Peoria County P25 reception

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lu81fitter

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I purchased my 996P2 back in March. I programmed the Peoria County system in and, when I was in the area, I got reception. I realized it would be be somewhat spotty because of my mobile application. It wasn't terrible, and I lived with it. Now, I can not pick it up at all. I looked in the database, and saw that some of the frequencies differed from what I had programmed and thought that was the problem. Changed them. Still nothing. When I'm driving around in the Peoria area, I'm picking up STARCOM towers from Farmington, Metamora, and Congerville. Sometimes a peep out of Providence as well, but absolutely nothing from the Peoria County Simulcast system. Has something changed with their system? I have tried 3 different antennas. I have all of the frequencies programmed, so I know I'm not missing a control channel.
Any ideas?
 

jcook11

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One thing to keep in mind is these consumer scanners are junk with simulcast systems. Peoria Co. is particularly bad. Contrary to popular belief, different antennas don't help you that much. The Starcom sites you mentioned are not simulcast and are easy to decode. Can you decode the Peoria Starcom site at all?

Even with the simulcast issue though, you should be able to hear occasional audio...just choppy and garbled.
 

lu81fitter

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I understand that scanners are "second rate", at best on simulcast. I just used to be able to hear it...sometimes. Now nothing at all. I also understand that those other sites aren't simulcast.
Normally, the radio will show a "bar system", if you will.... Kinda like a cell phone. I pick up "bars" on the STARCOM stuff, but it skips over Peoria County like its not even there. I did pick up just a blip one time on War Drive going west coming up to the Sterling/Glen intersection. Other than that, nothing. Not even in fringe areas going in/out of town on Rte 29 or 40 to the north. I figured I would get something there due to the fact I would probably only pick up one tower. But still, nothing.
I still get County on 158.73 and City on 460.05 with my BCT15X. My 996P2 is dedicated to just digital reception.
 

lu81fitter

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I also travel to the Joliet area for work. I can pick up the Will County Simulcast system much better than the Peoria system. I know the Peoria County system is Harris. If, in fact, the Will County system is from Motorola, that may be the difference there.
 

teufler

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A small 800 beam helps. It allows you to zero in on a tower voiding the other towers in a simulcast systems. Amazon sells small 800 beams, less than $20.00. Locate a map for the Peoria radio towers. Point to wards a tower that would not get "extra" signals from another tower that would be picked up in the beam width. Meaning you may have a tower close by but there is another tower behind the close one that a beam would pick up. Got a friend that is Peoria Hts, and the river front park has a tower. He gets better reception with a tower further to the north.
 

kraziebill

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I have a 996P2 and sitting at home it works great and barely (if at all) miss a transmission. If I take it on the road, forget it. Seems like I only pickup a transmission if I'm stopped at a traffic light.

The good news is Peoria county has decided to ditch this crappy Harris system and join StarCom, so things will hopefully get much better.
 

RoninJoliet

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Will Co is going on the air with there new P25-E.F.Johnson system on Dec11, there already simulcasting East and West Dispatch on it...You can find it here on rr.com in the "database.....I hope they don't turn on "ENC" later as thats what i heard....So far it works great on my 996P2......
 

N9IIT

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The good news is Peoria county has decided to ditch this crappy Harris system and join StarCom, so things will hopefully get much better.

As I understand it, Peoria County isn't "ditching" the Harris infrastructure to join StarCom. They are simply merging with StarCom and utilizing the Motorola controllers?
 

jcook11

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While it's possible scanner reception could change slightly, I doubt it gets drastically better. It will still be a simulcast system with over 10 transmitters.

I'm guessing it will use the same control channel though, unlike the current system which always changes which channel is the control.
 

lu81fitter

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Whenever I program trunked systems, I program all the frequencies in the system, analog or digital. That way, I have them all in there. Seems to me that is the only way to ensure you're getting the job done right and make sure you are receiving all the transmissions. Is this a bad practice? I just figured that with all the freqs, you can't miss anything.
 

jasonpeoria911

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So did they switch to the Motorola controllers today? Was receiving the system fine last night, now this evening turned on the scanner and it won't pick up any existing control freqs
 

kraziebill

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No, they haven't started migrating to StarCom yet.

My scanner was working fine when I went to bed and still working when I got up, so not sure if there was an issue overnight.
 

jcook11

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The control channel is currently 852.7875 MHz as of 10AM. It recently changed. It changes quite often actually. That is what I'm looking forward to the most when they switch to Starcom...at least the CC will usually be the same.
 

lu81fitter

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Well I took another trip up to the Joliet area. Now my radio does not pick up that system either. I think the culprit is the DMR upgrade I did to the radio. That's the only thing that has changed. Has anyone else had this experience?
 

cubn

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There were three licensed frequencies for the Peoria County system that weren't in the database including the CC reported this morning. I added those frequencies to the database. If you are using a radio that is programmed directly from the Radioreference database, this may be why the Peoria County system didn't work.
Well I took another trip up to the Joliet area. Now my radio does not pick up that system either. I think the culprit is the DMR upgrade I did to the radio. That's the only thing that has changed. Has anyone else had this experience?
When did you last hear Joliet and are you referring to Starcom21? Joliet PD and FD has been encrypted on Starcom21 for quite a while.
 

lu81fitter

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Quote ---> When did you last hear Joliet and are you referring to Starcom21? Joliet PD and FD has been encrypted on Starcom21 for quite a while. ---end.

I am aware of the ENC Joliet City uses. I was listening to the Will County Simulcast System of STARCOM. I was hearing District 5, Plainfield, Romeoville, Bolingbrook, and WESCOM. That was in Mid-October. Shortly after, I upgraded the radio with DMR. That's when virtually all of my simulcast reception stopped. If I get into a "sweet spot" once in a while, it will come in. But nothing like it was before.
 

jcook11

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Will Co. just turned on a new county P25 system I believe (from skimming other threads on this forum), didn't they? That may be why you aren't hearing those agencies on Starcom.
 
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