Life Star and Middletown PD Interference

[Chris0381]

Latel I've been getting a very scratchy non legible sound from the Lifestar Frequency 155.385 and was wondering if it was that the helicopter was just very far away. But last night I finally decided to use my other scanner to solely monitor the Middletown PD and noticed everytime the Middletown PD came on that the Lifestar frequency lit up and was scratchy and non legible. Looks like the 155.370 frequency of Middletown Police is comming thru on lifestar 155.385 and this maybe the sorce of the interference.

Any thoughts or is this normal for scanning.

[oilmillcharlie]

Originally Posted by Chris0381

Latel I've been getting a very scratchy non legible sound from the Lifestar Frequency 155.385 and was wondering if it was that the helicopter was just very far away. But last night I finally decided to use my other scanner to solely monitor the Middletown PD and noticed everytime the Middletown PD came on that the Lifestar frequency lit up and was scratchy and non legible. Looks like the 155.370 frequency of Middletown Police is comming thru on lifestar 155.385 and this maybe the sorce of the interference.

Any thoughts or is this normal for scanning.

If you have a PL enabled scanner, try plugging in the PLs. I will help.

B.K.

[Chris0381]

I have CT/DC and am using 123.0 for lifestar and 114.8 for MT PD. Not sure if this means PL as WIN-97 has no column for PL and I dont see PL under RX MODE options. Do I need to change the RX mode in the colum from FM to CT to solve these problems.

[DaveNF2G]

To answer your last question first, yes, you need to set the receive mode to CT so that the scanner will actually use the tones you enter.

Using tone squelch will only keep you from hearing bleedover - some of the voice from MPD might be audible on the LifeStar channel without it. It will not, however, eliminate all interference. You will still find some loss of audio quality and reception range when both channels are in use simultaneously.

[Chris0381]

Thanks, thats what I thought. It wasnt clear that I needed to force PL as my other scanner automatically compensates for PL.

[PJH]

Compensates for PL? Huh?

[Chris0381]

Yes HUH? I have the BC895XLT and I don't need to set CTCSS/PL mode on for it to use it were as in WIN-97 there is a special column to set the mode so if I automatically enter a tone its on (compensates) by default were as the WIN-97 software requires you go in and change FM to the type of tone. HUH?

[PJH]

I think you have some things confuzzed..with the terms you are using.

PL's are subaudible interference elimation tones...and are specific to the station you are listening to (if they are using one...most do). If the scanner is in a PL search mode, you will still hear every other station with other tones as the scanner stays in CSQ mode. With Uniden scanners, there are typically three modes of PL operation:
ON
OFF
PL Search

FM is a type of modulation and is not a PL tone or anything remotely close to PL tones (same with WFM, NFM etc)

[Chris0381]

Originally Posted by Chris0381

Yes I have the BC895XLT and I don't need to set CTCSS/PL mode on for it to use it were as in WIN-97 there is a special column to set the mode. So if I automatically enter a tone its on (compensates) by default on the 895 were as the WIN-97 software it requires you go in and change FM to the type of tone.

What I Am saying is its on by default if entered in the 895 but needs to be set to "on" DC or CT in the win97 RX MODE column eventhough a tone is entered?

[Chris0381]

Well I went in and enabled CT for all my tones (a lot of clicking) and now I realize what I should have done to begin with as I thought the tone would automatically be in effect by simply adding them in but I had to then enable them in the RXMODE column. An now the scanner is showing the CTCSS for each channel.

Thanks for the advice up there it helped a lot.