I am monitoring the North Tower Site 2-001 which is using 859.4375 as a control channel. The site is active with STL FD and EMS. The FD does a daily roll call at 9:00 a.m. I am using a 996p2, 396xt, and a G5 with no choppy traffic or other problems. Sorry I can't help with the Whistler.
St Louis City Fire and EMS
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As others said, it's business as usual for STL City fire/ems.
Trunking system is online using Phase I with the same power levels as always.
I monitored them for quite a while overnight and all was normal.
I am finally am monitoring St Louis City EMS but no fire. Is the G5 the Unification pager? Is that a self programming receiver?
Fire is still active like normal. Must be a problem with your programming. I have no clue when it comes to Whistler models and manual programming though so I can't help with that, sorry.
The G5 is from Unication and is officially considered a pager. It is designed for professional use so programming them can be very tricky or intimidating. Much more than programming a typical scanner by hand.
It's not programmed like any scanner at all. And no, no "self programming" on the Unication models. That's a feature of the hobbyist scanners for the most part. They do work fantastic for simulcast sites though once setup for the system you wish to monitor.
They also need a Windows computer for their programming software as they cannot be programmed by hand at all.
Maybe you should look into one of the Windows emulators or other ways to run Windows on a Mac. I don't know much about that but I've seen several threads here in various forums where people are able to use the common Windows programming software running on their Mac's,
That's just a suggestion but maybe worth checking into. It seems not much is written for Mac's unfortunately.
Unication has noticed the demand by the scanner hobbyist group for a better receiver that handles simulcast sites. As a result, they are working on firmware that can make their G series pagers work more like a scanner but I have no idea how user friendly it will be for the scanner user to program if the firmware works out and becomes an official option. Right now the firmware is in the beta stage so it could be quite a while before it's ever released.
I am now picking up St Louis Fire and EMS great and have not touched the radios so there had to be a glitch with their system. Possibly atmospheric. Thanks for info on the G5. Sounds like a neat little unit.
Hi, I do not understand trunking yet. Is St. Louis encrypted and or digital? Can I use a non digital triple trunking scanner to listen? Thanks
Yes, both the county and city trunked systems are pretty much encrypted for all law enforcement traffic. The exception is the site in St Charles county. Most of that one is in the clear.
Fire and EMS is mostly in the clear on both systems.
Here's the page for Moswin, the system used in the city: Missouri Statewide Wireless Interoperable Network (MOSWIN) Trunking System, Statewide, Multi-State - Scanner Frequencies
And Slater, the system used in St Louis, Jefferson and St Charles counties: St. Louis Area Trunked Emergency Radio (SLATER) Trunking System, St Louis Metro Area, Multi-State - Scanner Frequencies
The state highway patrol as well as several other users are on the Moswin system. Most of the traffic outside of St Louis City is in the clear.
Also they are both digital systems.
You will need a digital scanner to monitor either system. They are also simulcast systems which means most scanners will have problems decoding the digital data. Only the Uniden SDS100 and SDS200 will receive the systems properly.
Nothing you can do about encryption. Besides being a federal offense to decode it, no scanner type radio is capable of decoding encrypted signals even if you did know the system keys.
I ordered a G4 thinking I only need 700/800 for St Louis City Fire and EMS dispatch on MOSWIN and a few municipalities on SLATER. Should I have gotten the G5 with VHF?
Also could someone share their profile so I can see how to program?
Thanks
Also could someone share their profile so I can see how to program?
Thanks
You really only need VHF if you intend on monitoring the Moswin VHF sites around the state.
If you are in or near StL City, the G4 should be fine for Moswin from the STL City North Site and then Fire/EMS from the Slater sites.
Most LAW traffic from the city of St Louis is also Encrypted but like Slater, Fire and EMS is in the clear. In the city, every blue moon, an in the clear law type traffic can be heard but that an exception and not a given!
ALL Law traffic for all municipalities on Slater are Encrypted so you can already rule them out. Fire and EMS is mostly in the clear on Slater.
Thanks for the response. Yes I plan on just monitoring STLFD Fire and EMS, Clayton FD and University City FD
Another question, in reviewing the G4 PPS software, I couldn't find where to enter the Talkgroup ID's. I saw where to load control channels, can you direct me to where in the software to load?
That question about programming is one I'm not good at answering! I can do it in my head but trying to explain it in words never works out very well for me of for those trying to follow my instructions.
Try searching for G5 or G4 or Unication here in the Missouri forum and also maybe search through the posts in the Unication forum.
I know I've seen you question asked and answered before so something will probably help you.
Also, recently, someone posted a G5 profile here for the St Louis area. It should import into a G4 profile I think. That may be a good place to start for a hands on profile.
I don't recall if you need to strip out any VHF stuff or if the profile import does that for you but I think you will get a warning if you try and write a profile that contains invalid frequency data to your G4.
Good Luck and have fun! These G series pagers do work really good once you get the hang of them!
edit: Talkgroup info looks like it is entered in Tab D5 "Group ID Setting" under 'Group & Group Call ID Setting' sub tab. That's with the latest PPS using a G5 profile but I think they are all the same.
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St. Louis Area Trunked Emergency Radio (SLATER) Trunking System, St Louis Metro Area, Multi-State
St. Louis Area Trunked Emergency Radio (SLATER) Trunking System Profile
www.radioreference.com
54755
54756
philipparks68
Member
I just programmed the north towers for stl city.
I really wish on these systems the towers weren't given names sometimes, makes people think into it more than they need to. It's not anyone's fault. When you look at the database and see more than 1 tower you assume you need to program all of them or you'll miss transmissions or something, when in reality most of these sites aren't really used, at least not regularly for most traffic. I haven't decoded CC data from any of the city sites in years but I'd be curious to see what TGs these towers carry.
Perhaps a brief explanation of how these systems are typically designed to work. If a city fire truck lets say truck 1 is on dispatch and is affiliating to "North" then you'll hear it on north, if say truck 2 affiliates to another tower lets say "south" and that dispatch talk group is permitted to be broadcasted over that tower (they don't always allow every TG to affiliate/broadcast to every tower) then you'll hear it on that one as well.
If you can decode the control channel data for various towers you can see this. You will see registration requests being approved or rejected. I think in the past they could do it by talk group but they may even be able to do it by Radio ID# but don't quote me on that.
Why would they do this? Typically what you don't want is every radio affiliating to every tower in the system. Why? When a TG is being broadcasted over more than one tower it ties up voice channels on 2 or more towers and the chances of other users getting "bonked" and not getting a voice channel increases. I can't take my radio across the state and talk on certain TGs. Why? again it will basically cause that TG to not only broadcast here in STL but also wherever I'm located and affiliating to tying up both sites voice channels simultaneously.
If I were to guess as to the function of the City "south", Lambert, and america center sites, they are there to serve specific talk groups like Lambert Airport TGs on the Lambert site or perhaps to act as backups or something I don't know but for the general scanner head it doesn't really matter.
You have to determine what you're trying to listen to. If it's city fire and EMS then just program in north and you'll never miss anything, as long as your equipment is decoding the signal well. If you're wanting to determine if you're missing anything else on those other sites, well then do the work and monitor those sites and see what you find out and report it to database or the wiki.
You can decode control channel data with a cheap SDR dongle and free software and not tie up a scanner.
One more thing about these other city sites. Before city services went to MOSWIN I believe these sites were already online but not part of MOSWIN yet. The America's center site was to handle METRO traffic (I believe) and Lambert was for the airport. If you look under MOSWIN and click the links for these sites they have a very limited range. When MOSWIN came online I think they just took them over as sites of MOSWIN.
Perhaps a brief explanation of how these systems are typically designed to work. If a city fire truck lets say truck 1 is on dispatch and is affiliating to "North" then you'll hear it on north, if say truck 2 affiliates to another tower lets say "south" and that dispatch talk group is permitted to be broadcasted over that tower (they don't always allow every TG to affiliate/broadcast to every tower) then you'll hear it on that one as well.
If you can decode the control channel data for various towers you can see this. You will see registration requests being approved or rejected. I think in the past they could do it by talk group but they may even be able to do it by Radio ID# but don't quote me on that.
Why would they do this? Typically what you don't want is every radio affiliating to every tower in the system. Why? When a TG is being broadcasted over more than one tower it ties up voice channels on 2 or more towers and the chances of other users getting "bonked" and not getting a voice channel increases. I can't take my radio across the state and talk on certain TGs. Why? again it will basically cause that TG to not only broadcast here in STL but also wherever I'm located and affiliating to tying up both sites voice channels simultaneously.
If I were to guess as to the function of the City "south", Lambert, and america center sites, they are there to serve specific talk groups like Lambert Airport TGs on the Lambert site or perhaps to act as backups or something I don't know but for the general scanner head it doesn't really matter.
You have to determine what you're trying to listen to. If it's city fire and EMS then just program in north and you'll never miss anything, as long as your equipment is decoding the signal well. If you're wanting to determine if you're missing anything else on those other sites, well then do the work and monitor those sites and see what you find out and report it to database or the wiki.
You can decode control channel data with a cheap SDR dongle and free software and not tie up a scanner.
One more thing about these other city sites. Before city services went to MOSWIN I believe these sites were already online but not part of MOSWIN yet. The America's center site was to handle METRO traffic (I believe) and Lambert was for the airport. If you look under MOSWIN and click the links for these sites they have a very limited range. When MOSWIN came online I think they just took them over as sites of MOSWIN.
What a great explanation. I was under the impression that all TGID's would broadcast on all towers. That I could be in the middle of Missouri and listen to St Louis City. Well after having issues I just programmed the St Louis North tower control channels and alternates and my G4 hasn't rebooted all day. I also have full signal strength wheryby before it would latch on to the south tower and fluctuate from no bars to full bars. Problem solved with the help of a great forum.
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