How Rebanding will affect the scanner
listener.
First why and the plan
The FCC has mandated Rebanding to try and finally alleviate the interference
being caused to 800MHz trunking systems from Nextel. This solution was reached
after much battling and negotiation between all the affected parties with an
agreement to have Nextel foot most of the bill in return for new spectrum that
puts it on a more equal footing with Cellular and PCS companies it's competing
with. To do this some band changes will be taking place that will have a major
impact on the ways both two-way radios and scanners monitor these frequencies.
Rebanding in the US will start in waves. Here in New England we are part of
the first wave of Rebanding actually starting next month on June
27,2005. However there are many steps to this process so the entire change will
take quite some time. Within 18 months of June 27th Nextel will have to complete
the retuning of the I-TAC or NPSPAC channels to 851.0125-853.9875. At 36 months
Nextel must complete all required relocations of 800MHz Incumbents.
The FCC is designating fourteen MHz in the upper portion of the 800Mhz band
for ESMR (Nextel) while designating eighteen megahertz in the lower portion of
the 800Mhz band to for use by Public Safety and other non cellular systems.
Between the upper and lower systems will be an Expansion band and a Guard band
to separate ESMR systems from two-way radio systems and eliminate interference.
Starting on June 27/05 Channels 1-120 or (806-809mobile/851-854MHzbase)
can be voluntarily started of all non public safety users and the NPSPAC
channels can be moved.
So the first affect we should see is the move of the I-TAC Channels which if
they move down the exact 15MHz would be relocated in the new channels 1-120
starting at channel 1 851.0125.
866.0125R I-Call would move to 851.0125R
866.5125R I-TAC1 would move to 851.5125R
867.0125R I-TAC2 would move to 852.0125R
867.5125R I-TAC3 would move to 852.5125R
868.0125R I-TAC4 would move to 853.0125R
More local Systems Affected:
Sudbury PD has rebanded to
852.9125R D023 (*info
courtesy of Doug Meyer and myself
7/14/08)
West Springfield PD has rebanded to 852.7875 167.9 (*info
courtesy of ScanMass.net 6/28/08
details)
West Springfield FD has rebanded to 851.475 D205 (*info
courtesy of ScanMass.net 6/28/08
details)
Sandwich PD
has moved from
851.3875 to
855.1125
for rebanding (*info
courtesy of Scott H
on ScanMass.net 9/21/06
details)
Bourne PD
is moving today from
851.1625 to
857.4125
for rebanding (*info
courtesy of Scott H
on ScanMass.net 9/21/06
details)
Mashpee PD moving
tuesday and wednesday from
851.3125 to
854.9375
(*info
courtesy of Scott H
on ScanMass.net 9/21/06
details)
Easton PD moving from 852.2875 to 855.7625 (Reportedly
has moved as of May1st making them the first rebanded department in the State)
Worcester's Trunk has been rebanded with
a new frequency plan (*info
courtesy of Scott H
on ScanMass.net 9/5/06
details)
Cambridge PD moving from 852.2625 to 855.5625 (part of their trunk)
Cambridge PD moving from 853.2625 to 856.3625 (part of their trunk)
Comm. of Mass moving from 851.6375 to 859.4125 (MDT channel)
Bristol County moving from 853.7625 to 856.3875 (part of their trunk)
Comm. of Mass moving from 851.6375 to 859.4125
Comm. of Mass moving from 852.2375 to 855.1875
Salisbury PD moving from 852.5875 to 854.2125 (MDT channel) (FCC
site showing this channel has moved too. perhaps they where first??)
You can look
all these up as they happen here
Now how will this impact me as a Scanner user
in this area??
Unfortunately this will have a devastating affect on you and all of us.
Perhaps you have noticed like I that The Mass State Police trunked system will
be affected very little as most of the frequencies it uses in most zones are in
the area that don't have to be moved. This would seem like all the good news you
need at first glance but you would be wrong. The problem is that the channel
numbers for all the frequencies in the 800MHz band will change after rebanding (
821-824 to 806-809 Frequency Conversion Reference
). These number designations are how Motorola trunking systems pass the
information in the Control channel data to the radios on where to go to follow
conversations. After Rebanding this data will reflect the new channel
designations and your scanner will not be able to follow along with out changes
made to the tables contained in its memory. The problem is that except for
the latest models of scanners or two-way radios this information is not field
programmable. This means that almost all scanners and two-way radios will
not be able to decode Motorola Trunking systems after rebanding and will need to
be replaced. Nextel is paying billions to replace the licensed two-way radios
but unfortunately will not be required to pay for your many scanners.
Uniden has announced that the only units it will design new firmware for in a RadioReference.net post (
http://www.radioreference.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=22155
)
and now posted on
their website. The BCD396D, BC246T, BC296D, BC796D, BC898T, and BCT8. All older models will
need replacement. GRE has made no announcement but the consensus on message
boards indicates that only the Pro96 and 2096 will be able to be reflashed. The
Pro96 can also work without reflashing by manually re-setting up its tables. The
newer Pro97 contary to what Radio Shack is stating cannot work this way since
the tables do not appear to function during 800Mhz trunking
as discovered by Don
Starr (http://www.starrsoft.com). So
all other scanners not listed here will no longer be able to monitor Motorola
trunking systems after rebanding. EDACS systems should work after user
reprograming because they do not use the FCC channel numbers in the way they
follow trunking but the LCN order instead.
A very good post by
C
Gordon on ScanMass.net explains the situation in easy to understand example:
Rebanding will affect scanner
monitoring of 800 Motorola systems only. Think of the Motorola channel numbering
issue like this. There is a road that has houses numbered 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, etc.
They build new houses between every one. The houses are renumbered so that it
still goes 1, 3, 5 etc but each new house has to be included. Now, if you told
someone two year ago that you lived in #7, they will now be going to the wrong
house. If you use your older scanner the data channel will tell the radio to go
to the wrong house.
EDACS and LTR use LCN so the Uniden scanner working is dependent on you entering
the correct freq in the correct channel and is not dependant on FCC channel
numbers.
The window starts on June 27, 2005. First the 851-854 users get moved up to
854-860. They have 12 months for that. Then the 866-869 users get moved to
851-854. This all has until June 27, 2008 to be done. So, some channels will
change much sooner than others. It is anticipated that the larger, more complex
systems such as MSP & CSP will take longer to changeover.
My guess is that MSP is likely to be prolonged because they have older radios
that will have to be replaced. CSP will take extra time because while the radios
will only need to be flashed, the majority of the system will be relocated to
851-854. This adds lots of retuning and remote site work.
chris
Original thread on Rebanding on ScanMass.net
New Fourm
on Rebanding changes on ScanMass.net
A great new Wiki
page on RadioRefrence.net
New!
This all too complicated for me...!
How does this rebanding affect me listening to the
Mass State Police?
Some important sites to look at for more information on Rebanding:
The FCC's 800MHz Reconfiguration Page http://wireless.fcc.gov/publicsafety/800MHz/bandreconfiguration/about.html
The 800MHz Transition Administrator
http://www.800ta.org/index.htm
800MHz Rebanding Resource:
http://www.800mhzrebanding.com/
Motorola's Rebanding
Page
More interesting Motrola pages:
800MHz
Band Map - before and after
821-824 to 806-809 Frequency Conversion Reference
How to search the FCC database for License lookups
Rebanding impact on Motorola models:
All Categories
of System Types
