Pinellas County System and TRX-1
- Thread starter Moto_user
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zlandmedia
not that florida man
I am in the Clearwater Beach area often enough with my TRX-1 and don't really have an issue monitoring the Pinellas and Clearwater systems, aside from the fact they are simulcast systems. This means that transmissions can go missed or can often be jumbled if they are received, and it's unfortunately something that cannot be fixed with the TRX-1. The SDS-100/200 scanner supposedly can scan simulcast systems perfectly.
That is what I was wondering because I’m having some of the issues you described. I had the GRE PSR-800 before this one and It seemed to do a better job of monitoring the system. Thank you.
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The Pinellas system seems to be a bit of an odd duck. Previously, I had been listening to Pinellas site 5 for years using a HomePatrol 2 without issue, as I live VERY close to one of the Pinellas tower locations. Beginning about six months ago, however, reception of the site 5 control channel (CC) became very spotty with the HP2 and virtually nothing I tried improved the reception. Just recently, I bit the bullet and purchased an SDS-200 and - while reception of the Pinellas system has improved somewhat - I still have reception issues.
Currently, I am using a tiny stub of a stripped-coax "antenna" since anything larger will not allow the SDS-200 to capture the site 5 CC. When a channel grant occurs, the signal of the voice channel is always strong and the audio is loud and clear... only the CC is difficult to receive. My working theory is that another CC is interfering with the site 5 CC. Most Pinellas tower locations have additional CC's supporting other related "sites", but the interfering signal might also be coming from some other nearby but unrelated location.
If anyone has any thoughts on this issue, I'm happy to listen.
Currently, I am using a tiny stub of a stripped-coax "antenna" since anything larger will not allow the SDS-200 to capture the site 5 CC. When a channel grant occurs, the signal of the voice channel is always strong and the audio is loud and clear... only the CC is difficult to receive. My working theory is that another CC is interfering with the site 5 CC. Most Pinellas tower locations have additional CC's supporting other related "sites", but the interfering signal might also be coming from some other nearby but unrelated location.
If anyone has any thoughts on this issue, I'm happy to listen.
I have a BCD436HP and back in December when i was in Dunedin, i had the same issue with reception for the site 5 system. it would work at certain parts of the house and not others. Next time im there im gonna bring my WS1040 and see if it works any different.
baayers
Member
With AT&T and now Verizon adding band 5 LTE to their new and existing towers that could possibly be causing you interference that did not exist before. Although AT&T has been doing this for a couple of years Verizon just started converting their 800 MHz spectrum in this area last fall. I’m in Pinellas Park and ran into a similar circumstance as you last December. One day out of the blue I started experiencing issues using my 436 decoding site 5. I took it with me to my girlfriends place in Largo and everything worked perfectly so I knew the radio was not the problem and decided to do more searching. I discovered that Verizon had just updated a site about 1/2 a mile from me with LTE band 5. Like you I decided to bite the bullet and purchased a new SDS 100 and lucky for me that radio seems to have an easier time dealing with decoding through the noise so I am once again able to monitor. At least in my case it definitely was the updated cell site that caused the problem. Even with my 100 if I walk out my front door and head for the entrance of our apartment complex by time I get there the noise is so strong My scanner shows a -45 reading on everything it picks up and the noise level is through the roof.
Thanks for that information. I'll try to check my area for strong signals. Can you advise a link for the Verizon band 5 freqs?
baayers
Member
The frequencies for LTE band 5 are the 800 MHz A and B channels. This is between 823 and 848 MHz and 869 to 894 MHz.
As far as determining whether or not you have a band 5 Signal close to you the easiest way would be to access the service mode of an android phone and lock out every frequency band except that one. Unfortunately on iPhone you can view the current band you are connected to but you have no control over locking anything out. As far as the instructions on how to actually do it inside of android are outside of my realm of knowledge. I was lucky enough to have a friend who did know and got him to do the testing for me.
As far as determining whether or not you have a band 5 Signal close to you the easiest way would be to access the service mode of an android phone and lock out every frequency band except that one. Unfortunately on iPhone you can view the current band you are connected to but you have no control over locking anything out. As far as the instructions on how to actually do it inside of android are outside of my realm of knowledge. I was lucky enough to have a friend who did know and got him to do the testing for me.
Just curious,was it an issue programming the P7200 for site 12 in Pinellas County?
baayers
Member
A little off topic but is there anything that actually utilizes site 12 that can be monitored with a scanner? In all the times I have singled out that site the only thing I ever saw was PSTA which is encrypted.
So there was no issue directly programming site 5 'without' selecting Enh CC scan, using RPM?
Well I tell ya.....
The zone programmed with ECC works great! ...that being said, I screwed up on the other Pinellas zones and forgot to add Proscan to my system scan options (I left it disabled...duh!). I need to send it back to the board member to reprogram it correctly (I don't have RPM) Looking at the FCC menu on those zones the RSSI shows good signal and no BER....for what its worth....
The zone programmed with ECC works great! ...that being said, I screwed up on the other Pinellas zones and forgot to add Proscan to my system scan options (I left it disabled...duh!). I need to send it back to the board member to reprogram it correctly (I don't have RPM) Looking at the FCC menu on those zones the RSSI shows good signal and no BER....for what its worth....
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