Monitoring other tower sites

[ceranes]

Is there a way to monitor other tower sites from a site in your hometown? I live in Dimondale, home of the main tower according to opinions by other individuals. They say I should be able to monitor towers from all over the state because the radio techs monitor them here. If this is indeed the case, do I need to do something different to make that happen?

Thank You,
CER

[mikey60]

No. Unless you have a radio on the MPSCS that has all of those talkgroups, you have no control over what conversations come over that tower...

Basically you will hear only the talkgroups that have a radio listening on that tower. In your case, you'll get more than most because, as you said, you're listening to the main tower for the MPSCS techs and the NCC.

Mike

[kc8lbn]

Originally Posted by mikey60

Basically you will hear only the talkgroups that have a radio listening on that tower. In your case, you'll get more than most because, as you said, you're listening to the main tower for the MPSCS techs and the NCC.
Mike

I kinda have the same sort of question, ever since I have had my 296 I have scanned the lans, and dimondale towers. Is there any way to find out what talkgroups exactly are used on the towers? I usually id search whenever I am listening but now that talkgroup lists are getting full on the scanner, I have to write the id down when it comes up as new and then list it after I have found out if I have it or not.

[mikey60]

There should be a release of UniTrunker coming soon that would let you monitor the control channel data. You'll need a radio with the discriminator tapped to do so however.

If you had a Pro-96 and a cable for it, you could use Pro96Com to monitor the control channel data now. But that doesn't work with any other radio at the moment.

Mike

[rhouse24]

PRO-96 EXPERT HELP NEEDED-
I am also attempting to monitor radio traffic from the other side of the state. I am a firefighter and my 800 radio seems to work all over by switching to the local tower. So I have a PR0-96, cable, and downloaded a program called WIN96 to assist with uploads. I have every freq for every tower and every talkgroup ID in excel format. Does anyone know how to set up a PRO-96 to cover the state. Also I am a FNG in this hobby so some technical jargin like "primary control channel" goes right over my head.


Thank you,
RH

[mikey60]

There is one major difference with the 800 Mhz radio that's on the system and the Pro-96.

The 800 Mhz radio will affiliate with the local tower, which will then turn on the transmission of that talkgroup from that tower. With that radio you'll hear your talkgroup wherever you go. Talkgroups are only transmitted from towers that have an affiliated radio on them.

The Pro-96 on the other hand can only recieve the talkgroups that are transmitted from that tower. It does not have the ability to affiliate with the tower and turn on other talkgroups (don't we wish we could at times!)

AS far as programming the state, you only really need the primary control channels in the radio. It's possible that a tower may move to the alternate control channel if there's a problem, but it seems to be pretty rare.

Mike

[rdale]

I have a win96 file for the state in the Scan_Michigan site at http://groups.yahoo.com