Help programming Waterbury

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WilliamRadio

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Hi guys, long time radioreference user. I have recently upgraded to the Uniden BCD996XT and have used freescan to program. I have everything nailed down (I live and work in Southbury) except Waterbury. Can anyone help me? I entered in the waterbury system as a P25 standard is this correct? I have tried Mot type 2/P25 and also Mot 800Mhz with no results. I have ID scan on, all the trunk frequencies are in place (all 6) and the APCO band plan is in 0 - 851.0625 with 6.250 spacing. I'm still not hearing anything and when I switch over to the waterbury Police ID it says "finding CTRL Chan", but I have both control channels entered.

Any ideas? I should be able to pick up their communication, I receive Danbury with no problem.
 

firerick100

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Hi William radio it looks like you have it correct. You choose p25 then standard trunk and obviously all freqs and the band plan is corrects.so with that being said. The bad news I don't think you will hear them from Southbury I don't know why but I go to Southbury a lot to visit my inlaws at heritage village and I have my 396xt and I never pick them up. But for the heck of it if you put in your car and scan the system if you head this way see when you start to pick them up,if I remember right I start to get them at the middlebury/ Southbury line on 84
 

WilliamRadio

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I did enter the custom band plan and checked twice to make sure it took it. I think firerick is correct, i'm probably just a little too far. I live right off exit 15, but im going to test it in the truck today to see a difference.
 

pro106import

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No problem hearing the system down here at the shore. I have attached my .996 file of the system that works fine on my 396XT, if that would help. I "zipped" it so it can be attached here.
I have it going into Quick Key 5. You can change it in freescan if you like.
Bob
 

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firerick100

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No problem hearing the system down here at the shore. I have attached my .996 file of the system that works fine on my 396XT, if that would help. I "zipped" it so it can be attached here.
I have it going into Quick Key 5. You can change it in freescan if you like.
Bob

Hi bob I have the 396xt to,I been to walnut beach 2 times and was not able to hear Waterbury from there at all,do you live on a high hill to catch the signal,or a antenna on your roof .thanks for any info you give
 

pro106import

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Hi bob I have the 396xt to,I been to walnut beach 2 times and was not able to hear Waterbury from there at all,do you live on a high hill to catch the signal,or a antenna on your roof .thanks for any info you give

Yes you got me Rick, lol.
I am 130 feet above sea level so I cheat a little. Antenna is a Diamond Discone just 20 feet off the ground.
Bob
 

firerick100

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That explains it then. Whew. I thought maybe I had a bad antenna,,if that's the case maybe William radio may get lucky enough if he's on a hill and had a good outdoor antenna on his roof

Thank you
 

WilliamRadio

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Hi guys. I still haven't heard anything even in the car.. I will take a look at the file from Bob and see what I can do. Thanks for the info! I will keep you posted on how it goes.
 

WilliamRadio

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So was just in Downtown Waterbury on business and it worked! Bob had the correct system picked, it looks like I had the wrong system all along. Thanks again.
 

firerick100

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So was just in Downtown Waterbury on business and it worked! Bob had the correct system picked, it looks like I had the wrong system all along. Thanks again.

So now the trick is to get to hear it from Southbury. Get a nice antenna and put on your roof
 

WilliamRadio

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So now the trick is to get to hear it from Southbury. Get a nice antenna and put on your roof


I wish, I currently rent a house in Southbury, so that's going to be a little tough. Unless there is something I could attach to the DirectTv dish pole outside, but then I'd have to run a cable. I was thinking of getting a glass mount, but that won't make it to Waterbury range.
 

Louie1961

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Is the Radio Shack Pro 106 able to scan this system? I tried programming it in yesterday using the info from radioreference and the W500 program. No go on Waterbury.
 

Louie1961

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Further to my post above, I have 9 channels programmed in:

851.337500
852.112500
853.650000
851.900000
852.900000
851.587500
851.187500
851.837500
852.175000

My trunking table is as follows:
lo chan hi chan offset base freq step
500 65535 500 851.006250 6.250

Trunking tables:custom
MultiSite mode: off
 

cg

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fairly certain that band plan is wrong although GRE scanner bandplans are not my forte. Try "LO" channel of "0", offset of "0" and the frequency is 851.0625 not 851.00625.

chris
 

cg

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When I figured out Waterbury's bandplan after the system went online, I used UniTrunker to monitor the control channel giving me all the channel numbers. It is then simple math to figure out a bandplan.

The band plan tells the scanner what frequencies match up with certain channel numbers.
Your "BASE" is equal to the "LO" channel number. The "HI" is not important with Waterbury. The "STEP" is what each channel increment is in KHz. The "OFFSET" is how you can insert additional channels between existing ones but is not utilized here (so you use 0)
So for the first frequency you listed, you can do the math to confirm a bandplan.
Frequency minus BASE divided by STEP equals channel number.
851.3375-851.0625=0.275 then divide by .00625 (6.25KHz) which equals 44. Since that is the channel number that Unitrunker shows, I knew the bandplan was correct. I had verified all the channels work with the one line bandplan so that is all you need (unlike CSP which uses a different, two line plan)

chris
 

Louie1961

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Wow, thanks. funny how 1 or 2 seemingly small changes make a huge difference. This is what I did to get it going:

lo chan--------------hi chan------------offset---------------------base freq----------------step
0...................65535.................0......................851.06250...............6.250

For some reason the Win500 software (or possibly the RR database??) wants to force the base freq to 851.00625, and you have to manually override it. Frequencies, multisite, and trunking tables remain as noted above

Thanks for the help
 
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