SBCO Going Phase II?

[AEFI]

I noticed the admins updated the system and it’s now listed as Phase II capable. Does anyone have more info on this? I’ve also been seeing a lot of departments switching to APX radios lately — even County Roads, which surprised me. Do we know when we might start seeing TDMA talkgroups come online?


Also, I was under the impression that Little Mountain was part of the East Valley Simulcast and not its own standalone site. Did that change?

San Bernardino County Trunking System, Various, Multi-State

San Bernardino County Trunking System Profile

www.radioreference.com

 

[f40ph]

No talk about Phase II or TDMA in SBCo. That would nullify the hundreds of XTS and XTL radios still in service. Zero messaging has been sent out by county radio to any departments about forcing "end-of-life" for existing XTS / XTL5000 radios. Yes, they've told everyone they can't repair them but nothing about an end date.
Most agencies are working under a 7-10 year life cycle for portable radios. When it's time to budget new ones, APX are all you can purchase.

My opinion ** SBCo has no capacity issues. They have plenty of frequencies keeping the system from "busy-outs". There's no hurry to push Phase II. One day there will only be APX in service and it'll be easy to throw the switch. It will happen by natural succession. I don't see it within the next 5 years unless the owners of the system start to push some messaging. * my opinion *

As for Little Mountain, I thought it was part of a 5-site simulcast system (aka East Central Valley) This site has gotten it wrong before because of errors in submissions. I just looked closer at the FCC license RR is showing for the "new" Little Mtn system. It's an old license from the analog type II system - all wrong for P25 phase I.

 

[AEFI]

No talk about Phase II or TDMA in SBCo. That would nullify the hundreds of XTS and XTL radios still in service. Zero messaging has been sent out by county radio to any departments about forcing "end-of-life" for existing XTS / XTL5000 radios. Yes, they've told everyone they can't repair them but nothing about an end date.
Most agencies are working under a 7-10 year life cycle for portable radios. When it's time to budget new ones, APX are all you can purchase.

My opinion ** SBCo has no capacity issues. They have plenty of frequencies keeping the system from "busy-outs". There's no hurry to push Phase II. One day there will only be APX in service and it'll be easy to throw the switch. It will happen by natural succession. I don't see it within the next 5 years unless the owners of the system start to push some messaging. * my opinion *

Half the county is still on XTS/XTLs I doubt phase II is going to be on the system 7-10 years from now. It would cost too much to supply everyone with a APX and every vehicle a APX not to mention any sites that will need upgrading.

I agree with you its just something us scanner heads are going to be having to look out for.

I have noticed all FF’s (non support and ambos) have been upgraded to APX8000HXE

Rialto and Redlands fire on APX NEXT XE’s

Government services and law enforcement is still a mix of the old and new

 

[f40ph]

Ambos are not APX.

 

[MEDIC135]

Ambos are not APX.

In fact, some ambos are APX. MA10, MA10A and MA14 Medic spots have the APX8000XEs due to the possibility of them running mutual aid with LAC.

 

[f40ph]

Yes those units have both types if I recall. To be technical about it, most chiefs have 1 or 2 XTS5000 in addition to the APX.
There's exceptions to the blanket statements everywhere.

 

[efeno]

I noticed the admins updated the system and it’s now listed as Phase II capable. Does anyone have more info on this? I’ve also been seeing a lot of departments switching to APX radios lately — even County Roads, which surprised me. Do we know when we might start seeing TDMA talkgroups come online?


Also, I was under the impression that Little Mountain was part of the East Valley Simulcast and not its own standalone site. Did that change?

San Bernardino County Trunking System, Various, Multi-State

San Bernardino County Trunking System Profile

www.radioreference.com

I have absolutely no idea why it was updated. Everyone I’ve talked to said no and there are no plan to. So many Phase I only radios, and the county probably can’t afford to do a FULL switch of all the trunked sites and XTS/XTL radios still in service. Whole county portables are APX series, most of the mobiles are still XTLs. Probably someone being funny

 

[f40ph]

I have absolutely no idea why it was updated.

Someone submitted it. That's why.

 

[Spitfire8520]

It was likely changed due to someone seeing TDMA in the system band plans. From my understanding, every Motorola radio system upgrading to the next generation of site equipment will need to add TDMA to the system band plan as a requirement, even if the equipment is not licensed for TDMA. I know of a system that recently put invalid information their band plan (851.00625 MHz with 12.5 kHz spacing) to meet the requirement, but it would never work for TDMA as it is currently configured.

If that is all that RR needs to mark a system as Phase II, then pretty much every single Motorola system that is keeping up with upgrades will be "upgraded" to Phase II regardless of if TDMA is actually used. Maybe it will be useful in the future to identify systems that are not being upgraded unless RR decides to establish new policy for this.

 

[f40ph]

Need to stop reporting based on FCC licenses and other tech specs. I thought RR posted based on actual listener reports (what you actually hear). Not this vague speculation.

 

[officer_415]

The database listing was indeed changed to Phase 2 because of a submission indicating the 700/800/900 FDMA/TDMA band plan announced over the air by the system. I reviewed similar systems in CA, and it seems to be common practice to list them as Phase 1 if there is no TDMA usage on the system, even if the band plan is broadcasting otherwise. Therefore, I will be changing the listing back to Phase 1.

 

[chrismol1]

It's how the talkgroup is programmed by the system tech in the trunking system itself is where the selection of FDMA/TDMA occurs, not the band plan alone. The 700/800/900 band plan that's commonly seen is default programming unless modified. That is why you'll see 900 in systems that don't have 900 freqs, sometimes they will untick the boxes that removes the 900 part from being broadcast in the band plan.

 

[AM909]

It's how the talkgroup is programmed by the system tech in the trunking system itself is where the selection of FDMA/TDMA occurs, not the band plan alone. The 700/800/900 band plan that's commonly seen is default programming unless modified. That is why you'll see 900 in systems that don't have 900 freqs, sometimes they will untick the boxes that removes the 900 part from being broadcast in the band plan.

Yeah – there is clearly no 900 on this system, now or likely ever, unless there's some sort of pretty unlikely secret scheme in the works for them to acquire a very small number of 900 channels that they don't need, from just a few commercial licensees (that are not Anterix/PDV or SCE), by exception to a freeze, for use by radios that they don't have, etc.. Funny thing is that, if someone heard that bandplan OTA, it has changed in the 4-5 years since I last looked at several of the sites in the southwest part of the county with DSD+. Maybe they replaced some site controllers and that was the default bandplan table.

For example, in March 2021, site 13 (Mountain Sim) and site 21 (West Valley Sim) said:
IDEN_UP ID=0 Base=851.006250 Offset=-45 Spacing=6.25 BW=12.5
IDEN_UP ID=1 Base=762.006250 Offset=+30 Spacing=6.25 BW=12.5
(not IDEN_UP_TDMA)

 

[tsalmrsystemtech]

With VHF repeaters and the county still using XTS and XTL Phase I FDMA will stay in place for a long time. If the backend goes compeltey Phase II TDMA then all radios will have to be APX portables and mobiles. Tons of money and everything is okay now and budgets and money is most likeyly an issue. There is no absolute reason to move to TDMA unless the county grows so much that they will need TDMA for now.

What is the rush since the system is working fairly nice right now. Unless they do not have enough pairs of frequencies then going to TDMA is a big upgrade and cash. If they are still using a ton of XTS and XTL and running okay then there is no reason. SBDCO has done a great job with VHF patched repeaters and its all good

 

[f40ph]

Unless they do not have enough pairs of frequencies then going to TDMA is a big upgrade and cash.

Exactly correct. They are not having issues with "busy-out" errors because they planned ahead and have plenty of frequency capacity.

 

[tsalmrsystemtech]

Plus, they have those VHF repeaters which is so awesome for mutal and automatic aid from Clark County and Mohave County. Patching in VHF analog repeaters into the Trunked system was the best thing for now. Solid. Not perfect but getting better as time goes.

 

[Eng74]

The VHF gets used a lot, especially in Trona since their entire call group of 4 persons quit. China Lake Federal Fire is responding even more there now. Also Kern will patch in for calls on 395 between RedMountain and Kramer Junction.