Strange MARCS TalkGroup Behavior

[Swipesy]

In the past two days I have received 109 hits on a new Talkgroup (480) that has come up on my PSR 500 in Geauga and Portage County. This TalkGroup behaves very strangely though. The signal and communication is very strong, sometimes sounding like EMS and other times like some kind of maintenace talk. What is strange though is that I get no VC, CC or any other information on the screen and once it breaks the squelch and the talking stops, the scanner hangs on the TalkGroup and only moves on if I push Scan. The RR Database says 480 is EMA South Central Liason. I have never had a TalkGroup act like this one where you get no information and it hangs. Could this be somekind of weather phenomen and is the result of skip, or some other type of action? Anyone seen this before or have thoughts on what is going on?

John

 

[davef1982]

John,

The same exact thing is happening to me. I have been confused by it and was going to post something about it myself. I live near Akron (Summit County) and have been hearing much of the same talk. I also seem to be getting some law enforcement chatter as well. Some of the streets mentioned are definitely in the Akron area. Hopefully someone can figure out what is going on.

Dave

 

[davef1982]

Forgot to mention that I am using a Pro-106

 

[LPROB00]

are you hearing the voice traffic in digital or analog? I have had that happen to my PSR-500 when up in the dayton area. I think that the cc freq for one of the MARCS sites in the Cincinnati area is also in the Montgomery County 800mhz system. I will get all kinds of weird tg's but the voice is in analog. I've also seen it stop on a Post tg but is in analog and isn't someone on the MARCS system. Let me know what else you find out.. -rob

 

[W8RMH]

This sounds like an "Affiliation" issue.
See http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Trunking_Basics

This could be as simple as a radio sitting, turned on, in a charger somewhere in your area that happens to be on TG 480.

EVERY frequency on the Montgomery Co. system is used by MARCS in other areas of the state.

Remember MARCS is an analog system that uses digital voice.

 

[Swipesy]

I don't think this is an Affiliation issue. I have seen many affiliations and the PSR 500 reports on the display all the information. In this particular case it reports nothing except the TalkGroup ID, No Control Channel, No Voice Channel, No Radio ID and it hangs the scanner. Also as Dave reports the type of talk on this ID is varied in nature. Something else is going on here. Digital/Analog has nothing to do with this either. I have monitored MARCS since its inception and have never seen anything like this.

 

[davef1982]

I agree with you John that its not anything to do with affiliation. I too have listened to MARCS since it became active. I wonder if it has something to do with the way OSP is combining dispatch centers. I heard some traffic yesterday in which a Summit county trooper asked the dispatcher to transfer him to the Medina CAD. I will put this talkgroup in my XTS5000 Saturday morning and see what happens. For some reason, I am getting a message from RR saying my posts have to be checked before they will go up. This hasn't happened since my account was new. So, there may be a delay in my posts actually showing up on the board.

Dave

 

[Swipesy]

Dave, I locked onto that TalkGroup for an hour on Friday. I only heard two voice transmissions that dealt with some fire unit being back in station and on scene. I did not hear any dispatch. The rest of the time the scanner would break squelch and sit on the TalkGroup for 10 seconds or so before moving on. Now what is strange is I was able to catch the activity coming off the Richfield Tower. What is strange about that is that I live a good 30 miles from that tower and only on rare occassions can I hear that tower. I am beginning to think someone has a miss programmed radio.

John

 

[radioscan]

are you hearing the voice traffic in digital or analog? I have had that happen to my PSR-500 when up in the dayton area. I think that the cc freq for one of the MARCS sites in the Cincinnati area is also in the Montgomery County 800mhz system. I will get all kinds of weird tg's but the voice is in analog. I've also seen it stop on a Post tg but is in analog and isn't someone on the MARCS system. Let me know what else you find out.. -rob

It is a strange 'mixing' issue. The main Montgomery County TRS transmit site is on the DAYCO building at I-75 and SR725. The MARCS Dayton site is a few miles northwest of there. Thus while in the Miamisburg area and in the vicinity of Dayton Mall there is strange mixing that occurs where Montgomery County TGIDs come across on MARCS corresponding TGIDs with clear analog voice traffic. This occurs on both my PSR-500 and PSR-800. It especially affects the wildcard I have set up for MARCS. It is a particular problem with the MCTRS voice channel 868.8500 MHz.

I have also seen this when within range of the Indiana SAFE-T system.
I pick up SAFE-T TGIDs mixing with MARCS TGIDs from the SAFE-T Peppertown site in parts of Butler County.

 

[davef1982]

Dave, I locked onto that TalkGroup for an hour on Friday. I only heard two voice transmissions that dealt with some fire unit being back in station and on scene. I did not hear any dispatch. The rest of the time the scanner would break squelch and sit on the TalkGroup for 10 seconds or so before moving on. Now what is strange is I was able to catch the activity coming off the Richfield Tower. What is strange about that is that I live a good 30 miles from that tower and only on rare occassions can I hear that tower. I am beginning to think someone has a miss programmed radio.

John

John,

I put that talkgroup into my XTS5000, and then I turned on the scan feature. It went right to talkgroup 480 and didn't budge. My Pro-106 is doing the same thing. It used to only hang for about 10 seconds. I just went ahead and locked out that talkgroup in the scanner. A miss programmed radio does seem like a good possibility.

Dave

 

[fpo701]

Sorry to come late to the conversation. I've noticed this odd traffic on TG480 as well. I'm using an HP-1. It was either Sunday night or last night, I heard a lot of Metro LifeFlight traffic on it. I also have heard the OSP (or PD?) traffic on it.

I was initially thinking it was a decode problem. The Richfield tower can be a bit of a stretch for me at times. But, Dave's a lot closer to the tower than me and seeing this as well.

 

[Swipesy]

Frank,

Because of the limited responses to this thread I have to believe that what is going on with TG480 is centered on the Geauga, Portage, Summit County area. As I said previously, I am hearing it here in Geauga County off of the Richfield tower which is strange in itself from where I am located. As Dave has done I have locked the TG out since it is annoying how it hangs up my PSR 500. I still think someone has a mis-programmed radio somewhere.

John

 

[SCPD]

I put my MARCS scanner in ID search the other day and experienced the same thing you said in post 1.

I'm in northern summit co.

 

[wv_mountaineer]

480

I caught this same type of phenomenon happening off the Boston Site. I was mobile on the Turnpike going West. I am using a GPS with my 396XT and picked it up 20 miles before the tower and 20 miles after the tower. I never really caught any real transmissions as it was broken. However it would cut right into the OSP District 10 transmissions and walk all over them. This was on Monday the 12th around 17:30 to about 18:30.

 

[dizwiz]

just want to report, ive been experiencing these issues w/ TG 480 on MARCS for the past 6 weeks or so.

Im typically in the akron area.

Could TG 480 be some kind of separate talkgroup for radio extenders (walkie-talkies? ).

Last night I heard an ohio patrol TG labeled as'OSP Turnpike West' investigating an accident. A female officer could be heard talking to dispatch.
Next response, talkgroup 480 lit up with a response from the same female voice who was talking on the OSP Turnpike West talkgroup.

A couple nights ago, I heard a bunch of chatter about 'visitation hours' so Im assuming that was from a prison of some sort.

Different control channels too.

So... Is it possible this could be some kind of talkgroup from any MARCS user using a radio extender? (walkie-talkie)?