Can anyone provide input on using a G5 to monitor a wide area P25 statewide trunking system? I would like to program all of the sites from our statewide trunking system into a G5 if I end up buying one and use it to monitor our Highway Patrol talkgroups as I travel thru the state. Does the G5 just lock onto the strongest control channel and stay with it as I move thru the area until I move out of range? And then find the next control channel? Also would it monitor two different systems simultaneously? Also I might travel into the neighboring state and want to monitor the statewide P25 VHF trunking system in the same way. Does the radio have a decent VHF receive on it? Thanks for any input!
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G5 capabilities questions
- Thread starter khphighwayman
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troymail
Silent Key
Yes - more or less... Unless you program individual sites as separate systems and then you can control which site the radio monitors.
No.
700/800 uses an external antenna that can be changed out for different antennas. The VHF or UHF antenna is internal and your results will vary depending upon many factors.
Project25_MASTR
Millennial Graying OBT Guy
Unfortunately, I can't recommend the G5 for large systems. Receivers are way to hot and the lack of any kind of programmable roaming parameters it really isn't great for trunk tracking a multi-site system as it often holds onto sites for too long and doesn't necessarily have any logic to how it selects it's next site other than it's an active control channel.
As troymail suggested, best way to program them is typically have it setup as a site per "channel" on the knob (which may not be feasible when there are more than 8 sites of interest).
As troymail suggested, best way to program them is typically have it setup as a site per "channel" on the knob (which may not be feasible when there are more than 8 sites of interest).
The G4/G5 uses a combination of RSSI and BER measurements to determine when to switch sites.
mdsxfire
EDBM
I have read here when people are traveling through a large statewide system if they start nearing the edge of a towers coverage or just want to see if they can switch that they just turn the pager off, wait a few seconds then turn it back on. The pager should connect to the nearest tower with a power cycle.
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If you exceed 8, you can use multiple zones. Then it probably makes sense to group them by geography or area, to reduce the number of zone changes as you travel (e.g. only when passing out of the group of 8, you would change zone into the next area of 8).
troymail
Silent Key
I set things up in two main ways....
Near home, I have a profile that has a zone which allows the radio to decide which site of a multi-site system should be used (my county has 4 sites on the state system). Then, across the zone, I have a knobs with selected talkgroups. For example:
I might add a full wildcard knob position -- all system parms wild with spectrum scan - just in case something programmed isn't right for what ever reason. Then the radio can find something and tell me what it found.
Then, I replicate that zone X times where X is the number of specific single sites I want to control (4). The knob position contents are exactly the same in zones 1-5 except for the site(s).
When I travel, I typically program 1-2 knobs for each county I'm going to pass through starting at Zone 1/Knob 1... when I get to Z1-8, the next just goes into Z2-1 and so on. Each zone/knob usually has the site or sites and talkgroups for that county. If the county has it's own system, it gets it's own z/k...
Of course, this is what I do... You have complete control over how you program things on your radio....within the limits of the radio itself of course.
Near home, I have a profile that has a zone which allows the radio to decide which site of a multi-site system should be used (my county has 4 sites on the state system). Then, across the zone, I have a knobs with selected talkgroups. For example:
- everything (limited to 64 talkgroups of course)
- fire/ems
- fire tac only
- ems only
- law
- wildcard
I might add a full wildcard knob position -- all system parms wild with spectrum scan - just in case something programmed isn't right for what ever reason. Then the radio can find something and tell me what it found.
Then, I replicate that zone X times where X is the number of specific single sites I want to control (4). The knob position contents are exactly the same in zones 1-5 except for the site(s).
When I travel, I typically program 1-2 knobs for each county I'm going to pass through starting at Zone 1/Knob 1... when I get to Z1-8, the next just goes into Z2-1 and so on. Each zone/knob usually has the site or sites and talkgroups for that county. If the county has it's own system, it gets it's own z/k...
Of course, this is what I do... You have complete control over how you program things on your radio....within the limits of the radio itself of course.
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- Jan 8, 2018
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I've had the G5 for little over 3 weeks now and so far monitoring the Statewide VHF P25 Virginia STARS system it does very well. In my case I monitor Virginia State Police and their channels are broadcasted over several sites so I hear them usually on most sites that the G5 receives. If I want to monitor a specific division that I'm near or in, it also does well. I think it boils down to how the system functions. If specific talk groups are heard on specific sites only then probably the best way to program would be as Troy recommended. I will also point out that the G5 seems to receive best on VHF when the radio is sitting upright. I guess that's the way the internal antenna is designed.
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