Polk County Question

K0MSM

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Hi all!

I picked up an SDS100 this week, and took a trip down to Polk County yesterday. On my trip down there from Greene County, I enabled/disabled the counties as I went, and that worked beautifully. (Got a follow-up question about that, which I'll post in another thread.) Anyway, when I got to Polk, I heard absolutely nothing. I double-checked to make sure I had all of the groups enabled, and double-checked my setting when I got home (sites & talkgroups). Everything looked good there.

I noticed when I was programming the ISICS information that A) their TGs were different than what is seen on the rest of the system. I'm guessing that's due to Polk being one of the "early adopters" of a trunked system? and B) While a lot of the talkgroups have a T mode, some of the older groups have a D as their mode designation. Could that be the problem, perhaps I don't have the correct mode set in my SDS100 for the Westcom related groups?

Thank you very much for your help!

Sean
 

tfhphoto

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The Westcom system was a standalone P25 system that predated ISICS and they kept their original talk group ID scheme rather than reprogram all their radios to conform with ISICS standards.

The same situation occurred up here in Woodbury County when its Starcomm system tied into ISICS. In the case of Starcomm, they decided to reprogram all the radios to conform to ISICS standards (twice, actually).
 

K0MSM

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Heh... I recall the first time I lived in Iowa, back in the late 00's, when I could listen to Westcom on my Pro-197 and Pro-106. Ah, those were the days.

Still wondering, though, why I wasn't hearing anything at all on any of the Polk ISICS groups while I was down there. Do I need to change the type of system for a "T" vs a "D" mode?

Sean
 

tfhphoto

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Heh... I recall the first time I lived in Iowa, back in the late 00's, when I could listen to Westcom on my Pro-197 and Pro-106. Ah, those were the days.

Still wondering, though, why I wasn't hearing anything at all on any of the Polk ISICS groups while I was down there. Do I need to change the type of system for a "T" vs a "D" mode?

Sean
On the SDS100, there is no programming distinction between Phase 1 (D) talk groups or Phase 2 talk groups (T). You may have an issue where you have a service category(ies) selection to scan and most of the talk groups within that category are encrypted.
 

tfhphoto

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Scratch that..... According to the database (FWTW) there is nothing listed as encrypted on Westcom.
 

K0MSM

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On the SDS100, there is no programming distinction between Phase 1 (D) talk groups or Phase 2 talk groups (T). You may have an issue where you have a service category(ies) selection to scan and most of the talk groups within that category are encrypted.
Yeah, I saw that when I was loading up Story County. A lot of what they have is E (at least in Ames). Nice to see Westcom hasn't gone that route (yet).

I'll make another trip down there at some point. I'll see what happens on that trip.

Sean
 

K0MSM

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OK... I ventured back down to DSM today. Came down I-35 from Ames, to the Capitol, and back. I never heard anything on my Polk County bank of favorites at all. Nothing on ISICS or SARA. If anyone is a regular Polk County listener, DM me, perhaps? I'd love to compare my settings with yours and see where I'm going wrong. As an example, using ProScan, here is a snippet of what's programmed.

Thank you!

Sean
 

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timkilbride

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OK... I ventured back down to DSM today. Came down I-35 from Ames, to the Capitol, and back. I never heard anything on my Polk County bank of favorites at all. Nothing on ISICS or SARA. If anyone is a regular Polk County listener, DM me, perhaps? I'd love to compare my settings with yours and see where I'm going wrong. As an example, using ProScan, here is a snippet of what's programmed.

Thank you!

Sean
It's likely you have something programmed wrong or if programmed correctly, you didn't have something enabled. I have a SDS 100 and SDS 200. I have been where you are at now with programming. Too many features that require too many things to be correct for everything to work right. I'd be more than happy to look at your proscan file, but if something wasn't enabled on the scanner, reviewing the proscan file will not resolve the issue.

Tim
 

bobcraig

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Just to compare Sean, as tfhphoto says, Westcom is wide open, and so is Des Moines Proper. Polk county is another matter. The sheriffs department is completely encrypted. However, the fire/EMS calls are all out in the open, and they usually get busy at in later afternoons and early to mid evening But, there are time when nothing is going on, and they will totally be quit.





 

timsheff

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My most common mistake was not making sure that all of the "System Quick Keys Status" & "Dept/Site Quick Key Status" was enabled
 

thatoneiowan

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maybe need to check service types, if you programmed manually and didn't specify them then just turn on custom 1 service type
 

K0MSM

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It's likely you have something programmed wrong or if programmed correctly, you didn't have something enabled. I have a SDS 100 and SDS 200. I have been where you are at now with programming. Too many features that require too many things to be correct for everything to work right. I'd be more than happy to look at your proscan file, but if something wasn't enabled on the scanner, reviewing the proscan file will not resolve the issue.

Tim
I would have thought that too, but everything else is working. Dallas, Boone, Greene (somewhat - still having a bit of an issue with that, will open a different thread), Cass, Adair, even Story's highly encrypted system... all of them, I can at least hear ISP and the unencrypted comms in all of those counties. But Polk is dead silent. The SDS100 shows that it's getting data, with the signal bars, but nothing comes through. I'll shoot you over my ProScan file in a little bit - thank you for offering to take a look!

Sean
 

K0MSM

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Just to compare Sean, as tfhphoto says, Westcom is wide open, and so is Des Moines Proper. Polk county is another matter. The sheriffs department is completely encrypted. However, the fire/EMS calls are all out in the open, and they usually get busy at in later afternoons and early to mid evening But, there are time when nothing is going on, and they will totally be quit.





Being in downtown Des Moines, I would have thought I'd at least hear DMPD or DMFD (I have them enabled). Or any of the ISP talkgroups. It seems odd that they would all go 30+ minutes with no traffic at all on any of the unencrypted TGs, yes?

Sean
 

K0MSM

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maybe need to check service types, if you programmed manually and didn't specify them then just turn on custom 1 service type
I don't use ANY of the "service types" on any of my favorites. For me, that was/is one more thing that can screw things up. :)

Sean
 
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