Smartzone Trunking Strategies

[Thayne]

Does anybody have any ideas about the best way to set up for mobile use on big smartzone systems? I am less than thrilled with my success in following a big smartzone system that has a few wide area coverage sites, (Located on mountains), and of course many smaller sites located throughout the state with only about 5 freqs including the CC.

Of course for stationary monitoring its' easy to just pick the best sites for what you want.

I assume a 2096 when in CC mode just stays on the first CC that it comes across that is decoded, and won't look for any more until it loses the first one, correct? ;even if there is no activity on the site.

I have much better results by putting each site in 1 bank, (all freqs) but then you can use up banks in a hurry!
I am going to drive thru some rural areas where there is no way that the mountaintop sites will be picked up and see how that works.

Any facts or ideas would be appreciated 8)

 

[INDY72]

I would organize multiple banks in CC only mode, and set up each bank for a travel ZONE.....

Say- Bank 1: First four Cells/Sites youll be going near. Bank 2: The next few, and so on.

And with the V-Folder options on the 2096, you could even set up a complete setting for HOME, Travel-Local, Travel-Distant.....

Thus with just a few presses of keys, load up the V-Folder you want, and roll!

 

[loumaag]

I assume a 2096 when in CC mode just stays on the first CC that it comes across that is decoded, and won't look for any more until it loses the first one, correct? ;even if there is no activity on the site.

I have much better results by putting each site in 1 bank, (all freqs) but then you can use up banks in a hurry!

Your assumption is wrong. First a Pro-96/2096 when in Motorola Mode has no other kind of scanning other than CC mode (there is no other choice). It will scan all the CC's it finds in the bank. Now before all the flames start, let me say that some systems work better if you interleave conventional channels between the CC's on a bank. Placing additional trunking channels (the voice channels) really does no good in that it will generally ignore them; however, let me say that it appears it at least takes the time (a micosecond or so) to determine that it is a trunking channel and it has no CC activity on it. which plays like a super-fast conventional channel. In any case, the bottom line is that the Pro95/2096 does not "use" the voice channels you program in for a Motorola TRS.

If you notice, on your system, that it generally ignores one or more of the sites you can hear, or favors one over the other, than use the conventional interleave method mentioned above. I personally have not experienced this problem, but pleanty of others have. I have used my Pro-96 extensively on the SD State TRS, Louisiana State TRS, and Harris County (TX) STARNet systems all without interleaving conventional channels and without the problem of it favoring one site over another.

Hope this helps.

 

[Admin0140434]

if the system you monitor isnt digital... you could buy the bc246t and make multiple "systems" for each CC and set them all to the same QK. its a waste of space, but would help solve some of your problem.

 

[Jay911]

The way I've set up our 6-site smartzone system in my scanners is to have all six control channels set up in one bank, in CC only mode. When I'm in the city, where I am guaranteed to be able to 'see' at least two sites at a time, I set the attenuator on these channels to ON. That way I'm weakening the signals so the scanner will more readily give up one that might be strong for a second and then fade off as I go behind a building or something. In the rural area - especially my house, where I can get one site or maybe a second if I'm lucky, I leave attenuation OFF, and let the scanner lock onto the strongest (sometimes only) one it finds.

For your purposes, I don't know how I'd do it. I guess it depends if you feel that everywhere you plan to go, there is some guaranteed overlap (more than one site receivable). If that was the case, I might try attenuation ON.

What would be even better, of course, is an RSSI-capable trunktracker.

 

[Thayne]

Loumagg, thanks for the input. As you have probably guessed, It is the Colo DTRS I am talking about.

So you are saying that it WILL scan all the CC's in one bank and not get stuck on the first strong one? Where I am (about in the middle of Denver)it seems that it favors wide area sites such as squaw Mt. & Thorodin & Golden; however those sites are always busy and (some are saying even overloaded at times.)
I admire you having a VHF system in SD!

I think it will be a real ***** to make this system work well with the differences in terrain in Colo.

 

[Thayne]

Jay,

I can hear 4 CC's here with decoding in the high 90% range and 3 more with 85-95%. It looks like all of the CC's in the state would take more than 50 freqs--I thought there was a limit of 45 or something on smartzone systems. Some of the sites that are located far apart are using the exact same freqs, though. I need to spend time and find all the duplicates.

 

[WayneH]

I tend to keep the larger simulcast sites with a lot of traffic in their own bank, then put the fill-in sites all in one bank using the trunked-conventional-trunked trick. That way I'm guaranteed to not miss traffic.

-Wayne

 

[loumaag]

Loumagg, thanks for the input. As you have probably guessed, It is the Colo DTRS I am talking about.

Your welcome, and no I really didn't click to where you were. But, knowing that now, I can tell you when we were in NM and traveling to Colo occasionally and when we moved from NM to MT I just plugged in the CC's along the route in CO and had no trouble. We even spent the night in CO near Pubelo, and where I was we could "hear" 3 strong CC's and another one. At that time the ProCom96 software hadn't come out yet so I was unable to get data on the sites, but I was able to monitor them and it seemed to handle any site it could hear pretty well.