Stars question with a 197

[Nitsud]

hello all..

the wonderful manager at our local radioshack in Charlottesville, has given me a pro 197 for the week to play around with and to program for the store demo. Anyways, I downloaded the ARC500 program, and programed in Albemarle/Cvile systems into it, as well as STARS, and it picks up wonderful here in Greene county.

Anyways, my question is how can i program the actual site frequencies into this scanner so that it will show me what tower im picking it up off of? I am assuming that I am hearing all my traffic off of the Fork Mt. tower, which is a little more than 15 miles away from my house. I am consistantly hearing all DIV. 1 traffic as well as the DGIF law channels of 4 and 5. I am still learning about stars, and am looking for some help maybe someone can chime in and if your willing to talk to me on the phone maybe we can exchange numbers and learn together that way..thanks in advance!

 

[Stick0413]

hello all..

the wonderful manager at our local radioshack in Charlottesville, has given me a pro 197 for the week to play around with and to program for the store demo. Anyways, I downloaded the ARC500 program, and programed in Albemarle/Cvile systems into it, as well as STARS, and it picks up wonderful here in Greene county.

Anyways, my question is how can i program the actual site frequencies into this scanner so that it will show me what tower im picking it up off of? I am assuming that I am hearing all my traffic off of the Fork Mt. tower, which is a little more than 15 miles away from my house. I am consistantly hearing all DIV. 1 traffic as well as the DGIF law channels of 4 and 5. I am still learning about stars, and am looking for some help maybe someone can chime in and if your willing to talk to me on the phone maybe we can exchange numbers and learn together that way..thanks in advance!

Can't be done that I know of.

 

[tuttleje]

Set your GLOB menu item "ShowCCInfo" to Yes.

Make sure you have a list of which Control Channels in your radio go with which STARS sites. For example, my CC10 (152.0675 MHz) is Williamsburg.

When a STARS transmission is received, it will show the CC number and frequency.

Check your list....and you will know which site is transmitting. There is no way to "Tag" the site name.

At least if you are in a Roam mode you will know which site is transmitting the data.

However, each site can affiliate with numerous other sites. So you are never sure which site originated the actual transmission.

As an example, attached is a "site information" screenshot from Pro96com that shows other site connections with the Williamsburg tower.

If a trooper on the Eastern Shore was transmitting into the Eastville tower, I should be able to hear it through the Williamsburg tower, since it is "connected".

That also explains why I may not be able to hear units that might connect to the Emporia tower.....Emporia is not "connected" to the Williamsburg. However, Franklin is connected....so I might hear them if they hit Franklin. It gets very confusing.

Further, if a VSP trooper is moving between tower location, he might drop out of affiliation with the Williamsburg tower.

STARS works well for transmissions in you immediate area, but when you try to follow some conversations at a distance location, it appears to drop out...sometimes....all because of tower affiliations.

 

[Nitsud]

thanks for the screenshot!

its really amazing how much better this 197 is picking up the stars system compared to the 2096. I can't even break the squelch with the 2096, yet the pro 197 is consistantly picking up the richmond channels even in charlottesville!

 

[N4FTN]

One of the things to understand about STARS is that you will hear on a single site ALL of the radio traffic for a talkgroup that has at least one (1) unit affiliated with that site. For example, you will always hear RICH_1 and RICH_2 traffic from the VSP HQ site because there will always be at least one VSP unit on each talkgroup associated with the HQ site. However, on the Chesapeake Division #5 site, we only occasionally hear any Richmond traffic. When we do, it is because a VSP unit affiliated with the Div #5 site has tuned to either RICH_1 or RICH_2.

Hearing particular talkgroups is NOT associated with network affiliation of sites; rather it is determined by talkgroups tuned by individual units affiliated with a specific site.

Make sense???

 

[Nitsud]

ok thanks..that makes sense..sorta ha ha.

I understand what you are saying about how you only hear some DIV 1 traffic only when a DIV 5 unit is tuned to the DIV 1 channels..that makes sense. But my other question would be, why am I hearing DIV 1 traffic here in Greene COunty (north of charlottesville) is it off of the Fork MT site?

ALso, what does this mean when DIV 2 (culp) comes online in a month or two? will I still hear richmond traffic as well as culpeper? sorry for all the quesitons, but this system is really neat in my opinion and I am simply wanting to understand it more fully! thanks again to all who have responded

 

[tuttleje]

Hearing particular talkgroups is NOT associated with network affiliation of sites; rather it is determined by talkgroups tuned by individual units affiliated with a specific site.

If a specific unit on a talkgroup affiliates with a specific site that is connect to other sites, then you will hear it through the other "connected" sites.

Granted that if there is just one unit associated with a specific talkgroup affiliated with a site, you should be able to hear them. However, if that site is not connected to the site you are monitoring, you are not going to hear them. A good example is DOC units, FMON in Suffolk receives them much more often than I do in Williamsburg. He can receive the Chesapeake tower (which connects to more Central Virginia towers than Williamsburg.) However, when they are in the Petersburg area and affiliate with the Petersburg tower (connected to Williamsburg), then I can hear them.

We should generate an affiliation tree with Pro96com to see which towers are connected to each other, and then do a link diagram.

We are probably talking about the same thing, just looking at it from a different perspectives.

 

[n4jri]

N4FTN is right

We are probably talking about the same thing, just looking at it from a different perspectives.

I don't think that's the case. I think you're going to find that the networking of a tower to adjacent sites is purely an issue of roaming mobile units, and how they're handed off from tower to tower.

Motorhead is probably going to be the most authoritative source on this, but I don't believe that a site would fail to pass on any traffic from a TG where it has units affiliated--even if the source is distant. And I also doubt that many (if any) TG's are being broadcast on sites where no units are affiliated.

In the case of your DOC example, I'm not sure how many correctional units would be in Williamsburg's primary coverage area. It may be that you're mostly getting traffic from units on the highway and this could leave you with periods when Williamsburg doesn't have a DOC unit affiliated on STARS.

Again, we'll have to wait for enlightenment from Motorhead, but I think that N4FTN is right on the money here.

73/Allen (N4JRI)

 

[MOTORHEAD3902]

I don't believe that a site would fail to pass on any traffic from a TG where it has units affiliated--even if the source is distant. And I also doubt that many (if any) TG's are being broadcast on sites where no units are affiliated...

73/Allen (N4JRI)

That is correct, Allen. It's not so much a function or effect of this or that tower being "connected" to an adjacent one, rather the tower "decides" to pass a particular TG's tfc only if there is someone affiliated with that tower to hear it--i.e. is tuned to that particular tg. Also, the system will always pass all tfc for a particular tg if there is a unit affiliated with that tower that is tuned to that tg. As an example, the way the system works now, if I drove my work car to, say-Eastville, and remained tuned to TG-1 (in spite of policy) while I sat there, the Eastville tower site would pass all channel 1's traffic to my radio (as well as to anyone else tuned to tg 1) in addition to passing the normal tfc for channel 9, gif and mrc units. I hope my example made sense.

 

[tuttleje]

Not normally being one to say that I am wrong....but I stand corrected.

Thanks for the input/comments...they were accomplished in a polite way.

By the way, it seems (side by side and with a multicoupler), the Pro-106 does a better job with STARS than my 396T or 996T,

The only disadvantage is that it does not mute encryption on the JC/YC/Wmbg system.

 

[n4jri]

That is correct, Allen. It's not so much a function or effect of this or that tower being "connected" to an adjacent one, rather the tower "decides" to pass a particular TG's tfc only if there is someone affiliated with that tower to hear it--i.e. is tuned to that particular tg. Also, the system will always pass all tfc for a particular tg if there is a unit affiliated with that tower that is tuned to that tg. As an example, the way the system works now, if I drove my work car to, say-Eastville, and remained tuned to TG-1 (in spite of policy) while I sat there, the Eastville tower site would pass all channel 1's traffic to my radio (as well as to anyone else tuned to tg 1) in addition to passing the normal tfc for channel 9, gif and mrc units. I hope my example made sense.

It also explains why even small agencies have these big regional channel plans. Have they given you an idea of when the system might become less permissive?

73/Allen (N4JRI)

 

[MOTORHEAD3902]

Once the final phase of implementation is accomplished, the engineering types advise that there will be a "buttoning-up" process that establishes hard and fast geographic rules to be followed by the system controllers. Then comes more restrictions.

 

[immelmen]

Once the final phase of implementation is accomplished, the engineering types advise that there will be a "buttoning-up" process that establishes hard and fast geographic rules to be followed by the system controllers. Then comes more restrictions.

I would be interested to hear what some of the restrictions/polices are for users selecting TG's vs. their location...both the current ones vs. what is expected in the future.

 

[tuttleje]

Anyways, my question is how can i program the actual site frequencies into this scanner so that it will show me what tower im picking it up off of?

After I got everyone off the initial topic with my assumptions on STARS structure, I was wondering if "Nitsud" solved his problem about the identification of the tower?

 

[Nitsud]

thanks for all those that replied.

I just got home from work, so I'll be tinkering with it tonight. Ill use the GLOB button like you mentioned, and see if I can track which tower is which. But It makes ALOT more sense now after all these posts.

So more or less, if a division 1 unit is on tkgrp 001 and is say in zions x roads, then ALL the div 1 trafic that is going on would be put through on say the Fork MT site or possibly the louisa tower? Im assuming that this idea is correct, but If its not im sorry for the confusion...


this forum is great, and we have a great group of knowledgable people on here to make it even better! thanks again to all who have shared some input

 

[fmon]

Nitsud was using Pro-197. The answer would be setting CC info on TGRP display

 

[Nitsud]

ok..thanks fmon..


ALso..sorry to keep asking questions but I think I'm starting to understand. BUT...I just heard RIC 1 off of the Fork mountain site, as well as the Louisa site.( figured this out by using the freq that was displayed on my 197 then looking it up) ..Does that sound correct?

 

[fmon]

ok..thanks fmon..


ALso..sorry to keep asking questions but I think I'm starting to understand. BUT...I just heard RIC 1 off of the Fork mountain site, as well as the Louisa site.( figured this out by using the freq that was displayed on my 197 then looking it up) ..Does that sound correct?

What caused you to determine which site was broadcasting Ric 1?

 

[MOTORHEAD3902]

Nitsud,
Yes, in reference to your Zion's question.
And,
Yes, it is possible that you were hearing channel 1 tfc on Fork Mtn, and Louisa at the same time. From some areas on my "beat" at work, my radio affiliates with Fork Mtn, Petersburg, SPHQ, Emporia, Franklin, South Hill, and occasionally Cumberland and Leigh Mtn....all these sites then carry ch 1 traffic as well as the other tower sites...

I love making the radio seek out different towers when I am not doing anything productive...which seems more and more as i get older, hehe

 

[Nitsud]

What caused you to determine which site was broadcasting Ric 1?

by looking at the CC id thing like you suggested, as well as sitting on the database paga and cross referencing the frequencies that displayed off the scanner. thanks for your tip it was right on the money fmon.

Question for motorhead: Is it safe to assume that even after DIV 2 comes online as well as division 3 sometime later, that I'll be able to still moniter DIV 1 traffic?

Again guys, I know that some of my questions my have been previously answered, but I'm trying to learn as much as I can about this system because I think that this system has the potential to be really great, and I just want to be able to fuly understand it, which in-turn enables me to program and monitor it better.

thanks again nitsud (dustin)