Pinellas County P25 Sites

[cabfeegig]

Can anyone help me understand the differences between the sites? Are they all simucast? I live in Clearwater - which site should I listen to?

thanks

[kayleesdad]

4 is sppd, TI, USF and Baypines 'A' and Tarpon if I recall, 5 is pcso main and sppd main. I don't really know what simulcast is, but reception is poor west of Roosevelt and Ulmerton, probably between towers. my best reception on site 5 is with a 450-470 yagi pointed away from the towers (99% decode), but I am in a good location and haven't traveled West of R/U with it. A 860 yagi does well on site 5 when pointed east, but I still haven't tried it west of R/U.

[cabfeegig]

I have been listening to 5 and just wanted to make sure that was the correct site. I have a scantenna in my attic and all is fine...

thanks

[Tryton]

I wish I had the magic on the Pinellas system. I have pure **** for decode. The new Uniden 1.07 firmware didn't help. I have tried the RS 800 mhz rubber duckie, The stock whip, and even a scantenna (which is laying on its side in the attic cause its 3 inches too big.) My best settings I can get on the hidden P25 is 7 / 145 . I live right off of Roosevelt and the bay side bridge ( corner of Bolesta and Whitney).

[kayleesdad]

Site 5 ain't so good in that area. Found some adjustments for the xt and rs800 that seemed to work a little better in the car in mid Pinellas but none were great. Havent taken the other scanners on the road or the antennas. Probably should, maybe this weekend. You can borrow the yagis if you want to see if anything works better, both on tripods.

[Tryton]

Hi Kayleesdad, Can you let me know if the Yagis work better pointed at the tower in your home.. If you are able to get a solid decode from site 5.

[kayleesdad]

twave 900 pointed at tower not so good as twave 900 pointed away from tower. gold anodized welded 450-470 laird better no matter where pointed. i have them on a switch so i can switch quickly and the laird is better audio and decode. your mileage may vary. using 396xt. site 5.

[Tryton]

Thanks for the info!

[kayleesdad]

Only thing working decent near the airport is the par800. Doubt an antenna is going to help. I'll try it with a yagi, but this area is not good for reception. So far xt with rs800 was bad, with laird a little better but not acceptable. Pro106 is in between, but not good enough. Location, location, location.

Edit-no luck with the twave 900 and the xt in any direction. Quite the deadzone for the xt out here at Datsko Park. Picked up Tampa east and West and Pasco, but Pinellas p25 eludes the xt here.

[Tryton]

I wonder if it's a TX power issue, Meaning that the tower(s) are not at full power since they are still on the analog sites.

[kayleesdad]

I can only guess that Datsko XT Deadzone is between two towers. Seems like plenty of signal, just tough to decode. The PSR800 did okay, but the way it eats batteries I never use it in the car. I wonder if the Uniden homepatrol does better. Maybe Uniden should buy GRE while they are struggling. Oh well.

[kayleesdad]

Okay, did a factory reset on the xt and checked a few things and realized the squelch was way too high. Lowering the squelch to zero helped the most, and raising the squelch made it much worse. So the dead zone ain't so bad, but I'm not getting a whole lot of magic from the antennas, maybe just fewer cracks in transmissions and a little better decode rate. Now the xt is close to psr800, but neither is perfect.

[pgnsucks]

I'm just starting again I plugged in the Clw system and down here in St Pete with just a rubber-duckie I get quite a bit of the edac traffic. I'm going to get an antenna just not sure what brand yet.