to have all three of the Pickens County sites programmed or only the one closest to me? I'll be using a Uniden BCD996P2. As always, your help is appreciated.
 

KMG54

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No sir you don't and it is not. I use dsd+fastlane and just listen to the Easley site. Now I have not used scanners in years, I would load all the local towers and talk groups and see what you get. The nice thing with a sdr based I can switch control channels on the fly . I can type in the frequency of towers all around me and never have a simulcast problem. Give me a closer location and I will tell you the best tower for you, meanwhile I would load all the sites in thr area with the control area, then ALL the talkgroups on the system to your scanner.
 

KMG54

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Also th rdio software shoul let you load a new system, fleettalk under trunked sytemems, looad all the sites anf talk groupd from the download page, send them to your scanner, you can sort them later. Wow my fingers decided it was time to quit. If you are In Pickens PM me
 

Searay

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York, SC
Can someone explain how this system works? Is it multicast and do I need to have all three of the Pickens County sites programmed or only the one closest to me? I'll be using a Uniden BCD996P2. As always, your help is appreciated.
I don’t believe the BCD996P2 will decode Nexedge trunking. You would need a Uniden SDS100 or SDS200, or take the dive into SDR and software.
 

HikerGuy

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I don’t believe the BCD996P2 will decode Nexedge trunking. You would need a Uniden SDS100 or SDS200, or take the dive into SDR and software.
BCD996P2 will with the NXDN upgrade. Mine is tracking it like a champ from Greenville County.
 

Searay

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That’s awesome! I wasn’t aware the added NXDN trunking to that scanner. Good to know. Thanks!
 

Mitch618

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Jul 6, 2015
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No sir you don't and it is not. I use dsd+fastlane and just listen to the Easley site. Now I have not used scanners in years, I would load all the local towers and talk groups and see what you get. The nice thing with a sdr based I can switch control channels on the fly . I can type in the frequency of towers all around me and never have a simulcast problem. Give me a closer location and I will tell you the best tower for you, meanwhile I would load all the sites in thr area with the control area, then ALL the talkgroups on the system to your scanner.
I live on the west side of Easley. Thanks.
 

brian

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South Carolina
Can someone explain how this system works? Is it multicast and do I need to have all three of the Pickens County sites programmed or only the one closest to me? I'll be using a Uniden BCD996P2. As always, your help is appreciated.

Fleettalk is a multi-site, network trunked radio system. As with any system like this, the system administrators have to manage the load on each site, in terms of maximum number of "talk paths" (voice frequencies) vs number of radio users and talkgroups. If they let too many users talk on a particular site at the same time, they're likely to run out of available talk paths, resulting in radio users having to wait to transmit. That can be quite a concern, especially for Public Safety users.

Every system administrator handles this differently for every system and every site. Essentially it comes down to either restricting/preventing certain talkgroups from using a site at all (denying affiliation) or establishing prioritization, ie letting talkgroups of higher priority transmit sooner than lower priority talkgroups. With a commercial entity like Fleettalk, I have no idea how they handle this, as they have paying commercial customers (like concrete trucks) sharing a system and talk paths with Public Safety users (who are also paying customers).

So your question boils down to "which talkgroups are carried on which sites". And the likely answer is, "it depends." These networked systems depend on affiliation of radios to sites to determine which talkgroups are carried on a site at any given time. If you're listening to Easley PD talkgroup and you're monitoring the Easley site, there's a real good chance that a radio is affiliated with that tower on that talkgroup almost all of the time and so you'll hear the radio traffic almost all the time. If you're monitoring Easley PD talkgroup and using the Glassy Mtn site, there's probably less of a chance, but certainly more than 0%, that you'll hear the traffic, because there's a lower percentage chance a radio on the Easley PD talkgroup is associated with Glassy Mtn. Or, maybe the system admin has restricted the Easley PD talkgroup from affiliated with Glassy Mtn at all, in an effort to manage load, and you'll never hear it.

As a hobbyist, the only way to know is to monitor and make notes. Monitor a single site for a while (several days) and see what you're consistently hearing and not hearing. Then switch to another site and do the same thing. Keep a list. If you can hear everything you want to consistently on a single site, then only monitor that site. Your scanning performance and speed will be (marginally) better. If what you want to hear is spread among multiple sites, then you'll need to scan multiple sites and slow scanning down somewhat. That's the reality (and compromise) of scanning. If that's unacceptable, buy more receivers and dedicate each one to scanning a single site, or a specific set of talkgroups. This is why many hobbyists have turned to SDR receivers and software, because it's easier to scan more concurrently than a traditional scanner.

Hope this helps.
 

Mitch618

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Jul 6, 2015
Messages
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Fleettalk is a multi-site, network trunked radio system. As with any system like this, the system administrators have to manage the load on each site, in terms of maximum number of "talk paths" (voice frequencies) vs number of radio users and talkgroups. If they let too many users talk on a particular site at the same time, they're likely to run out of available talk paths, resulting in radio users having to wait to transmit. That can be quite a concern, especially for Public Safety users.

Every system administrator handles this differently for every system and every site. Essentially it comes down to either restricting/preventing certain talkgroups from using a site at all (denying affiliation) or establishing prioritization, ie letting talkgroups of higher priority transmit sooner than lower priority talkgroups. With a commercial entity like Fleettalk, I have no idea how they handle this, as they have paying commercial customers (like concrete trucks) sharing a system and talk paths with Public Safety users (who are also paying customers).

So your question boils down to "which talkgroups are carried on which sites". And the likely answer is, "it depends." These networked systems depend on affiliation of radios to sites to determine which talkgroups are carried on a site at any given time. If you're listening to Easley PD talkgroup and you're monitoring the Easley site, there's a real good chance that a radio is affiliated with that tower on that talkgroup almost all of the time and so you'll hear the radio traffic almost all the time. If you're monitoring Easley PD talkgroup and using the Glassy Mtn site, there's probably less of a chance, but certainly more than 0%, that you'll hear the traffic, because there's a lower percentage chance a radio on the Easley PD talkgroup is associated with Glassy Mtn. Or, maybe the system admin has restricted the Easley PD talkgroup from affiliated with Glassy Mtn at all, in an effort to manage load, and you'll never hear it.

As a hobbyist, the only way to know is to monitor and make notes. Monitor a single site for a while (several days) and see what you're consistently hearing and not hearing. Then switch to another site and do the same thing. Keep a list. If you can hear everything you want to consistently on a single site, then only monitor that site. Your scanning performance and speed will be (marginally) better. If what you want to hear is spread among multiple sites, then you'll need to scan multiple sites and slow scanning down somewhat. That's the reality (and compromise) of scanning. If that's unacceptable, buy more receivers and dedicate each one to scanning a single site, or a specific set of talkgroups. This is why many hobbyists have turned to SDR receivers and software, because it's easier to scan more concurrently than a traditional scanner.

Hope this helps.
Thank you very much. Yes. that helps a lot. I appreciate it.
 

Mitch618

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Joined
Jul 6, 2015
Messages
61
My Bcd996P2 is tracking the Pickens County NXDN system fine but there's a problem with the sound. On some talk groups the dispatcher has one volume level while the mobile unit is a lot louder. I hear this on the PCSO talk group. There's also some garbled transmissions. I used Proscan and set the system up as a NXDN Trunk. Thanks
 

HikerGuy

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Dec 14, 2019
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104
My Bcd996P2 is tracking the Pickens County NXDN system fine but there's a problem with the sound. On some talk groups the dispatcher has one volume level while the mobile unit is a lot louder. I hear this on the PCSO talk group. There's also some garbled transmissions. I used Proscan and set the system up as a NXDN Trunk. Thanks
What site (or sites) are you tracking?
 

Mitch618

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Jul 6, 2015
Messages
61
What site (or sites) are you tracking?
I'm tracking all three sites in Pickens County. The sound on all the TGs is muffled and there's a problem with the volume. On the PC EMS TG, sometimes the dispatcher's volume will be very low while the mobile unit their taking to will be alright. I've been listening to the voice frequencies on a TRX 2 and on that scanner, everything's clear
and the volume is equal.
 

W1CRN

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Dec 3, 2009
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Location
Liberty, SC
My Bcd996P2 is tracking the Pickens County NXDN system fine but there's a problem with the sound. On some talk groups the dispatcher has one volume level while the mobile unit is a lot louder. I hear this on the PCSO talk group. There's also some garbled transmissions. I used Proscan and set the system up as a NXDN Trunk. Thanks
It's like that on our radios also. The dispatcher is low and everyone else is low, so we turn our radios up making everyone loud. The tones are also much louder than everything else.
 

shajoe44

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Dec 11, 2000
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Location
North Augusta, SC
I have been running DSD while in Clemson on the weekends. I monitor the Six Mile site. I have identified 2 talk groups as being related to fire service. The radio ID's for Talkgroup 11683 contained "Brush 9-1". The radio ID's for Talkgroup 11740 contained "EOC Base 2" , "Eng 10-1 W/T", and "Brush 14-1 W/T". Hopefully someone that monitors on a regular basis can ID these 2 Talk Groups.
 
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