Programming Multiple Sites NJICS Unication

[edisonfire]

Hi All,

Again I seek advice. I have West Orange programmed for NJICS. Is it possible to add the add'l site info and frequencies for Wall & Bordentown simulcast sites so that as I travel south the Unication G5 will lose W Orange and pick up the next strong location? If so, do I program the add'l control channels for Wall & Bordentown (4 CC's each) and have it as a 3 site in the G5?

 

[markjrenna]

You can put in multiple sites. The issue would be if that radio/agency you want to monitor is affiliating to that site or not. I have West Orange and that is busy. I also have in Long branch because I have heard some NJSP traffic. But this is not consistent. So it's all hit or miss as to what site you will have signal as you move around and as importantly, what radios are affiliating to the site to be heard. Pot luck!

 

[RadioDitch]

Hi All,

Again I seek advice. I have West Orange programmed for NJICS. Is it possible to add the add'l site info and frequencies for Wall & Bordentown simulcast sites so that as I travel south the Unication G5 will lose W Orange and pick up the next strong location? If so, do I program the add'l control channels for Wall & Bordentown (4 CC's each) and have it as a 3 site in the G5?

I might be following your question improperly, so my apologies if I am.

Simplified version: You just program the additional sites into the system like you already did for West Orange. The G5 should monitor the site with the strongest signal.

You cannot currently scan sites however....yet. Multi-site scanning is among the features coming soon, and is currently being tested as part of the beta firmware. You can read more about it in the Unication forum.

 

[APX8000]

To expand on the previous posters, yes you can monitor multiple sites within the same system. It doesn’t matter whether you want to monitor West Orange simulcast and Union County simulcast only, or every site on NJICS, you just have to program those specific sites in PPS as a specific system. Remember you will need to program both the control channels and the RFSS/Site hex for each of those sites. I have one system programmed as NJICS WIDE....it has all the simulcasts that carry NJSP traffic. Then I programmed one knob position for the talkgroups specific for the GSP. I can start in NY and travel south to the shore and never miss a beat as it will switch sites automatically just like a subscriber.

So yes, the Unication allows you to roam between sites in a system. However, the Unication will roam differently than an APX subscriber as an example. The Unication will lock on to a site based on the initial RSSI meeting a certain threshold. It will then hold that site until BER rises above a certain threshold, then scroll CC's looking for another one that meets the RSSI threshold. So once the G5 locks a site, it holds it based on BER. It does not contantly sample RSSI of other sites and will usually hold a site a little longer than the APX, which is constantly sampling RSSI.

 

[rr60]

I have all 64 programmed. Some stand alone (from North to South). I also have some with 2 or three clusters (it will switch with BER). I even have one position with the entire state system and all the sites. This way I can have it my way.

The issue is you never know what subs affiliate with any one site. The only ones I can see that appear over the majority of sites are Fish & Game and parks police.

Also many 800 TG’s are not on NJICS at all. Some are sometimes.

 

[APX8000]

Follow up to r60, be careful programming smaller sites. For example, I can cover 287 from NY south on West Orange. While I may get a better signal from Alpine, Ramapo and Randolph in certain sections of 287, the majority of what I want to monitor is on West Orange. If I happen to lock on to one of those other sites, I’d miss a lot of traffic due to those talkgroups either being denied by those certain sites or because they are only active upon subscriber affiliation.

 

[rr60]

Follow up to r60, be careful programming smaller sites. For example, I can cover 287 from NY south on West Orange. While I may get a better signal from Alpine, Ramapo and Randolph in certain sections of 287, the majority of what I want to monitor is on West Orange. If I happen to lock on to one of those other sites, I’d miss a lot of traffic due to those talkgroups either being denied by those certain sites or because they are only active upon subscriber affiliation.

No question about that. On target. Takes some thought to know how to select. Subs that auto affiliate have it made. I can usually think on the fly and generally do well manually. Clearly not for everyone. For me that is what makes it fun.

 

[mdsxfire]

Hi All,

Again I seek advice. I have West Orange programmed for NJICS. Is it possible to add the add'l site info and frequencies for Wall & Bordentown simulcast sites so that as I travel south the Unication G5 will lose W Orange and pick up the next strong location? If so, do I program the add'l control channels for Wall & Bordentown (4 CC's each) and have it as a 3 site in the G5?

It will def work doing that I have NJICS setup a few different ways, some knobs with just Union or Essex sites, another with just Rutgers site, but then other knobs that have sites from north to south for when I travel around the state. I had to remove martinsville because it would always be the first site the pager would grab and not many TGs affiliate on it, so def watch the smaller sites unless u know the TGs u want to hear are gonna affiliate

 

[edisonfire]

Thx All for the education. My thinking is when I spend time at the shore, chances are some fire departments I would like to hear will affiliate to lesser used locations as off-duty brass might have their radios on. Ergo, if the chief of the Elizabeth FD has a summer place in Belmar, and he puts his radio on just in case, Elizabeth fire traffic will be carried on say the Wall site. I'm not expecting to hear everything. Based on best guesses, if I'm in Lavallette, and already have West Orange & Union sites programmed, I should add Wall & Bordentown as they show coverage to the ocean in my area, along with Bordentown being a high traffic site.

 

[elias1988]

Bordentown is the way to go when you’re on the island,you will probably hear more than the Wall site.

 

[NParkNJ]

Thx All for the education. My thinking is when I spend time at the shore, chances are some fire departments I would like to hear will affiliate to lesser used locations as off-duty brass might have their radios on. Ergo, if the chief of the Elizabeth FD has a summer place in Belmar, and he puts his radio on just in case, Elizabeth fire traffic will be carried on say the Wall site. I'm not expecting to hear everything. Based on best guesses, if I'm in Lavallette, and already have West Orange & Union sites programmed, I should add Wall & Bordentown as they show coverage to the ocean in my area, along with Bordentown being a high traffic site.

The other guys will have to chime in to make sure I’m correct in saying this...

I doubt a radio from Elizabeth especially fire will be allowed on south Jersey towers/sites. My guess is the radio gets denied.

 

[elias1988]

Yes Elizabeth is denied on Bordentown as is most from Union County,I do get Hillside PD at times.

 

[wa8pyr]

The other guys will have to chime in to make sure I’m correct in saying this...

I doubt a radio from Elizabeth especially fire will be allowed on south Jersey towers/sites. My guess is the radio gets denied.

More likely that the talkgroups are denied rather than the radio; denying radios makes the concept of statewide interoperability almost useless.

 

[NParkNJ]

More likely that the talkgroups are denied rather than the radio; denying radios makes the concept of statewide interoperability almost useless.

Thanks for the clarification, thats what I meant.

 

[RadioDitch]

I doubt a radio from Elizabeth especially fire will be allowed on south Jersey towers/sites. My guess is the radio gets denied.

Union County Fire and Fire Mutual Aid should work on the Cape May Simulcast when affiliated to...allegedly.

 

[NParkNJ]

Union County Fire and Fire Mutual Aid should work on the Cape May Simulcast when affiliated to...allegedly.

Really? I’d be interested in seeing that Ditch

 

[rr60]

Union County Fire and Fire Mutual Aid should work on the Cape May Simulcast when affiliated to...allegedly.

The weekend to see that would be the annual firefighters convention in the fall. Not much traffic on site 6 last time I listened. If so more of a novelty. Can’t run a job from 135 miles away.

 

[RadioDitch]

The weekend to see that would be the annual firefighters convention in the fall. Not much traffic on site 6 last time I listened. If so more of a novelty. Can’t run a job from 135 miles away.

Actually you pretty much nailed the reason I understand to it to *allegedly* be the case. If you remember a few years back while the convention was going on old man fire decided to run up 4 bells in UC and they were having a hard time making cell phone calls back and forth. Just got complicated.

 

[rr60]

Think we are on same page. Old man fire was retired.

 

[CM1]

I had this idea a while ago, so just throwing it out out there for some input...with all the users on here monitoring this system, perhaps we could build out a table that shows what regular users are found on each site. I'm guessing something like this could go on the Wiki page?

Example:

Site #	Location	TG	User
8	New Brunswick	4407	RWJ/Med Central 1 - ALS Units

Thoughts?