jehm1212
Member
Has Prince George started using their new UHF frequencies yet?
n3ncn said:I believe they are refering to PG Co. Va. They are getting a 400Mhz non- trunk system. I thought Md. at first also
W4UVV said:To say they have problems with dead spots and shadow areas is an understatement. This evening on a F/R call near the Petersburg/Dinwiddie Co. area on Old Vaughan Road the mobile inputs at times were occasionally noisy and unreadable. Additionally, the total system audio volume level continues to be low. At first I thought it was my scanner volume setting until I heard the dispatcher recently tell two units she could not understand them because their radio volume ws low.. Other shadow areas include portions of Rt. 10.
Then other user's audio such as VSP on 158.9850 and 159.000 mhz. blasted out and i had to turn the volume down.
It is shame that millions of taxpayer dollars were spent on this analog uhf non-trunked system at 7 repeater sites using 6 ghz., a 10 ghz., an 11 ghz. a 21 ghz. and a 22 ghz. microwave links that is not impressive in performance contrary to what others may say.
Unfortunately Prince George County officials did not look first to Dinwiddie Co. who did their radio comm. system upgrade right. They went P25 non-trunked using a few new high band vhf frequencies. P. G. Co. had enough presently assigned high band vhf repeater frequencies to give the police, F/R, school buses and utilities their own frequency. Worst case would have been to request one or two more vhf high band frequencies if the police and F/R wanted their own tac channel or whatever. They still had their old vhf repeater towers that could have been used in the conversion effort. Installation of several additional remote tower sites could have been added and everything converted to P25 digital at hundreds of thousands of dollars less cost to the taxpayers than was spent for this UHF system. The P25 system also would afford better coverage to the shadow areas in the county. Those who have monitored the Dinwiddie Co. 151.0850 mhz. SO repeater and STARS 151-152/158-159 mhz. P25 transmissions prove that digital ground wave repeater and simplex signals are significantly superior to previous analog signals.
That didn't happen. Yesterday I was mobile in the Chester area. Previously the old PG Co. 159.1500 mhz. police and 155.1150 repeaters were solid copy mobile 20-25+ miles around the county. I noticed the "new' 453.1625 mhz. UHF PD repeater chopped and the system audio being low was difficult to understand with the ambient noise in the vehicle.
Such an amateur radio UHF repeater operation would not be tolerated. Our 444.275 mhz. amateur radio repeater in PG Co. is located on a water tower near I295/I95 which is about less than 1 air mile from the Courthouse UHF tower. It is 40 watts input to an omni-directional antenna located lower in height that the UHF ground planes on the Courthouse tower. I have made contacts through that repeater on Rt. 60 at Powhatan Co. Post Office and on Richmond Road in downtown Williamsburg....45 road miles from the county.
What's done is done and the county will have to live with it good and bad.
photone said:That pretty much confirms what my contacts have told me...I must be in a good location for reception, I have noticed that if I'm out and about and much north of homie the reception is much choppier than the old system (Which I had actually picked up as far South as Courtland on occasion)
Up towards Richmond, you loose reception all together.
Dinwiddie has an awesome system...sadly I can't always pick them up at home, but I know that's an antenna issue rather than a system issue. When I'm down in Dinwiddie...or even Southern Chesterfield...they all but blow me out of my car.
Also, Petersburg's getting ready to go to an 800mhz trunked digital system, supposedly within the next few months....they are an extremely busy small department, hopefully they'll get it right the first time. Interoperability with Colonial Heights and Chesterfield's a must, as both departments respond into the city regularly.
Prince George, ditto (In fact P.G. Company 1 and PFD Engine 5 responded together on a working vehicle fire yesterday afternoon in the 11000 block of South Crater Road).
This'll mean that Petersburg's rigs will still have to be equipped with at least two radios even after the switch-over.
Rob