Has anyone noticed the RF performance degraded on this system.
I have been experiencing very poor performance only on this system for sometime now since Aug 2013 to present.
My location is right about in the middle of county coverage (Clayton area) closest tower 4 miles, most distant tower 10 miles. I have been told by some folks that worked on this system that they did some system antenna changes a while back (swaps to Bogner antennas) so not sure if the coverage contours changed due to that. The sites seem to be low for 800 coverage, and I have never been a fan of Bogner antennas. They are expensive, over rated and at least in my professional career have never seen good performance using them. Today the most users of these are commercial FM and TV transmitters where they can be designed to match stations FCC coverage contours.
Measuring RF levels in the -100 dbm to noise floor levels
Test Antenna system - 60ft Tower, 1/2 hard line Omni, LP, 800 Yagi,
Measurements made using test gear HP Spec Analyzer / and several calibrated ICOM test receivers
that I also use daily for my "real job"
Uniden Trunked radios all showing poor RF performance on this system (396T, 996T, Home Patrol V2) The Smithfield site is best at 0 - 2 Bars. I get control channel sync on all 4 towers, but 0 signal level bars on other sites using the Uniden trunktrackers. Test receivers and HP Spec verifies this is not RF interference issues just poor RF levels.
This JC system never performed great at this location, but seems, has degraded recently to the point where it is pretty noisy and annoying to monitor.
Other systems in the area perform great VIPER (multi sites received 5 uniden sig bars) Harnett (mid signal range), Wayne (new VHF Trunked mid sig levels) I can even monitor the RDU Trunked Site (using tower / Yagi system) all perform great.
Also notice that 396T, 996T seem to hang on open data channel often for no reason when dispatch convestation ends, control channel data stream keep receiver open. Home Patrol receiver have not had this happen however. Could be a potential compatability issue with Uniden and EDACS. Appears that this system is using Analog, not seen any ProVoice activity from my experience.
Be interested to hear from others experience with this system. I found in another thread that this network is to be upgraded in the next couple yrs to Mtoto P25.
John
I have been experiencing very poor performance only on this system for sometime now since Aug 2013 to present.
My location is right about in the middle of county coverage (Clayton area) closest tower 4 miles, most distant tower 10 miles. I have been told by some folks that worked on this system that they did some system antenna changes a while back (swaps to Bogner antennas) so not sure if the coverage contours changed due to that. The sites seem to be low for 800 coverage, and I have never been a fan of Bogner antennas. They are expensive, over rated and at least in my professional career have never seen good performance using them. Today the most users of these are commercial FM and TV transmitters where they can be designed to match stations FCC coverage contours.
Measuring RF levels in the -100 dbm to noise floor levels
Test Antenna system - 60ft Tower, 1/2 hard line Omni, LP, 800 Yagi,
Measurements made using test gear HP Spec Analyzer / and several calibrated ICOM test receivers
that I also use daily for my "real job"
Uniden Trunked radios all showing poor RF performance on this system (396T, 996T, Home Patrol V2) The Smithfield site is best at 0 - 2 Bars. I get control channel sync on all 4 towers, but 0 signal level bars on other sites using the Uniden trunktrackers. Test receivers and HP Spec verifies this is not RF interference issues just poor RF levels.
This JC system never performed great at this location, but seems, has degraded recently to the point where it is pretty noisy and annoying to monitor.
Other systems in the area perform great VIPER (multi sites received 5 uniden sig bars) Harnett (mid signal range), Wayne (new VHF Trunked mid sig levels) I can even monitor the RDU Trunked Site (using tower / Yagi system) all perform great.
Also notice that 396T, 996T seem to hang on open data channel often for no reason when dispatch convestation ends, control channel data stream keep receiver open. Home Patrol receiver have not had this happen however. Could be a potential compatability issue with Uniden and EDACS. Appears that this system is using Analog, not seen any ProVoice activity from my experience.
Be interested to hear from others experience with this system. I found in another thread that this network is to be upgraded in the next couple yrs to Mtoto P25.
John