Saratoga County TRS Official Thread

[Weather88]

Apparently I live in a dead spot. I receive an erratic signal on ONE control channel which is assigned to a tower in the northwest corner of the county. There are NO other control channels available where I live in Waterford.

My station is a GRE PSR-600 fed by a discone mounted 30 feet in the air. I can hear more distant counties just fine.

Another question arises - are the "Tactical" talkgroups actually trunked or are they simplex?

The "TAC" channels are trunked. There are a few "GROUND" channels on each radio that are not trunked.

 

[Warthog1]

Well Dave, if you can beleive me....TAC channels are trunked, fireground & ITAC are simplex and appear to be analog. Fireground with a PL of 146.2....ITAC with PL 156.7
Just trying to help.

 

[DaveNF2G]

I believe you, Don.

Can someone post a list of which CC are transmitting from each tower? Maybe I have a few channels missing from my lineup. There are supposed to be at least two towers in the Clifton Park / Halfmoon area that should be loud and clear from here.

 

[Warthog1]

Load up a trunked syatem in the PSR 600 with these and it will find what you need.
851.0125
851.1625
851.225
851.4125
851.5125
851.5875
851.65
851.975
852.1375
852.225
852.25
852.55
852.6
852.775
852.85
852.9375
853.0125
853.1125
853.1375
853.4125
853.525
853.7625
853.775
853.8625
853.875
853.8875
863.9125
863.9875

that should do it !

 

[DaveNF2G]

I put those last two in as 853. I'll let you know how it does. There were some new ones in there.

 

[Warthog1]

OOps.....sorry....I can type, my hands can't !

 

[jmv3085]

EMS 800 Cut Over Was Painless
Saratoga County EMS agencies cut over to the 800 radio system for all operations on Monday, June 27th at 8:00 am. EMS Coordinator Mike McEvoy said, "The switch went more smoothly than expected. Field units and Communications Center staff performed with their usual professionalism and any fears of unpredicted misadventures were quickly put to rest." The Office of Emergency Services previously announced that installations of new VHF radio equipment will be held until Fire Service 800 installs are finished. All agencies had previously sent representatives to County EMS Radio training sessions and any person can access training resources by clicking on the 800 Radio Resources tab at the top of this page. While not definite, a cut over for Fire units will likely occur around July 11th.

 

[Mtnrider]

Whew.....i am Glad Greene County still uses tin cans and string....

 

[Warthog1]

Must be excellent string....I can monitor them up here full quieting !

 

[Mtnrider]

If ya hear Colonels chair aka Hunter Mt i am sure...3200 feet plus the tower....but there having issues with the input for sheriff...and we cant here them around here in places.....and i hear Blue wings been hired.....so we will see what changes there going to suggest.....I saw Ulsters Blue wing suggestions.....that should interesting as well

 

[DaveNF2G]

I went on a fact-finding drive last evening (June 30). I stopped and checked for 800 MHz CC signals in Halfmoon, Clifton Park, Round Lake, Mechanicville, Stillwater, and Waterford Village.

At each stop I received ONE control channel signal from T0101, which has been identified as the Barkersville tower. The signal strength varied by location. The other 9 or 10 towers appear to be offline still.

Back home, I tracked the system as well as I could given the crappy signal in Waterford - Northside. There are now separate radio IDs showing for county police units, so the police are definitely using 800 MHz radios from the cars now. I was unable to determine if this is the case for EMS units because the signals are so unreliable here.

As only one tower is on the air, and the fire services have not begun "using" the system yet, I would say that it is <10% operational at this time, regardless of what the radio shop guys are saying, or what the local end users believe they are saying.

P.S. I learned long ago not to believe everything the shop guys say. Troy PD believed for several years that their analog EDACS system was digital because that's what the shop told them.

 

[Thunderknight]

At each stop I received ONE control channel signal from T0101, which has been identified as the Barkersville tower. The signal strength varied by location. The other 9 or 10 towers appear to be offline still.

Back home, I tracked the system as well as I could given the crappy signal in Waterford - Northside. There are now separate radio IDs showing for county police units, so the police are definitely using 800 MHz radios from the cars now. I was unable to determine if this is the case for EMS units because the signals are so unreliable here.

As only one tower is on the air, and the fire services have not begun "using" the system yet, I would say that it is <10% operational at this time, regardless of what the radio shop guys are saying, or what the local end users believe they are saying.

Dave,

A few things to consider.

At one point this was supposed to be a simulcast system. If so, multiple sites will have the same tower ID (look at Colonie for example).
If they are using some new form (or tweak) of P25 simulcast that Motorola could have, it's possible that some types of scanners do not track it properly, where as the Motorola radios would do fine. This was very common with P25 scanners when P25 simulcast systems were new. Look at the firmware version release notes for the Radio Shack scanners...they indicate various changes to improve simulcast tracking. Have you tried multiple brands/models of scanners? Different firmware versions (roll-back)?

Is the signal strength poor, or is it the control channel tracking percentage that is poor? These are seperate, and one can be good with the other being poor if there are simulcast timing issues.

It seems hard to believe they would have transitioned PD and EMS to a system with only 1 site in the whole county active. Another poster on here indicated he spoke first hand to fire users in Waterford who said their Motorola radios were working fine on the system - that further points to a scanner issue.

Remember, these systems are built to work with P25 radios, not P25 scanners. There are major differences in receiver design.

Another idea would be to listen carefully to the VHF 911 channel and listen to the locations that units on the 800 system (no repeater tail) give for locations. If they are in places with what you see as unusable coverage or areas that the Barkersville site would not cover, then the problem is probably with your end (scanner or incomplete frequency set).

For reference
http://forums.radioreference.com/pr...linear-simulcast-modulation-difficulties.html

 

[Warthog1]

Why am I getting a control channel on 852.6 with an ID of T0102 ?

 

[Warthog1]

Dave, which radio are you using to get radio ID's ?
My 2096, 996, and PSR-600 only seem to do Talk Group ID's.

 

[Thunderknight]

Why am I getting a control channel on 852.6 with an ID of T0102 ?

There may be more than 1 simulcast zone.
(e.g. towers A, B, C simulcast all of the traffic in one area (West for example), and towers D, E, F simulcast all of the traffic in another area (East for example). Each zone could have it's own tower ID. The important thing to remember is that ALL sites in one (same) zone will have the SAME tower ID, because they are essentially "one tower" as they are simulcast.

While this doesn''t reduce traffic on countywide channels, such as 911, it could limit fire tactical traffic to only the area where it is being used (e.g. to prevent a fire call in Clifton Park which might be simulcast on all of the towers in Clifton Park/Halfmoon from requiring an RF working channel in the ADK Park where it's not being used)..

This type of setup, simulcast and simulcast zones, are very common on larger trunked systems. While certaintly the county could use all the sites as 1 large simulcast, that would only work if all of the channels were licensed and available at all of the sites. If there is a mix of channels at different locations, that implies it is NOT a countywide single zone simulcast and could be either multizone or non-simulcast.

 

[Thunderknight]

Why am I getting a control channel on 852.6 with an ID of T0102 ?

According to the FCC database, that is only licensed at Edinburg and Lakeview. I am unable to hear it near Albany (external antenna).

I do have a CC on 851.5875, with 3 or 4 bars of signal (out of 5) but less than 15% decode.This freq is licensed at Corinth, Wilton, Barkersville, Stillwater, Saratoga Springs and Ballston Spa and on a seperate license, both Halfmoon locations.

Given 2 control channels with different frequency sets and locations and different tower IDs, that implies there may be a seperate zone for the Lake/Park area...giving at least 2 zones in this system.

Edit: I'm monitoring T0101 on 851.5875 and Unitrunker is showing T0102 as a peer to T0101. I think that further confirms what I suspect above (2 zones). Given the poor decode rate and yet reasonable signal, I still think this is a scanner as the receiver problem due to either a simulcast distoration issue or it being a new type of simulcast system.

 

[Warthog1]

0102 is Fraker Mtn in Edinburg (Lakeview has ot been built yet). Fraker is connected to Barkersvile (9191) via T-1 line.

 

[Thunderknight]

0102 is Fraker Mtn in Edinburg (Lakeview has ot been built yet). Fraker is connected to Barkersvile (9191) via T-1 line.

I noticed your location, so Fraker makes sense for you to hear. Is your decoding of Fraker good and clear? If so, and based on what you said about Lakeview not being built yet, you might be hearing a non-simulcast (yet) cell.

The T1 could be an extension of the microwave that goes to Barkersville (I assume you meant 0101) if there was no path to Edinburg. That doesn't mean they are in the same cell, as the microwave could easily carry multiple cells. And again, multiple physical sites can have the same tower ID in a simulcast configuration so T0101 could mean Barkersville + Corinth + Wilton + Saratoga Springs + etc, if they are one simulcast.

Depending on terrain, the simulcast issues can be present even near a site. It might be neccesary to get near a site and well shielded from ALL other sites in the cell.

 

[Warthog1]

yes, I certainly meant 0101 (sorry about that). I can hear Fraker quite well. The interesting thing about Fraker is that , unless there is a radio in reception range on a given channel....you do not even know it is there. If you start hearing the Sheriff's Dept (TG 1112), then you know that there is a sheriff's cruiser within range of that tower, Living up here in the Adirondacks, I'm new to monitoring trunked systems, so it's a learning experience. I do know that there more towers than one running, because you aren't going to operate on Barkersville from a hand held in Albany or Cobleskill. I have heard the techs do both. I have managed to come-up with quite a list of talk groups since the system was first live on Barkersville.

 

[Thunderknight]

yes, I certainly meant 0101 (sorry about that). I can hear Fraker quite well. The interesting thing about Fraker is that , unless there is a radio in reception range on a given channel....you do not even know it is there. If you start hearing the Sheriff's Dept (TG 1112), then you know that there is a sheriff's cruiser within range of that tower,

That is very typical of a multi-zone system. Traffic is only carried to the zone when a radio is registered there. I haven't studied all of the sites and channels licensed to each, but if they have fewer channels available in the Lake/Park area, then it would have to be split from the other part of the county because of the difference in available channels.

Based on what we've seen so far, I propose the following:

Two (at least) simulcast zones/cells.
Zone 1 is the eastern and southern "2/3" of the county, using Corinth, Wilton, Saratoga Springs, Ballston Spa, Stillwater, Halfmoon 1 and Halfmoon 2. This is T0101.
Zone 2 is the northwestern "1/3" of the county, using Edinburg (Fraker) and to be built Lakeview. (I think there was also a license for a site up in Lake Luzurne too - although I didn't look at the frequencies to see which cell it matches.) This is T0102.
Traffic is only carried on a cell if there is a registered radio there. For the T0101, this would probaly be most traffic present. Some talkgroups could be carried regardless (I think this is a system configuration parameter).

I have seen the Clifton Park site that Dave talked about a while ago, near the EMS building. However, I didn't see a license for it (so far). It's possible this is a receive only site, to improve portable radio coverage back in to the system.

The problem we are having in the eastern, southern and beyond (e.g. Albany) area may be due to the P25 simulcast. This still seems FAR more likely than the system is only running with 1-2 sites active.