APD Scanner: Advice?

rick_day · #1 (**permalink**) 02-17-2010, 10:57 AM

I'm the co-chair of the safety committee for an Atlanta neighborhood group. We feel it is important for citizens of Atlanta to be able to monitor what is going on in their city.

I noticed the link to APD had been dropped when System 25 was implemented, on the old scanfulton site, and now that I have done some research, find myself here.

Questions: Does anyone know of the person who was hosting the APD links before, known as jswhit? If not, our group is willing to put up the funds for a scanner, or the bandwidth, or whatever we require.

Ideally, we would want a banner ad for the sponsorship, and the ability to launch the feed without leaving our web page. If we had to redirect here, I assume that would be the best serving for the area.

With the right tutorials I can find my way through the research, but if others have blazed this trail, why dig though the weeds?

Many thanks!

Rick

lsh1885 · #2 (**permalink**) 02-17-2010, 5:38 PM

I believe he is streaming APD/AFD on this site now just click on LIve Audio on the main page and you should find it. Just about all of Metro Atlanta has a scanner steaming here now. I was listening to Dekalb earlier today.

rmiller818 · #3 (**permalink**) 02-17-2010, 5:52 PM

His scanner is scanning APD Zone 2, 5 and Fire.

If that does not cover your area, and you want a scanner you will need a digital one. Typically they run in the $400-500 range. If your group wanted to buy one and stream it to here (radio reference) that is an option and the live audio admins can provide you with the software and instructions on how to stream it over the internet.

Depending on the particular scanner you get will determine the programming and hardware you might need.

Let us know what you want to do and we can provide additional info such as scanner suggestions.

procopper7005 · #4 (**permalink**) 02-17-2010, 6:16 PM

Unless you have a separate scanner for each police zone the feed is all but worthless for knowing what is going on due to the extreemly high volume on each channel.

rmiller818 · #5 (**permalink**) 02-17-2010, 6:50 PM

Sounded to me like they just wanted to listen to the zone they live in.

lsh1885 · #6 (**permalink**) 02-17-2010, 7:14 PM

I guess I misunderstood the question, I was thinking the question was "What happened to the feed"? I know for a while they didn't have an Atlanta feed after they went from analog to digital, but I guess he has a digital scanner now.

rick_day · #7 (**permalink**) 02-18-2010, 12:19 AM

HI, thanks for answering the question. Yes we would want to offer Zone 5. When I visited the site the night of the posting, the link was inactive to the zone 5 scanner.

From what I have read from the responses above, this was a temporary down. I assume we can just link up from our site.

If you guys can think of any other safety issues we can address for the residents of Midtown, drop me a line!

Thanks again,

Rick

rick_day · #8 (**permalink**) 02-18-2010, 12:21 AM

No problem. I see now an update status. Offline until Monday 2-22. Not sure what the downtime is about, but we would not mind helping cover the costs associated with keeping the Zone 5 link active.

Thanks for the reply!

Rick

N8IAA · #9 (**permalink**) 02-18-2010, 11:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rick_day

No problem. I see now an update status. Offline until Monday 2-22. Not sure what the downtime is about, but we would not mind helping cover the costs associated with keeping the Zone 5 link active.Thanks for the reply! Rick

Rick, the only way to make sure that your community stays aware without an unforseen interruption, is to have your own scanner feed up. At this time, Radio Shack has the Pro-106 on sale for $399. Using the power cube to run it, the USB programming cable, part # 20-047 to program it, and Win500 programming software, you will be set up to plug in what ever you want to monitor. Providing a feed here to radio reference gets you, I believe, a free premium subscription. Just a suggestion. You could be up and running in no time at all.
HTH,
Larry

ButchGone · #10 (**permalink**) 02-18-2010, 9:09 PM

So glad to hear there will be an APD/AFD feed again. I'm especially happy about AFD...will it include firegrounds/response channels or just dispatch? And seeing how Zone 2 was my old stomping ground, great to see that too!
BG..

rick_day · #11 (**permalink**) 03-23-2010, 5:40 PM

Butch, thanks for the 4-1-1

I noticed that monitoring the current Zone 5 frequency discussed above, sometimes I am not hearing a clear transmission, nor the inter-car, or car to dispatch transmissions.

Can I assume it is an antenna limitation with the scanner use by the current provider? Or is it the nature of the frequency these days? I've been away from 'the shack' for a while now....

Most importantly, can I use a 'traditional' scanner outdoor antenna with a digital scanner (I used my outdoor antenna on a radio shack PRO-2006 up in the Ellijay hills).

Thanks! Link should be up within a month.

rmiller818 · #12 (**permalink**) 03-24-2010, 8:04 PM

Not listening to it myself a little hard to tell but just from my experiences monitoring the Cobb digital system, it either works or it doesn't there isn't really any middle ground.

This could be for a few reasons, simply put, could be from being to far from a repeater or it could be to close to more than one repeater. Location is the main issue here.

As far as antennas, you may be fine with just the stock duckie antenna. In fact, sometimes that is preferable as it is not as sensitive. So in the case of being to close to more than one repeater, a less sensitive antenna may be best so that you are not receiving more than one repeater. On the other hand, if you need a more sensitive antenna you could use the outdoor antenna you have now but that would probably not be a good choice. Depending on what it is it may not be build for 800Mhz. In addition, it would receive in all directions, so you would have a better chance of receiving more than one repeater (don't want that, just want 1). For these purposes, a directional antenna such as a yagi would be better as you could point it at the closest repeater to you and hopefully not hardly receive anything from other nearby sites.

BTW, what scanner did you decide on? Depending on the scanner, you can change some settings to help optimize your reception.

rick_day · #13 (**permalink**) 03-25-2010, 7:36 AM

I will probably go with the suggested RS scanner above, unless someone else has a better suggestion. Your feedback and prompt response is greatly appreciated!

It seems his feed is based on Zone 2, Zone 5 APD and AFD dispatch. I'm just wanting to scan all the 'action' in Zone 5 APD.

Thia thread has been incredibly helpful. I thank you all for your time and patience.

RD

MOGA · #14 (**permalink**) 03-30-2010, 3:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rmiller818

Not listening to it myself a little hard to tell but just from my experiences monitoring the Cobb digital system, it either works or it doesn't there isn't really any middle ground.

This could be for a few reasons, simply put, could be from being to far from a repeater or it could be to close to more than one repeater. Location is the main issue here.

QFT

Unless I'm using a Yagi that I can direct as needed, I can't really get a useful signal when monitoring APD. Some days I have to direct it to the north for an intelligible signal, and other days, to the southeast. It just all depends. The one thing that is certain is that a omnidirectional antenna isn't the best application given my location. Because my QTH is within range of several of Atlanta's transmitters that are of varying distance to my home, data streams arrive at the radio's antenna at slightly different times. Without the ability to attenuate part(s) of the simulcast, the radio basically drops out every other word as the radio begins to decode one transmission, only to have another one arrive midstream.

I don't think radio selection is nearly as critical as the antenna integration/placement and the monitoring position relative to CoA's transmitters. YMMV.

rmiller818 · #15 (**permalink**) 04-03-2010, 11:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MOGA

QFT

Unless I'm using a Yagi that I can direct as needed, I can't really get a useful signal when monitoring APD. Some days I have to direct it to the north for an intelligible signal, and other days, to the southeast. It just all depends. The one thing that is certain is that a omnidirectional antenna isn't the best application given my location. Because my QTH is within range of several of Atlanta's transmitters that are of varying distance to my home, data streams arrive at the radio's antenna at slightly different times. Without the ability to attenuate part(s) of the simulcast, the radio basically drops out every other word as the radio begins to decode one transmission, only to have another one arrive midstream.

I don't think radio selection is nearly as critical as the antenna integration/placement and the monitoring position relative to CoA's transmitters. YMMV.

I was more just courious as to which scanner he selected as then we could help better with programming etc. That continued into my other point, as depending on the scanner adjusting some settings can (sometimes) dramatically change how well you receive something.

MOGA · #16 (**permalink**) 04-07-2010, 2:27 PM

QFT = quoted for truth. I agree with your comments.