Sherman ISD Transportation

[BradRickey]

I currently work for Sherman ISD Transportation in Texas and am not hitting the repeater for the buses. I have the PL Tone as 162.2 and the offset as +.6000. Are these settings wrong? Our Motorola radios were preprogrammed when they bought them. Any ideas? I do have permission.

 

[nd5y]

Whoever gave you permission to use your own radio should be able to give you the complete programming info or even program it for you.

+0.6 MHz offset is for ham radio repeaters in the two meter band. I doubt that your bus radios are the same.

Non-amateur radios don't use an offset. You program the transmit and receive frequencies separately for each channel. If your bus radio has +/- offset capability then it probably isn't legal to use on Part 90 frequencies.

 

[mass-man]

Are you starting with the proper frequency? As nd5y said, a standard +6 offset is not used in the commercial radio world.. Whoever manages the radio system is your best bet for the correct information and approvals. While you radio may operate on the proper frequencies, it may not be FCC approved to do so.

 

[hiegtx]

I currently work for Sherman ISD Transportation in Texas and am not hitting the repeater for the buses. I have the PL Tone as 162.2 and the offset as +.6000. Are these settings wrong? Our Motorola radios were preprogrammed when they bought them. Any ideas? I do have permission.

The licenses for the two Vhf-high channels shown in the database page for Sherman are both expired.

Sherman ISD is licensed for a number of Uhf frequencies on several licenses:

FCC Callsign WRJK524 (SHERMAN INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT)

FCC Callsign WRJK524 (SHERMAN INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT)

www.radioreference.com

FCC Callsign WRJK330 (SHERMAN INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT)

FCC Callsign WRJK330 (SHERMAN INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT)

www.radioreference.com

and

FCC Callsign WRJK346 (SHERMAN INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT)

FCC Callsign WRJK346 (SHERMAN INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT)

www.radioreference.com

The only emission codes listed for the various frequencies & sites are 7K60FXD and 7K60FXE.which indicates that DMR is being used. Whatever scanner, or radio (such as one from Motorola) that you are trying to use will have to be DMR capable in order to monitor the system.

If you can solve the puzzle, as to what use each frequency covers, be sure & submit updates to the database. You may find that one is used for bus operations, another for maintenance, and a third for police and campus security. Or, they may be using specific talkgroups for the functions, instead of dedicating a specific frequency for use only on one function.

If you can confirm that the old Vhf-high frequencies are no longer used, note that in a database submission as well.

 

[mwjones]

I'm going to agree with @hiegtx here, I had another person DM me a year ago about Sherman ISD being DMR on UHF, but I never had time to fully scope it out.

Here's what they reported - consider this unverified:

Sherman ISD

Sherman ISD Police (DMR)
451.10000 LCN 01
451.57500 LCN 02

Sherman ISD 1 Percy (DMR)
463.32500

Sherman ISD 2 Dillingham (DMR)
463.27500

Sherman ISD 3 Sherman Middle School (DMR)
464.72500

Sherman ISD 4 Crutchfield (DMR)
463.65000

Sherman ISD 5 Jefferson (DMR)
452.10000

Sherman ISD 6 Administration (DMR)
451.47500

As I said, I never did any research on it, but there was some mention of it being a Capacity Plus Multi-Site, but the few times I've been up there with the mobile rig, I never got a Capacity Plus "rest" channel beacon on any of those frequencies, so I'm thinking they are more simply single channel trunked (where each time slot is a specific usage, and there's no controller at play) - which is pretty typical at many school districts.

 

[hiegtx]

As I said, I never did any research on it, but there was some mention of it being a Capacity Plus Multi-Site, but the few times I've been up there with the mobile rig, I never got a Capacity Plus "rest" channel beacon on any of those frequencies, so I'm thinking they are more simply single channel trunked (where each time slot is a specific usage, and there's no controller at play) - which is pretty typical at many school districts.

That's the pattern I've seen on a couple of DISD schools in range of my house. Using them as single channel 'trunked systems' so that talkgroups can be used to separate out de[departments (like 'maintenance' , 'security',, 'bus operations' and a few others.