Questions about Albertville, AL

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Charlie_Foxtrot

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I recently received a bcd396xt scanner. I have set up Birmingham as a Motorola Type II system in and am able to receive those broadcasts. I work in Albertville, and from my research, Gadsden and Etowah are encrypted. Thus I am no longer expecting to hear any of those transmissions when I pass through in the morning.

After a good search of the forums, I do not see anything to indicate that Albertville or Boaz is encrypted. Yet, the squelch does not open when receiving a signal on 856.76250 when in scan mode. When I hold the scan and manually tune to the frequency, I do get what sounds like a control channel traffic. I can't say that I understand the rebranding initiative but from what it seems like, it is simply a shift on the band plans.

What I am getting at is I am not sure if there is something more I need to do, like put in a modified band plan or if Albertville has gone encrypted and the scanner is working normally. Can someone verify if they are able to pick up APD and what scanner they are using?

Thanks.
 

Avery93

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You shouldn't hear the control channel while scanning, only see the signal strength indicator, so that's normal.

For this system, you will have to enter a custom (rebanded) band plan. See this page for the band plan, and instructions on entering it using software. If you're not using software, you can enter it by navigating to the Albertville site through the "Program System" menu, select Edit Band Plan, then Custom. Enter the information from the first line of the table into Band Plan 1, and the second line into Band Plan 2.
 

Charlie_Foxtrot

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Thank you Avery93. I let the scanner select positive polarity and it worked the second time I tried it. I am not sure what that does, or if it really made a difference, but my initial go at this had me stumped which is why I reached out.

I finally got a virtual XP machine running on my desktop and the serial port patched over to it so that I can use Freescan. I noticed that by default Freescan uses the same custom bandplan for other systems in the RR database. Without going into a lot of technical depth on the subject, can you tell me if that would be necessary for all 800MHZ trunked systems? My reason for asking is I setup Jefferson County Public Safety using the standard 800/900MHZ bandplan and it works great.
 

SCPD

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Virginia
I recently received a bcd396xt scanner. I have set up Birmingham as a Motorola Type II system in and am able to receive those broadcasts. I work in Albertville, and from my research, Gadsden and Etowah are encrypted. Thus I am no longer expecting to hear any of those transmissions when I pass through in the morning.

After a good search of the forums, I do not see anything to indicate that Albertville or Boaz is encrypted. Yet, the squelch does not open when receiving a signal on 856.76250 when in scan mode. When I hold the scan and manually tune to the frequency, I do get what sounds like a control channel traffic. I can't say that I understand the rebranding initiative but from what it seems like, it is simply a shift on the band plans.

What I am getting at is I am not sure if there is something more I need to do, like put in a modified band plan or if Albertville has gone encrypted and the scanner is working normally. Can someone verify if they are able to pick up APD and what scanner they are using?

Thanks.

Boaz is not encrypted and uses UHF not 800 MHZ
 

medic9351301

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it might be because jefferson county is a mixed mode system. i seem to remb. that i set up the custom plan for jefferson county. and i worked but i am back to no band plan
 

Avery93

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Sorry for the late reply. Basically, the custom band plan is not needed if all system frequencies have a 5 in the fourth decimal place (e.g. 854.8375), or are above 854.0000 MHz. However, If any of the system frequencies do not have a 5 in the fourth decimal place (e.g. 851.3250), and are below 854.0000 MHz, then the custom band plan is needed. There is a pretty good explanation for all of this in the Wiki.

Some of the Jefferson County sites, including the main simulcast cell will work without the rebanding tables, because they meet the above conditions for not needing them. However several/most of them will require the custom tables.

FYI, the Jefferson County TRS entry in the database is currently very inaccurate and incomplete; see this thread for more information. I'll try to get a submission sent in later today to fix it.
 

Charlie_Foxtrot

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Springville, AL
I looked at the antenna when I passed by on Friday and wondered if it was in service. I noticed that it was about the same length as a 2 meter jpole that I had once. I must admit that I made an assumption that everyone was moving to digital and 800MHZ.

Thanks for the info though. I am closer to Boaz and don't pick up much from Albertville unless they are on a tower close by. So hopefully I will get more action when I plug in Boaz.

(This was in reply to spd640. I didn't reply with a quote).
 
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Charlie_Foxtrot

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Springville, AL
Sorry for the late reply. Basically, the custom band plan is not needed if all system frequencies have a 5 in the fourth decimal place (e.g. 854.8375), or are above 854.0000 MHz. However, If any of the system frequencies do not have a 5 in the fourth decimal place (e.g. 851.3250), and are below 854.0000 MHz, then the custom band plan is needed. There is a pretty good explanation for all of this in the Wiki.

Some of the Jefferson County sites, including the main simulcast cell will work without the rebanding tables, because they meet the above conditions for not needing them. However several/most of them will require the custom tables.

FYI, the Jefferson County TRS entry in the database is currently very inaccurate and incomplete; see this thread for more information. I'll try to get a submission sent in later today to fix it.

Thank you Avery, with your explanation, that helped me digest the article better than the first time I read it. Also, thanks for the updated and more acurate info for Jefferson County. Unfortunately I am unable to receive any signal at home unless I put my scanner in the window (hung from the blinds). I am investigating external antennas and hope to get a pole mounted on the deck supports to get it up high enough to get something.
 

SCPD

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Feb 24, 2001
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Location
Virginia
I looked at the antenna when I passed by on Friday and wondered if it was in service. I noticed that it was about the same length as a 2 meter jpole that I had once. I must admit that I made an assumption that everyone was moving to digital and 800MHZ.

Thanks for the info though. I am closer to Boaz and don't pick up much from Albertville unless they are on a tower close by. So hopefully I will get more action when I plug in Boaz.

(This was in reply to spd640. I didn't reply with a quote).

453.275 pl tone 114.8 will get you Boaz...Have a good one!!!
 

shine

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Oct 13, 2006
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I listen to Albertville Pd, fire, medics, street dept. I use a bcd996xt.
 
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