Post-rebanding signal strength

[1464]

My local public safety system is a Motorola Type II Smartzone system with analog and digital voice. I monitor this system with several XTS 3000 radios as well as some Uniden scanners.

Since rebanding I have noticed a lot more drop-out in traffic on both the radios and scanners. Out out of curiosity, I recently took a Uniden 296D on a drive around town, listening only to the control channel.

What I found was signal strength of the CC is less than half of what it used to be. I realize the signal indicator on a scanner is not the most reliable tool for determining signal strength, but in areas where I was receiving a clean signal at 5 bars (most of the county) before rebanding, I'm now receiving one or two bars with lots of noise.

The system in question started rebanding a little before Christmas. Is the reduced signal part of the process of switching multiple towers to the new frequencies? Should I expect signal strength to improve at some point? Should I start shopping for better antennas?

Any thoughts are appreciated.

 

[fineshot1]

if the system you are listening to a is simulcast system and it was just rebanded
perhaps it has not been optimized yet(an opti is usually done after rebanding).

 

[1464]

Thanks for the reply, it is a simulcast system. Any idea on timeline for optimizing a system? Days, weeks or months?

 

[fineshot1]

Thanks for the reply, it is a simulcast system. Any idea on timeline for optimizing a system? Days, weeks or months?

There is no timeline - it all depends on when moto & the customer can make it happen.
Could be weeks or months, a lot depends on the priority of the customer.

It may already have been optimized and you may be hearing the results(or not hearing).
Some simulcast systems are not meant for great area coverage beyond certain limits.

 

[n5ims]

It also may be that during the rebanding process some temporary repeaters are added to allow both the old and new frequencies to exist for a short period of time. These temporary repeaters may be lower power, use temporary antennas that may have less gain and/or be located in less than optimal locations (lower on the tower, for example), as well as temporary coax runs with more loss than a perminant run would use. Once the transition is complete, the main repeaters are retuned and optimized and the temporary items removed.

 

[1464]

That makes me hopeful about seeing some improvement in the signal quality. I've haven't had a chance to cruise by all of the towers, but I have found one that's listed as belonging to the system in the FCC database that doesn't seem to be transmitting at all. The others I've checked have a strong signal once you get within a mile or so.

I guess I'll give it some more time.. Thanks for the help.