STARCOM21 - E.St Louis Tower - off air? (T323)

[TGP]

Noticed that my primary tower site I was using
E St Louis
3 023 17
CC 852.3625
Seems to be off air.
Anybody know what might be going on?
My ISP reception is lost.
Thanks TGP

 

[nick1427d]

Many of the D11 TGs are linked to St. Clair County simulcast. Program it and the D11 talkgroups.

And yes I think it's off air cause I'm less than 10 miles from it and i get nothing.

 

[TGP]

Thanks for the reply/confirmation of the tower.

Hope this is temporary.

I have St. Clair Co. tower T 359 CC 851.2250 in some scanners for CenCom.
Also found that Madison Co. T 301 CC 851.8750 is providing D 11 for me now.
But both are simulcast towers and provide marginal reception here.

I may add D 11 TGs to one of the scanners on 851.2250 in a dedicated system and see if it's better.

Thanks
Tom

 

[nick1427d]

I don't see the Estl Tower coming online again until more madison county agencies merge over. I'm assuming it'll probably go online to connect with MOSWIN...when it goes online.

FYI many madison county TGs are linked to St. Clair County as well. I don't know what you monitor as far as D11 goes but I get all the dispatch and ops channels through St. Clair County simulcast.

It is frustrating it seems from about Route 15 south all the way to Waterloo you get no Starcom tower whatsoever (at least I don't) so I'm assuming they are using the Dupo tower - that is the St. Clair tower.

 

[KZ9G]

Any idea where the Madison county tower is at? I want to point a 800mhz beam at it for simulcast but the location in the database puts it where there is no tower in Edwardsville.

 

[nick1427d]

Supposedly the towers are located:

Godrey
Edwardsville
Alton
Granite City
Maryville

I don't monitor any of those towers so maybe someone else can chime in and verify which towers are online or offline.

I had heard that Alton and Granite city were not online at one time recent but have no idea.

http://www.carmachicago.com/profiles/StarCom21.pdf

Scroll down until you see the Madison Co simulcast sites. Has their location. It list ISP headquarters as Edwardsville, which it isn't, it's obviously Collinsville right off I-55 near I-255.

Either East St. Louis or Granite almost has to be online (coverage wise) that's a large gap if you look at their locations.

 

[KZ9G]

Supposedly the towers are located:

Godrey
Edwardsville
Alton
Granite City
Maryville

I don't monitor any of those towers so maybe someone else can chime in and verify which towers are online or offline.

I had heard that Alton and Granite city were not online at one time recent but have no idea.

http://www.carmachicago.com/profiles/StarCom21.pdf

Scroll down until you see the Madison Co simulcast sites. Has their location. It list ISP headquarters as Edwardsville, which it isn't, it's obviously Collinsville right off I-55 near I-255.

Either East St. Louis or Granite almost has to be online (coverage wise) that's a large gap if you look at their locations.

That makes sense. The old blue building (national steel building) has had a ton of antennas added over the last year or so and two parabolics pointed at what looks like the direction for the edwardsville tower. And the edwardsville tower has a parabolic pointed toward grantie.

 

[Starcom21]

With the Madison County Simulcast site, you probably don't know what "tower" you are actually getting a signal from, could be any or more than one of them.

The "ISP" at Edwardsville, is the "legal FCC" ISP tower that is located on the property of SIUE Edwardsville, owned by the State of IL/ISP.

By the way, the ESTL site, 323, is no longer showing up as a neighbor on T301 (Simulcast) .... before was showing "Failed, Current"

Supposedly the towers are located:

Godrey
Edwardsville
Alton
Granite City
Maryville

I don't monitor any of those towers so maybe someone else can chime in and verify which towers are online or offline.

I had heard that Alton and Granite city were not online at one time recent but have no idea.

http://www.carmachicago.com/profiles/StarCom21.pdf

Scroll down until you see the Madison Co simulcast sites. Has their location. It list ISP headquarters as Edwardsville, which it isn't, it's obviously Collinsville right off I-55 near I-255.

Either East St. Louis or Granite almost has to be online (coverage wise) that's a large gap if you look at their locations.

 

[nick1427d]

I think there is and has always been some confusion regarding the ESTL tower. I have found through searching of FCC licenses and towers that:

St. Clair County Simulcast site 359J (ESTL) is located at 18th and Broadway. This tower is also used for fire and ESDA paging.

The Starcom tower that is offline is located at 7th and Exchange at the IDOT yard.

So the question now is where's the next tower north that is online? (Starcom not madison simulcast)

 

[nick1427d]

The "ISP" at Edwardsville, is the "legal FCC" ISP tower that is located on the property of SIUE Edwardsville, owned by the State of IL/ISP.

Did a search around SIUE and found this:

http://www.antennasearch.com/sitest...e_system_identifier=1302724&location_number=1

I don't see any frequencies listed in that area that match up with the database on here regarding the Edwardsville tower. Possibly a wrong CC?

 

[TGP]

With the Madison County Simulcast site, you probably don't know what "tower" you are actually getting a signal from, could be any or more than one of them.

The "ISP" at Edwardsville, is the "legal FCC" ISP tower that is located on the property of SIUE Edwardsville, owned by the State of IL/ISP.

By the way, the ESTL site, 323, is no longer showing up as a neighbor on T301 (Simulcast) .... before was showing "Failed, Current"

Thanks Terry!

Sure miss that tower.

The site 3-059 just don't work well for me with ISP
Site 3-001 does better when I can get a signal.
They must be using those off line towers for something as there still lit up and showing on line on county supplied radios?
Tom

 

[Toad_77]

I think there is and has always been some confusion regarding the ESTL tower. I have found through searching of FCC licenses and towers that:

St. Clair County Simulcast site 359J (ESTL) is located at 18th and Broadway. This tower is also used for fire and ESDA paging.

The Starcom tower that is offline is located at 7th and Exchange at the IDOT yard.

So the question now is where's the next tower north that is online? (Starcom not madison simulcast)

For what it's worth the Mad Co system is STARCOM, as in owned by ISP and maintained by their techs.

 

[nick1427d]

For what it's worth the Mad Co system is STARCOM, as in owned by ISP and maintained by their techs.

St. Clair County's is PART of Starcom but is essentially it's own system. St. Clair County TRS is not owned by ISP, it's owned/licensed and operated by the ETSB/St. Clair County Radio system. It's linked to Starcom and is part of it's infrastructure but ISP has nothing to do with the radios. As a user of the system we never had ISP do anything with our radios. The techs were actually from a private that was contracted with St. Clair County.

What I was trying to clarify is everyone keeps referring to the ESTL tower being "down" but there is still a tower in ESTL that is in operation and that is St. Clair County's at 18th and Broadway. Which if it's truly linked to STARCOM then you should hear ISP traffic. I never have had any problems with monitoring ISP through St. Clair County TRS.

Like Starcom mentioned it's hard to tell which tower you are hitting on a simulcast system. I know that they use the tower at 18th and broadway for vhf paging so it's being used for something for sure.

My post regarding a possible control channel change came from me searching all night looking for any antennas that were licensed for the frequencies listed on this database. Meaning that if this database and everyone in the Edwardsville area says it's offline, and is in fact located near SIUE, it's also possible that they changed the frequencies.

 

[TGP]

Nick

Thanks for your help and thoughts on this tower issue.


Being relative new to this type of system and self taught on programing my radios to continue listing to ISP and my local first responders since they switched to digital from analog, has been daunting to say the least.
I somewhat understand about the counties towers and there neighbors.
What I am referring to I think are ISP owned towers ie 7th & Exchange(Bowman),Edwardsville SIU(which is on the bluff) etc.

I finally got CenCom where I can listen to it for the most part using Tower 359 CC 851.2250
My ISP reception was choppy at best until I used the tower at 7th and Exchange{323} Which is owned by ISP
With a CC of 852.3625 but would not hear cencom even with there TG added.
So I set up separate systems and the radios switched back and forth on the CC.
Worked well. Also set up some radios totally dedicated to each Control Frq and worked better.
So I'm Thinking as with the Bowman tower ISP has dedicated towers which cuts down on the simulcast issue.
I do know for a fact that the Bowman tower is Still operating and on line but what line?
My ISP is working ok from the MadCo tower 301 CC 851.8750 as well as Other TG Glen Carbon,Troy etc.once I get close to Caseyville and beyond.
But I can't hear Cencom TG's off of it as well as MadCo groups off of St Clair's tower.
So I'm thinking that would be normal?

Hope this makes some sense and I will continue to read and take advice and help from others and to hopefully give back to others when I can.

Tom

 

[nick1427d]

Thinking as with the Bowman tower ISP has dedicated towers which cuts down on the simulcast issue.
I do know for a fact that the Bowman tower is Still operating and on line but what line?

From my findings as well as many others on here I don't think it's online at all.

My ISP is working ok from the MadCo tower 301 CC 851.8750 as well as Other TG Glen Carbon,Troy etc.once I get close to Caseyville and beyond.
But I can't hear Cencom TG's off of it as well as MadCo groups off of St Clair's tower.
So I'm thinking that would be normal?

I don't monitor many Madison County TGs but I can listen to D11 and Collinsville fire all day long through St. Clair County's TRS

Glad we can help. It does get confusing. I'm fairly new to using scanners for these systems but have been a user of the system since it was implemented.