PSR-500 Failure to Track P-25 Systems Thread

[rvawatch]

Mancow, glad to see that you have resolved your problem.

I hope there's a GRE rep lurking on this board, and that they're taking note of these decoding issues, and are working on possible upgrades, should they deem them necessary.

i sure hope so. it sounds like theres alot of assuming going on...assuming that someone from gre is hearing us. The manual says visit their website for frequent updates and support, but the only thing on there is still just the advertisement and specs. The page to register for the warranty online is still "under construction." Well, at least it was yesterday, haven't checked it today.

 

[SCPD]

Mancow, glad to see that you have resolved your problem.

I hope there's a GRE rep lurking on this board, and that they're taking note of these decoding issues, and are working on possible upgrades, should they deem them necessary.

Being involved with beta testing (which no issues like this were reported across the whole group of testers) I am sure GRE is watching -very- closely.

I see one person above tried SuperTrack = off and got a big improvement (you have to set this in the TSYS of interest as the Glob menu setting is just for Tune and Search modes).

From what I hear SuperTrack = Off is similar to the Pro-96 F1.2 DSP, and SuperTrack = On is similar to the Pro-96 F1.4 DSP. As we know the benefit of either varied by area. I think everyone having problems should try this as that would be good information for GRE, and just might give some improvement.

mancow.. Thanks for your update that it was possibly a dropped radio problem and now that you are back up working.

 

[rvawatch]

ok heres the problem i had with this http://www.radioreference.com/modules.php?name=RR&sid=556 system today. It's kinda complicated so bear with me, but most of you guys are smart (otherwise we wouldn't find interest in this hobby).

This system as you can see has three separate sites. Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield.

Richmond's PD etc is obviously broadcasted on Richmond's site
Henrico on Henrico's site
Chesterfield on Chesterfield's site

There several talkgroups, for example, Richmond PD Precinct 4, that are broadcasted on Richmond's site as well as Chesterfield's site. I've learned that this is because there is a Richmond unit on that TG near Chesterfield's site, therefore the TG becomes affiliated with it. I live in Chesterfield, so I can pick up Chesterfield's towers fine, but don't have as good reception of Richmond and Henrico (altho depending on where I am and antenna, usually can pick it up).


So I created a SYS in the 500 for Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield. I then have a separate scanlist for Richmond PD, Henrico PD, and Chesterfield PD.

If I set the system to ROAM, then the scanner (like it is supposed to) locks onto the strongest site (which is usually Chesterfield), however, if I want to hear Richmond's PD, I only hear the PD TG's that are affiliated with Chesterfield's site (since that is the only site the scanner is locked on to).

If I set the system to OFF, the scanner locks onto the first available site, therefore I'm only picking up the TG's affiliated with that site (like above).

So, it would make sense that in a system like this, setting it to STAT for stationary would make the most sense. That way the scanner uses all the available sites for that system. Therefore if I'm listening to Richmond PD, the scanner doesn't just use the close Chesterfield site, but will also search the more distant Richmond site for TGs. However, the problem I had is when listening to Chesterfield PD, the scanner would have a more difficult time noticing the active talkgroups. Also, when I was in Petersburg today, and had decent reception of Chesterfield's site (but none of Richmond or Henrico), the scanner would act like it couldn't find any available site (therefore no "T" in the display) while in SCAN mode. (my 396 was picking up the TGs). If I "analyzed" the site (control channel), I had a decent decode rate. Just in scan mode, it acted as if it had no reception. Setting the SYS back to ROAM, however, allowed it to lock onto the active Chesterfield site, and work much better.

So it sounds like there is some problems with the STAT mode actually recognizing all the sites or something.......

I wish there was something in between STAT and ROAM mode, that allowed it to use all available sites, but give priority to the strongest one, but that might be a different issue.

hope this makes sense... Andrew

 

[SCPD]

I posted this on the Release thread and wanted to post here too....

I was part of the beta test program, and we did not have any reports about this at all. Actually the reports we had among the testers were very good on reception. I have contacted them, and they are following the threads and have some ideas in work for a release pretty soon. I think trying SuperTrack On/Off per the one user that did this with a good improvement will be helpful information for them. I think GRE did their homework and still are so it is good to provide detailed information and not worry so much about if they are listening or if they will do something. Detailed information like:

1) When you are on a voice channel and not hearing audio, does the display also show "DG".

2) I know we are all passionate and bad = BAD, but if we describe what percentage of lost audio vs the other radios, this is also good. For example, the Pro-96 receives 90% of transmissions, and the PSR-500 receives nn%

3) Some have mentioned that it used to work and now it does not. That is interesting for sure. Did location change or proximity to possible interference? Did you try with the Att on and off to look for a difference.

I recommend not making an opinion until listening within a two or more radio comparison for at least 15 minutes. I would also recommend changing the position of the radios to negate any nulls etc.

The above kind of information would help in a quick understanding and possible fix.

They are listening. Like others here I have a day job, so I can not give an opinion on all issues, but felt that it would be useful to bring some focus to the posts and reassure everyone that I have been told GRE is listening and has some options on how to address this. What they need is specific information that they can track.

 

[LEH]

cpunut,

Thanks for that update. If you get any other feedback from GRE asking for additional details, please post them so we (those of us with the problem) can provide some feedback. Do you think GRE would like to know the serial numbers of the problem units (unless it is all of them)? If it is a hardware issue, this could help see the range.

I'd like to second what you said. I spent my first fifteen years in the Air Force on the flight line in aircraft maintenance. When there was a problem, the more information and the more detailed the information we were given made finding and fixing the problem much easier.

Unless it it plainly obvious, just saying 'it is broke' or 'it doesn't work' does not help find the problem. This problem is not plainly obvious. Each of us seem to have slightly different issues.

Having the radio not perform well in the P25 system has been extremely frustrating. That is my primary scanning system.

 

[kikito]

[I posted this on the "release" thread but I'll post it here also and will continue posting my updates here]

The system in question is this one: ALMR P25 9600 VHF Trunked: http://www.radioreference.com/modules.php?name=RR&sid=2447

I'm starting to notice some of the same symptoms people are describing with the problem of not tracking properly or sporadically. I haven't been able to put my finger on it yet but in my case I'm zeroing in a couple of things:

-- One is the "FlexStep" option I'm using. It seems that some voice transmissions and some control channels that fall outside the "native" frequency step of the radio when using this option, don't quite receive reliably. For example: one control channel's true frequency is 156.1375. With FlexStep Off, that rounds to 156.135. When I go to analyze that CC, it always shows good reception/decoding and you can hear the CC data audio. With FlexStep On, the frequency shows the correct step of 156.1375. However, when I go to analyze, it's hit or miss if I get a reliable decode rate and most of the time I get no data audio coming through the speaker. When I go to tune and punch in 156.1375, it's also hit or miss if it shows reliable data BUT when I step the frequency down two steps to the "native" 156.135 of the radio, it's starts showing good decode rates and audio again. SuperTrack On or Off doesn't seem to make a difference in this.

-- The other thing is setting Multi-Site to STAT. Let me start by saying that the radio works perfectly when you're tracking one single site and Multi-Site to Off. That said, it seems that when I have several control channels in the TSYS object and is set to STAT, it starts off tracking fine and on all the control channels. After a few minutes, it seems like it starts skipping some of the control channels, especially one of the best and strongest ones I have in my vicinity. It also gets some transmissions kind of broken and sometimes locks on to a TG but no audio, like other people have reported. It also likes to lock on more often to one of our known "Multi-Packets" sites. (Which by the way, just like in the Pro-96, when you analyze this site, it doesn't even show the site ID, SysID, etc. I'm sure in the future GRE could come up with an update to show that info on such sites like Uniden did.) Anyway, when is tracking a TG on that Multi-packet site, I can see the TG is also active on the better site on the other scanner, so as soon as I hit MAN, it goes to the same talkgroup on that better site. So I don't know why it's skipping some sites, especially good reception ones and if that could be one of the problems, the radio jumping between sites too often or something.

 

[SCPD]

cpunut,

Thanks for that update. If you get any other feedback from GRE asking for additional details, please post them so we (those of us with the problem) can provide some feedback. Do you think GRE would like to know the serial numbers of the problem units (unless it is all of them)? If it is a hardware issue, this could help see the range.

I'd like to second what you said. I spent my first fifteen years in the Air Force on the flight line in aircraft maintenance. When there was a problem, the more information and the more detailed the information we were given made finding and fixing the problem much easier.

Unless it it plainly obvious, just saying 'it is broke' or 'it doesn't work' does not help find the problem. This problem is not plainly obvious. Each of us seem to have slightly different issues.

Having the radio not perform well in the P25 system has been extremely frustrating. That is my primary scanning system.

I do not think S/Ns would be useful at this time since all radios are from the same batch.

 

[SCPD]

[I posted this on the "release" thread but I'll post it here also and will continue posting my updates here]

The system in question is this one: ALMR P25 9600 VHF Trunked: http://www.radioreference.com/modules.php?name=RR&sid=2447

I'm starting to notice some of the same symptoms people are describing with the problem of not tracking properly or sporadically. I haven't been able to put my finger on it yet but in my case I'm zeroing in a couple of things:

-- One is the "FlexStep" option I'm using. It seems that some voice transmissions and some control channels that fall outside the "native" frequency step of the radio when using this option, don't quite receive reliably. For example: one control channel's true frequency is 156.1375. With FlexStep Off, that rounds to 156.135. When I go to analyze that CC, it always shows good reception/decoding and you can hear the CC data audio. With FlexStep On, the frequency shows the correct step of 156.1375. However, when I go to analyze, it's hit or miss if I get a reliable decode rate and most of the time I get no data audio coming through the speaker. When I go to tune and punch in 156.1375, it's also hit or miss if it shows reliable data BUT when I step the frequency down two steps to the "native" 156.135 of the radio, it's starts showing good decode rates and audio again. SuperTrack On or Off doesn't seem to make a difference in this.

-- The other thing is setting Multi-Site to STAT. Let me start by saying that the radio works perfectly when you're tracking one single site and Multi-Site to Off. That said, it seems that when I have several control channels in the TSYS object and is set to STAT, it starts off tracking fine and on all the control channels. After a few minutes, it seems like it starts skipping some of the control channels, especially one of the best and strongest ones I have in my vicinity. It also gets some transmissions kind of broken and sometimes locks on to a TG but no audio, like other people have reported. It also likes to lock on more often to one of our known "Multi-Packets" sites. (Which by the way, just like in the Pro-96, when you analyze this site, it doesn't even show the site ID, SysID, etc. I'm sure in the future GRE could come up with an update to show that info on such sites like Uniden did.) Anyway, when is tracking a TG on that Multi-packet site, I can see the TG is also active on the better site on the other scanner, so as soon as I hit MAN, it goes to the same talkgroup on that better site. So I don't know why it's skipping some sites, especially good reception ones and if that could be one of the problems, the radio jumping between sites too often or something.

Regarding flexstep.... If you are having trunking problems with it set to on (?), have you tried turning it off and re-test?

 

[kikito]

So it sounds like there is some problems with the STAT mode actually recognizing all the sites or something.......

And that's exactly what I just posted about that I also noticed in my area! Even before I read your post. There's something definitely going on with the STAT setting. We might be on to something here....

 

[kikito]

Regarding flexstep.... If you are having trunking problems with it set to on (?), have you tried turning it off and re-test?

Yes. I'm still doing more testing but when Flexstep is set to Off, it seems to decode the "flaky" voice channels better if not perfectly.

 

[PC_Medic]

I posted this on the Release thread and wanted to post here too....

I was part of the beta test program, and we did not have any reports about this at all. Actually the reports we had among the testers were very good on reception. I have contacted them, and they are following the threads and have some ideas in work for a release pretty soon. I think trying SuperTrack On/Off per the one user that did this with a good improvement will be helpful information for them. I think GRE did their homework and still are so it is good to provide detailed information and not worry so much about if they are listening or if they will do something. Detailed information like:

1) When you are on a voice channel and not hearing audio, does the display also show "DG".

Yes it still shows "DG"

2) I know we are all passionate and bad = BAD, but if we describe what percentage of lost audio vs the other radios, this is also good. For example, the Pro-96 receives 90% of transmissions, and the PSR-500 receives nn%

My Pro-96 is receiving 100% of transmissions on this system, PSR-500 gets about 5% (yes five) and only parts of those as it drops the ball as they say.

3) Some have mentioned that it used to work and now it does not. That is interesting for sure. Did location change or proximity to possible interference? Did you try with the Att on and off to look for a difference.

Mine worked for about an hour maybe and then noticed the issue (no audio with 5 bars on signal strength, machine gunning, partial receive, etc).

I recommend not making an opinion until listening within a two or more radio comparison for at least 15 minutes. I would also recommend changing the position of the radios to negate any nulls etc.

Did comparisons for a good part of the night last night and tried many combinations of settings. All with no positive effects. Indoors or out, it just is not locking on to the system.

The above kind of information would help in a quick understanding and possible fix.

They are listening. Like others here I have a day job, so I can not give an opinion on all issues, but felt that it would be useful to bring some focus to the posts and reassure everyone that I have been told GRE is listening and has some options on how to address this. What they need is specific information that they can track.

Ask away and I will provide specifics

 

[SCPD]

The above is good feedback, and I think very useful.

 

[SCPD]

Ask away and I will provide specifics

You may have already said, but what systems (radioreference URLs) do your comments relate to?

 

[LEH]

Well taking some lessons from previous posts and just sitting watching the 500 while monitoring the same talk group on my 396.

1. I am missing probably 35% of the transmissions I am hearing on the 396.
2. With the 500 set on 'manual' and the display set to show 'cc info', the active CC is not showing any reception (--%). At one time, after capturing a transmission, the 'cc' showed "05 96%", then switched to "02 --%". I checked the TSYS and the control channel had not changed, it was still 05.
3. When I do capture a signal, the screen will display either "DG" or "VC". When the display shows "DG", I typically obtain audio. When there is no audio, the value is typically 'VC". It has on occasion switched back and forth in the middle of a transmission. However, I have seen the system open, go to "DG" and not gotten audio, or a delay in the audio coming out.
4. The system I am monitoring uses a fair amount of encryption. I chose a talk group that seems to use the least amount of it. I am not counting times encryption is used.

 

[PC_Medic]

You may have already said, but what systems (radioreference URLs) do your comments relate to?

System Name: Chesapeake
Location: Chesapeake, VA
County: Chesapeake
System Type: Motorola Type II Smartnet
System Voice: Analog and APCO-25 Common Air Interface
Sysid: 7A32
CT: 116.13

(Chesapeake is keeping the VHF radios so if the trunked system goes down they can use that and will not have to use telephones)

Link/URL http://www.radioreference.com/modules.php?name=RR&sid=179

While I hope it turns out to be a firmware issue and a QUICK update release, is it possible mancow is on to something when he dropped his. I hope not, but is it possible this loose board he corrected is happening to other units during shipping. Until recently I worked Technical Customer Relations for a major consumer electronics manufacture for 11 years and a good chunk of our issues were often found to be created during shipping resulting in product or packaging design changes. Just a thought.

 

[SCPD]

Well taking some lessons from previous posts and just sitting watching the 500 while monitoring the same talk group on my 396.

1. I am missing probably 35% of the transmissions I am hearing on the 396.
2. With the 500 set on 'manual' and the display set to show 'cc info', the active CC is not showing any reception (--%). At one time, after capturing a transmission, the 'cc' showed "05 96%", then switched to "02 --%". I checked the TSYS and the control channel had not changed, it was still 05.
3. When I do capture a signal, the screen will display either "DG" or "VC". When the display shows "DG", I typically obtain audio. When there is no audio, the value is typically 'VC". It has on occasion switched back and forth in the middle of a transmission. However, I have seen the system open, go to "DG" and not gotten audio, or a delay in the audio coming out.
4. The system I am monitoring uses a fair amount of encryption. I chose a talk group that seems to use the least amount of it. I am not counting times encryption is used.

Within the show CC Info, you may need to use the up/down arrow keys to select the active CC.

I think it is good that you did not include encryption in the percentage of "copy" comparison between the two radios.

 

[LEH]

cpunut,

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. Here is what I mean with the cc info showing. The scanner is set to manual and the control channel number is alternating, though only one ever shows a percent of decode. The first picture has the active control channel.

In this mode, the up down arrow changes objects. Now if I go to the TSYS and ANALYZ, I can walk through the control channels.

 

[kikito]

The scanner is set to manual and the control channel number is alternating, though only one ever shows a percent of decode.

You're using STAT right?

I mentioned this in another thread, according to the manual (Page 98), it only shows a percentage decode on that screen when Multi-Site = Off.

I've noticed that only initially when you press MAN, you'll see a decode rate briefly when using STAT.

 

[RoninJoliet]

Being new at this, can "CPUNUT" or someone tell me how to change the "SUPERTRACK" to "OFF" per TSYS, i changed it in the "GLOB" to off but that does not pertain to the TSYS individualy.....Thank You...It does not show up in TSYS analize, or the TSYS Menu??...

 

[kikito]

-- The other thing is setting Multi-Site to STAT. Let me start by saying that the radio works perfectly when you're tracking one single site and Multi-Site to Off. That said, it seems that when I have several control channels in the TSYS object and is set to STAT, it starts off tracking fine and on all the control channels. After a few minutes, it seems like it starts skipping some of the control channels, especially one of the best and strongest ones I have in my vicinity. It also gets some transmissions kind of broken and sometimes locks on to a TG but no audio, like other people have reported. It also likes to lock on more often to one of our known "Multi-Packets" sites. (Which by the way, just like in the Pro-96, when you analyze this site, it doesn't even show the site ID, SysID, etc. I'm sure in the future GRE could come up with an update to show that info on such sites like Uniden did.) Anyway, when is tracking a TG on that Multi-packet site, I can see the TG is also active on the better site on the other scanner, so as soon as I hit MAN, it goes to the same talkgroup on that better site. So I don't know why it's skipping some sites, especially good reception ones and if that could be one of the problems, the radio jumping between sites too often or something.

Just to add to that above, when I set it to ROAM, it seems to stick only to that very site that gets skipped most of the time on STAT.