PanJurekMrJerry
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Does anybody know why some counties, like Cuyahoga and Summit went to Simulcast vs counties like Lorain where they have stand alone sites, where the stand alone sites are based on affliation.
Re: Simulcast Sites vs. Stand Alone Sites
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PanJurekMrJerry
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Does simulcasting waste transmitting resources by sending the same messages over multiple towers instead of based on affliation and only when an emergency arises to go to simulcasting?
A simulcast system provides the most complete overlapping coverage of a county so that (hopefully) no user is ever out-of-range of a tower. It also allows users on different sides of the coverage area to hear each other while connected to different towers.
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No. All of the towers in a simulcast cell use the same frequencies, so a call is transmitted on the same frequency from every tower. The point of simulcast is to eliminate the dead spots you get in coverage from a single transmitter, much like having multiple light fixtures in a room can eliminate dark shadows.
PanJurekMrJerry
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So why don't all counties use simulcast instead of stand alone?
Cost vs. number of users
Terrain, size
When the state built MARCS, it placed enough towers in each county so that OSP and ODOT could, most of the time, hit a tower with an in-vehicle radio. They were not exactly concerned with local police and fire departments hitting a tower with portables far off state routes or within buildings. Simulcast solves this. When built, the infrastructure for simulcast has been paid for by the county. The three in my area: Summit, Stark, and Tuscarawas were already faced at the time with replacing outdated analog and/or mixed mode trunking systems.
It many cases, simulcast is something of an overkill but, in fact, they were "erring on the side of caution." In the past, many counties and municipalities had notorious dead spots. Locally, in the late 60s there were several with the 4 channel VHF repeater system. They were in areas where police had a particular need to maintain contact with dispatch and other officers. With the 800 mHz system and a total of 3 towers covering 110 square miles, the problem was solved.
There is no such thing as; "simulcast is something of an overkill " when your in some basement crawling on your hands and knees looking for the seat of the fire. This is why fire ground tactical operations should be on analog simplex. If not, the more signal saturation the better. The simulcast systems give you that.
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