Emergency scanners to go quiet in 2014
- Thread starter awpitt
- Start date
G1G4
Find em Hot, Leave em Wet
I'm kinda confused. P25 is a mutual aide radio system setup, it's not supposed to be our standard system. We (fire/ems) were told that it would be a Motorola Type II Smartnet system, the same kind that Charles County is operating. The article, though, says we're going to be using the P25 system as our main system. So, is the article wrong, or was the information that we got first hand from our "experts" wrong?
G1G4
Find em Hot, Leave em Wet
Our radio system is ancient. And I mean that in the nicest way possible, but it really is. We use technology that was old ten years ago, so that shows you what we're working with. I'm not quite sure the upgrade was for more coverage, but it was more for an updated system that would correct issues that we have.
TPD
the poor dad
Ok - got it!
frequentflier
happy to be living
We have the Calvert scanner running in our home 24/7. It would sound so empty w/o the chatter.
wagondriver1
New Member
G1G4-
Hope this helps out. Project 25 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Right now not all of Charles County is P25. All Portables are but the Mobiles are not. If you ever hear Charles Units going to PG they usually have to use their Portables because they are the only thing that will work with PG's system. Now Charles Communications can patch our Mobiles to PG's System, but it is only good for 1 Channel. But the goal is for the entire Region to be all on P25 so we can easily communicate to each other without all this patching going on. Because you and I know it does not work real well all the time.
Hope this helps out. Project 25 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Right now not all of Charles County is P25. All Portables are but the Mobiles are not. If you ever hear Charles Units going to PG they usually have to use their Portables because they are the only thing that will work with PG's system. Now Charles Communications can patch our Mobiles to PG's System, but it is only good for 1 Channel. But the goal is for the entire Region to be all on P25 so we can easily communicate to each other without all this patching going on. Because you and I know it does not work real well all the time.
G1G4
Find em Hot, Leave em Wet
Got it, thanks brother!
Motorola doesn't sell those any more, I believe. What St. Mary's signed up for is a P25 Phase II system. The Phase II means it'll use TDMA on slots that are 6.25Khz wide (if I've got my tech right). This is the same system that PG and Loudon county both operate now and which cannot be fully decoded on ANY modern scanner EXCEPT the GRE PSR-800 with a recently-released beta firmware. All current Uniden models lack the hardware needed to decode the TDMA voice slots. You'll be able to decode the control channel, though, which is always FDMA. I think it's possible to use a scanner w/ a discriminator tap to feed the audio from the TDMA channels into a software-defined radio program on a computer and let it decode the voice (letting the scanner handle the trunking). Not real sure on that, though.
That said, the system has a fallback mode that makes it FDMA (Phase I) when a non-TDMA-capable radio joins the system (like a Charles unit joining up for mutual aid). And certain talkgroups can be made FDMA-only, which is what PG does for some of their fire/ems channels.
I find the dual-definition of "P25" to be confusing, too. I know it refers to both a system type (Phase I/FDMA, Phase II/TDMA), and the digital mode used for some voice talkgroups (like Charles does for police/fire).
Read more over at the Radio Reference forums:
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I believe Charles just recently set up a system patch to PG -- Tac 7, similar to their Tac 6 patch to SMFD.
SM_Vol._FF
New Member
Radios
Saint Marys digresses as everyone else progresses.
Crappy radios, poor service, a terrible system for talking to other counties, half the time our dispatchers have to telly Charles dispatchers to get a message across.
Its worse when they come here.
Saint Marys wouldn't even fix a tower to get the pager signal out. That affects public safety.
Im, sorry but Robert (Bob Kelly) is really messing public safety up for Saint Marys. His background in IT doesn't really play well for being the public safety director.
This new system is going to leave Saint Marys in the dark as we will continue to have the most antiquated system in Maryland.
As technology continues to advance quickly Im not sure if a 15 year contract is the smartest thing. Just ties us in.
Hopefully it will include the upgrade to Phase 2 of P25....
Just curious why first responders are being left in the dark about the specifics of this new system.
Saint Marys digresses as everyone else progresses.
Crappy radios, poor service, a terrible system for talking to other counties, half the time our dispatchers have to telly Charles dispatchers to get a message across.
Its worse when they come here.
Saint Marys wouldn't even fix a tower to get the pager signal out. That affects public safety.
Im, sorry but Robert (Bob Kelly) is really messing public safety up for Saint Marys. His background in IT doesn't really play well for being the public safety director.
This new system is going to leave Saint Marys in the dark as we will continue to have the most antiquated system in Maryland.
As technology continues to advance quickly Im not sure if a 15 year contract is the smartest thing. Just ties us in.
Hopefully it will include the upgrade to Phase 2 of P25....
Just curious why first responders are being left in the dark about the specifics of this new system.