Listening to distant and local county.

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downr

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Hello to all. I use a RadioShack pro 651. My question is this, I live in Shiawassee county and Roscommon county Michigan. Is it possible to monitor both counties at the same time. I also use win500 to program my scanner and it seems that when opening the county to monitor the " sites" list includes all other counties also. I would think that the site in Shiawassee county is also transmitting traffic from Roscommon county. Am I wrong? Thanks in advance for any help.
 

trap5858

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As long as the scanner can 'hear it' you can listen to both. I know nothing about the proximity of the two counties but you could load them into two banks and listen.
 

Redneck0410

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With the 651, nearly anything is possible. A lot of it, I believe, depends on how far from the transmit sites you are from both counties as to whether or not you'll be able to hear them.


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downr

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Thank you for your reply

Perhaps I should clarify. The two counties are 130 miles apart. Is the traffic on the Roscommon site also carried on the Shiawassee county site? In other words do the sites ( towers ) share all traffic ? The way I think it works is if I want to scan Roscommon from Shiawassee I would include both sites in the Roscommon list ( like scan list 2 for example ) and I could hear Roscommon traffic in Shiawassee county.

Wouldn't that be nice !

Thanks again.
 

ibagli

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No, sites don't share all traffic. Traffic is only carried on a site if there is a user of that talkgroup affiliated with the site. It's not impossible that you might occasionally hear one county's traffic in the other (like, for example, if Shiawassee County sends someone to Roscommon County to pick up a prisoner), but at 130 miles it's likely to be very rare.
 

sparklehorse

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I'm not familiar with the MPSCS system, but looking at it's page in the RR database I'd say it's highly unlikely you would be able to monitor both of these counties from one of them. This highly integrated system is a bit unusual though, as most states are still pretty fractured in terms of Public Safety coms. In my state, in one county alone, we've got State Police on VHF conventional, County Sheriff on VHF conventional, a city pd on UHF conventional, that city's fire on 800MHz analog trunking, another city's PD on 800MHz analog trunking, yet another city's pd is on VHF NXDN digital, county fire is on VHF conventional. And that's just one county.
Since your counties are 100+ miles apart, there is about zero chance your radio will receive a useful signal from the distant one. And most trunk systems are set up so the users' radio affiliates with a nearby site or simulcast system. You may hear its talkgroup on a neighboring counties' site, but four counties over seems very unlikely, even though it's the same system. That being said, it might be worth it to have this thread moved to the Michigan forum where someone who is familiar with MPSCS can possibly answer it.

.
 

ofd8001

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I agree with ibagli.

If you were equidistant between the two counties (65 miles), it's remotely possible that you could receive both sites. If you live on a hilltop, had a real good outside antenna on a real tall tower with real good cable, you might. But topography, such as hills, may block the signals.

I would not go to the expense of buying that stuff just on such an unlikely possibility.

You'd be better off listening to the Broadcastify feed for the distant county:

Roscommon County Michigan Live Audio Feeds (Roscommon)
Shiawassee County Michigan Live Audio Feeds (Shiawassee)
 
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