Looking for Recommendations for Economical Setup for About 8 Feeds

Hi folks,

I'm the feed provider for Sacramento Police Department's North Command. https://www.broadcastify.com/listen/feed/6558

I am assisting in the setup of about 8 law enforcement feeds in the Sacramento region, all from the same location. Each will be geographically specific and may include multiple talk groups across multiple agencies. For example, one might have SacPD south talk groups plus Sac Sheriff talk groups, while another might have Rocklin PD, Roseville PD, and part of Placer County Sheriff.

I would appreciate advice on the simplest and most economical way to do this.

I personally use a PRO-107 scanner which is 800 MHz rebanding compatible (with firmware update). I like this model because it is reasonably easy to program and clone using the software it comes with, plus with a pair of rechargeable AA batteries and a DC power supply, it gracefully handles brief power outages. However, it seems PRO-107s are hard to find now, plus they're not P25 compatible which will be an issue in the future here.

I already know we'll need one scanner per feed, so about 8 scanners, and 8 sound cards. I read about configuring the software to support multiple instances.

What I'd like to know:

1. Are there any others running a lot of feeds like this?
2. How many feeds can be supplied on one computer/server?
3. Since we can't fit that many PCI sound cards in a single machine, would these external USB sound adapters do the trick?
4. What make and models scanners is recommended? Must support trunking on this shared system: https://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?sid=4499 (Will be converting to P25 in future)

Thanks for your input...

While I can't help you with all your questions, I do have the answers to a few.

sharward said:

How many feeds can be supplied on one computer/server?

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A PC can handle as many feeds as it can sound cards, and the streaming software most times don't take much to run, so even a very low end PC can do fine.

sharward said:

Since we can't fit that many PCI sound cards in a single machine, would these external USB sound adapters do the trick?

Click to expand...

I would highly recommend USB sound cards. Sometimes you can find a lot of them very cheap on ebay, most times they are only $1-$2 each.

sharward said:

What make and models scanners is recommended? Must support trunking on this shared system: https://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?sid=4499 (Will be converting to P25 in future)

Click to expand...

Any analog trunking scanner would monitor this system (not digital talkgroups). To monitor both digital and analog you would need a digital trunking scanner. They are a bit more expensive but sometimes can be found on ebay fairly cheap. In the future, are the switching completely to P25? It would be important to know if it will be Phase 1 or 2. There are only a handful of scanners that can listen to Phase 2 systems.

ScanPEI said:

While I can't help you with all your questions, I do have the answers to a few.

Click to expand...

Every little bit helps.

ScanPEI said:

I would highly recommend USB sound cards. Sometimes you can find a lot of them very cheap on ebay, most times they are only $1-$2 each.

Click to expand...

Perfect. I was hoping that would be the case. I'm going to pick up one of these cheap-os to test it out.

ScanPEI said:

Any analog trunking scanner would monitor this system (not digital talkgroups). To monitor both digital and analog you would need a digital trunking scanner. They are a bit more expensive but sometimes can be found on ebay fairly cheap.

Click to expand...

For simplicity's sake I'm going to recommend all of the scanners be of like make and model for relative ease of programming and cloning. I'm leaning towards Uniden Bearcat BCD996XT.

ScanPEI said:

. . . are the[y] switching completely to P25? It would be important to know if it will be Phase 1 or 2. There are only a handful of scanners that can listen to Phase 2 systems.

Click to expand...

I just looked it up and it says Phase 1.

Thanks again and keep the comments comin'.

I do multiple personal shoutcast feeds under linux (no longer providing to RR but setup worked), I split the audio in stereo to double the sources per input device. You can run them stereo, or pull them off and transcode them to mono and pipe the output to your source client..

1. Are there any others running a lot of feeds like this?
Running about 12 feeds from two servers at one location.

2. How many feeds can be supplied on one computer/server?
I have been using scanner cast off a windows 2003 rackmount server with .ini for each feed.
I find about 6 feeds work good for me with these servers, I did have issues with more feeds.
You will have to try it to know.

3. Since we can't fit that many PCI sound cards in a single machine, would these external USB sound adapters do the trick?
I use a 7 port usb hub with the 5$ ebay sounds cards. I mark each card with the feed name on the side of the usb cards. I did have to use some ground isolators for some of the feeds to remove hums.

4. What make and models scanners is recommended? Must support trunking on this shared system:
I use a mix, but if you are going to support tags you will have to think about that in the planning. I have only two feeds with tags one on each server with serial connections to the servers.

If it were me doing this, I'd go cheap SDR + VBCable + Unitrunker/SDRSharp. You could run 8 feeds easily for way less than than the cost of 8 analog scanners. When they do make the switch to P25, add DSD+ to the mix and you're done. There's a bit of a learning curve in setting this up, and to do it right you'll want the $50 dongles, not the $10 ones, but for what you describe, this seems like the easy way to get it done.

Good luck!
-AZ