Placer Co VHF P25 System

[crucialcolin]

Anyone know if Placer just took their P25 system offline or changed any frequencies?

It weird yesterday I was picking up sheriff West dispatch and today I'm no longer receiving it on my BCC325PD. It's searching for a control channel now. I haven't made a changes to the system and have all freqs from the DB programmed it. Just stopped working.

 

[crucialcolin]

Anyone know if Placer just took their P25 system offline or changed any frequencies?

It weird yesterday I was picking up sheriff West dispatch and today I'm no longer receiving it on my BCC325PD. It's searching for a control channel now. I haven't made a changes to the system and have all freqs from the DB programmed it. Just stopped working.

Well I'm embarrassed didn't realize my signal was cutting in an out for the control channel. The slightest movement of the scanner makes it either come in or not. It's pretty borderline here in my Roseville location.

 

[bigRoN18]

PCSO "North Fire" traffic on Dispatch 2

Yesterday, I was listening and realized that the sheriff's department was using "Dispatch 2" for all the radio traffic related to the North Fire. I'm sure this is a godsend from their pre-P25 days. I recall during the Robbers Fire, they used CLEMARS 1 (before it became CALAW 1), a simplex frequency, using a cross-band repeater to reach dispatchers in the Search and Rescue Communications truck at the Gold Country Fairgrounds. Now, the dispatchers were able to remain in the dispatch center at AJC.

 

[crucialcolin]

I'm curious what zone/site others here are using to monitor this system?

Using the west zone which to my understanding covers Roseville, Rocklin, and Auburn areas I keep intermently dropping the control on my bcd325p2 here in Roseville. This happens even with a full 5 bars of signal while hooked up to my Larsen tri-band 150/450/800 mhz antenna on my truck, let alone the rubber duckies I have.

 

[officer_415]

I'm curious what zone/site others here are using to monitor this system?

Using the west zone which to my understanding covers Roseville, Rocklin, and Auburn areas I keep intermently dropping the control on my bcd325p2 here in Roseville. This happens even with a full 5 bars of signal while hooked up to my Larsen tri-band 150/450/800 mhz antenna on my truck, let alone the rubber duckies I have.

Site 1 (west simulcast cell) covers the Roseville, Rocklin, and Auburn areas. Site 2 (central simulcast cell) covers the Colfax, Gold Run, and Foresthill areas. Site 5 is a single repeater on Signal Peak.

It sounds like what you're experiencing is simulcast distortion, where you're in range of multiple repeaters which interfere with each other, and the scanner has a hard time decoding the audio. Scanners are more susceptible to this problem than the actual subscriber radios.

One solution would be to use another site if you're in range (Site 5 will not have this issue, and it should be less of a problem with Site 2 due to more terrain between the various repeaters). Alternatively, you could use a yagi antenna and aim it at a specific repeater in the west cell.

 

[crucialcolin]

Entirely possible but it seems there may be more to it then that.

I did manage to get it working outside on the Larsen Antenna using site 2(central simulcast) with P25 traffic. Unfortunately I didn't think to check if I was within range of Site 5(peak repeater) when I was out there. Nor did i think to check site frequency strengths.

However here are a few observations with a diamond rh77ca portable antenna:

Site 1 (west simulcast) is the only one that I can hear traffic on even though its intermittent. Signal levels are all over the place. Checking the site frequencies themselves 161.800 seems to be the only one with with a consistent full 5 bars of signal. All others come in with a 2 bar max.

Site 2 and 5 are too weak to pull in a signal at all and are constantly searching for a control channel.

What I would like to know is where exactly are the towers are located? Judging from the db it appears both site 1 and 2 are within Auburn likely on the same tower.

 

[officer_415]

What I would like to know is where exactly are the towers are located? Judging from the db it appears both site 1 and 2 are within Auburn likely on the same tower.

I can't say for certain because the system is licensed in an odd way, but as best as I can figure it consists of the following towers:

Site 5 consists of a single tower at Signal Peak (north of Cisco Grove).

Site 2 consists of towers at Cold Spring Hill (Gold Run), Beacon Hill (Colfax), and Foresthill.

Site 1 I'm not sure about, but an educated guess would be the towers at Channel Hill Rd (Auburn) and Clark Tunnel Rd (Penryn). Those are both sites for the PCSO analog conventional system.

 

[crucialcolin]

There's also a new comm tower of Indutrustial Blvd next to the Roseville jail and courthouse. Not sure what it's being used for though. It may just be used for analog frequencies for the placer jaild & courts. Otherwise it seems like an excellent location for extending the P25 coverage.

I got to figure out my antenna situation. Trying to figure out a reliable forward thinking way to monitor thse different systems from Roseville, Placer, Nevada, and Sacramento County isn't easy..but that's a whole another thread...

 

[gvranchosbill]

For what its worth these are still in operation at Lake Tahoe area.
Analog/Conventional Repeaters

161.5050/136.5 WQPK718 PCSO-East Genoa Pk (NV)158.9100/123.0 Input
161.5050/136.5 WNPZ854 PCSO-East Mt Pluto (CA)158.9100/136.5 Input

 

[officer_415]

For what its worth these are still in operation at Lake Tahoe area.
Analog/Conventional Repeaters

Yes, the P25 system does not cover the eastern portion of the county yet. The western analog repeaters are also still operational for the time being, to maintain interoperability with non-P25 agencies.