RCS North Zone Simulcast Site Location?

I recently bought an 800 MHz Yagi to try and get better reception of the North Zone simulcast site, but I'm unsure exactly where the site is located. The RR database lists the coordinates for the site, which put it in northwest San Marcos. I always thought it was located on the hill above Lake San Marcos with the other county antennas.

Any help on where to point my Yagi would be appreciated : )

Thanks,
Laura

There are multiple sites in the North cell. Your profile says "San Diego." Can you offer a little better idea of where you are?

Thanks for the reply, Don! I'm on the east side of San Marcos.

Then aim your antenna at either site (the RR coordinates or the County site), and see if one gives you a better signal.

Don

Yes, that's my plan. However, I was looking for confirmation that the RR GPS coordinates were correct. For the North Zone the GPS coordinates are listed as N 33.183537, W -117.188416. This centers on an area where there does not appear to be an antenna site. Some further digging on Antennasearch.com does not reveal any antennas for the County in that area. So...I guess I answered my own question! : )

Edit: However, after checking FCC data, I did find the location of the San Marcos Mountain site, which is close to the RR coordinates.It seems my choices for pointing the Yagi have increased : )

BTW, even using a Yagi, I'm still getting random garbled transmissions on digital talkgroups with high error counts, as well as scratchy analog audio using a BCD996T.

Thanks!
Laura

Laura...I am probably in yer backyard yet you nor I know that. I am in San Marcos too(Nordahl and 78) and found out the tower is located up the hill behind the "new" high school. I always told my son when he was young that there is a pirate ship up there, since that is what it looks like around nighttime. its hard monitoring both AM, VHF,UHF, USB, LSB, SATCOM, and HF all at once but its great to know where to aim my antennas at.

You really are practically in my backyard, Mr. Longwire! Thanks for the help. I just swung the Yagi around to point toward the high school (fun fact: I graduated from there back in the 80s...way before it was all high tech and two stories!)

Thanks!
Laura

So...your signal improve any?

And both of you are practically in my "back yard" assuming I had one!

-Mike

Hmmm....looks like I got a lil competition going here...j/k....ok..ok...I'm near Costco if thats any consolation....not enough room for thoughts of an antenna farm. Wishful thinking....my only bummer is getting aircraft comms. Palomar is 6 miles as the crow flies and reception kinda stinks sometimes. Departure freqs and LA centers are sometimes scratchy but Ramona ATIS comes in full bars. Weird. Lousey terrain. Get Imperial Cty sheriff no problem...sometimes I hear Yuma but not always

Once I pointed the Yagi toward Lake San Marcos Peak my reception improved. Almost no garbled transmissions now and vastly improved analog transmission quality. The Yagi I'm using is a Terrawave T09100Y11206T. By the way, it's mounted indoors...

Me too

Hi all. I also live in San Marcos just up the hill from the San Marcos High School (the new one). I have full quieting on the RCS system from here but I am curious as to what cell site you are receiving Imperial County Sheriff on. Is it on the North Zone site?

Nope. I have my ears pointed south and put the numbers in. Cant seem to find the numbers I punched in. Same with Brawley. I know their cells are higher in elevation than our little hills..LOL

Hey, Gene, do you notice any garbled transmissions on the digital RCS talkgroups from your location?

Garbled Transmissions

Yes I periodically have garbled transmissions on the RCS from my location. I have come to accept it as common with multicast systems.

This is evident on all of my scanners ranging from the BC895/896, Pro60, through the Home Patrol and BC996.

This occurs in only about 10% of transmissions that make them difficult to understand or totally unreadable sometimes. I can live with that as opposed to the alternative which will either be encryption or a system totally unreceivable with my current scanners. (My opinion only)

I lost Riverside county last year when they changed systems. That was a big loss to me. I hope the RCS system is around for a few more years.

I am now monitoring the 700mhz systems mentioned in another recent posting and notice a CW IDer on 7Call50. Perhaps that is the precursor of shades of things to come.

Thanks, Gene! I can stop obsessing over error counts now : )

There are several RCS North frequencies that are MUCH lower in apparent radiated power, signal strength, what have you, that present problems for my scanners. I don't have a list of them off-hand, but when aligning our yagi antenna we originally chose the strong control channel as our source, but will hence forth use one of the lower signal strength frequencies.

Paul

It's funny you should say that, Anderegg, because I seem to notice this a great deal on the analog talkgroups. For instance, listening to ALS Palomar I can have a nice clear signal on one frequency, but if the carrier drops and picks up on another freq, the signal will crackle and pop : ) I have not taken notice of which frequencies this happens on, but it looks like it might be worth it to pay attention next time and maybe keep track.

By the way, my research on the FCC site found these locations for the 863.150 MHz control channel:

Red Mountain, Fallbrook 33-24-01.1 N, 117-11-27.1 W
Black Mountain, Poway 32-58-53.2 N, 117-06-59.1 W
San Marcos Mountain, Vista 33-12-53.1 N, 117-11-18.1 W
4.5 miles WSW of Ramona 33-00-32.7 N, 116-58-21.2 W
Lake San Marcos Peak, San Marcos 33-06-40.1 N, 117-12-08.1 W
Soledad Mountain, La Jolla 32-50-23.2 N, 117-15-09.1 W
Campo Graves, Campo 32-36-04.2 N, 116-28-39.1 W
Encina Power Plant, Carlsbad 33-08-12.1 N, 117-20-14.1 W
Hubbard Hill, Escondido 33-09-09.0 N, 117-04-42.0 W
650 Benet Hill Rd, Oceanside 33-13-31.1 N, 117-21-59.2 W
85 Encinitas Blvd, Encinitas 33-02-53.9 N, 117-17-31.0 W

My guess would be these are repeater transmitters that are on a lower part of the tower, but Don would know better as to why they have less reach.

Paul

I have had issues with loosing the control channel while mobile. I have realized that this is due to a cell site located in a business next to the street basically saturating the front end of the radio. While at home I have problems decoding P25 at times. I have not taken note as to the frequency or frequencies but most likely always the same frequencies. I know located within about 500 yards from my house is a t-mobile cell site. I have a feeling what is causing my P25 problems the cell signal and probably some other signal causing a spur on or near the channel I am trying to receive causing the data to not be received correctly or decode.. It would be nice if the scanner manufacturers would add some filtering in their broad band front end to filter out cell band.