Lucas Co Feeds MIA

Jag2274 · May 22, 2015

Hello everyone. I understand that the person that was previously hosting the live feed for the Lucas Co fire departments has moved and is obviously no longer able to host the feed. I was going to get a new scanner capable of monitoring the P25 system, but after researching models here I soon realized that wasn't going to work.

I am a career firefighter for one of the Lucas Co departments, but I live just west of Wauseon. I am wondering if anyone in the Toledo area would be willing to reestablish the live audio feed?

Specifically, I'm interested in monitoring Toledo Fire, Sylvania Fire, Springfield Fire, and Lucas County EMS.

Nasby · May 22, 2015

Jag2274 said:
Hello everyone. I understand that the person that was previously hosting the live feed for the Lucas Co fire departments has moved and is obviously no longer able to host the feed. I was going to get a new scanner capable of monitoring the P25 system, but after researching models here I soon realized that wasn't going to work.

I am a career firefighter for one of the Lucas Co departments, but I live just west of Wauseon. I am wondering if anyone in the Toledo area would be willing to reestablish the live audio feed?

Specifically, I'm interested in monitoring Toledo Fire, Sylvania Fire, Springfield Fire, and Lucas County EMS.

I'm not trying to be a smarty, but why won't getting a scanner of your own work?

If its a matter of money, you can find them for less than $200.00 nowadays.

If its a matter of programming, we can help you with that.

Having your own scanner will give you the freedom to listen to what you want, when you want.
This would be very beneficial to a safety professional like yourself.

And most importantly, you won't have to rely on a feed provider anymore.

Jag2274 · May 22, 2015

No, money isn't the issue. And this forum is a wealth of knowledge, so programming wouldn't be a big issue. From what I have read in these forums it doesn't sound like I would be very successful in obtaining a reliable signal, given my distance from Lucas county. My impression has been that it's hit and miss monitoring this P25 system from close proximity, let alone from a distance. If I'm wrong, that makes things easy. I would grab a new scanner this week.

Nasby · May 22, 2015

I think you would be good in receiving the Lucas County System.

Not only are you relatively close by, there's actually a transmitter site for the Lucas County system in Wauseon.

ibagli · May 22, 2015

Nasby said:
Not only are you relatively close by, there's actually a transmitter site for the Lucas County system in Wauseon.

15+ miles from the county line is not especially close to an 800MHz simulcast system, and the Wauseon site does not normally transmit much traffic from Lucas County.

Nasby · May 22, 2015

I guess it all depends on the strength of the system.

I'm in the other part of the state so I can't say for sure how well it would work in Lucas County.

But I think its worth a shot for the OP and much better than hoping someone will decide to create a live fire feed (good luck with that).

From where I'm at, I'm able to receive most 800mhz systems within a 30 miles radius.

@Jag, Thx for your service.

W8RMH · May 22, 2015

I see there are sites in Wauseon and Bowling Green, but the question is would Lucas County and Toledo units actually affiliate with these sites. Chances are he would only hear local agencies affiliating with those sites.

ctpd845 · May 23, 2015

I can tell you that if you go very far out of Lucas County, reception of the system goes down fast. From my house reception is hit or miss so I'm sure that from Wauseon the OP will have difficulty with the simulcast system unless he uses a yagi antenna.

Agencies on the west end of Lucas County affiliate on the Wauseon site but not very often or at all will a Toledo unit affiliate with Wauseon.

And the Bowling Green site is not active, which makes me wonder why it was added to the database so early with no known time frame of when it would be active.

wa8pyr · May 23, 2015

ctpd845 said:
And the Bowling Green site is not active, which makes me wonder why it was added to the database so early with no known time frame of when it would be active.

Good question. Policy is that planned / future sites are not added until they are confirmed on line. I have removed it.

jackj · May 25, 2015

I live in Delta and I monitor using a PSR-800. I can NOT receive Lucas County dependably either using the RS 800 MHz antenna or my discone mounted about 30' up my tower. The problem isn't poor signal strength but receiving multiple towers. As Iblgli says, this is a 800MHz simulcast system and the separation on the bearing to the towers from Delta is around 15° which is too narrow for yagi antennas to resolve. I have no problem receiving Fulton County's TRS off the Wauseon tower but there are very few times when a Lucas County radio will affiliate with Wauseon. When I take my scanner to my daughter's house in Springfield Twp, it receives Lucas County at nearly 100%. So buying your own scanner isn't going to solve your problem unless one of the scanner manufacturers manage to build a scanner that can handle simulcast from multiple towers.

TedRHayes · May 25, 2015

jackj said:
... So buying your own scanner isn't going to solve your problem unless one of the scanner manufacturers manage to build a scanner that can handle simulcast from multiple towers.

For what its worth, when Greene county switched over to a Simulcast System a year and a half or so ago, I had significant problems with my PSR-800 and HP-1. I had some success with yagi antennas, but it was very marginal.

I eventually purchased a BCD436HP. While its not perfect, it works pretty good on the Geene Co Simulcast system. It certainly helps to give the best signal possible, but it works pretty well with the RS-800 antenna.

johnnyelectron · May 26, 2015

A system online for Lucas County Sheriff / TPD has been hit and miss and seems to be offline more than it has been online; getting a system online for Toledo Fire and Lucas County Fire would be a nice addition if someone could host it. How much cost is involved in putting one online (besides the yagi antenna, radio, and a computer, what do you need to 'host' the audio??

ctpd845 · May 26, 2015

johnnyelectron said:
A system online for Lucas County Sheriff / TPD has been hit and miss and seems to be offline more than it has been online; getting a system online for Toledo Fire and Lucas County Fire would be a nice addition if someone could host it. How much cost is involved in putting one online (besides the yagi antenna, radio, and a computer, what do you need to 'host' the audio??

There is no cost (other than what you noted) to have a feed on Broadcastify. When you apply to be a feed provider, you are provided the software needed.

johnnyelectron · May 26, 2015

ctpd845: would your ISP charge for having a continuous feed, or does streaming burn-up a given amount of data per month that you might exceed a limit? It would be nice for Lucas County to have some feeds again- heck, Wood County has 4 times as many feeds as Lucas County does.

ctpd845 · May 26, 2015

That would be up to each ISP. I have Time Warner and when I had a feed running there was no issue.

I don't know exact numbers, but it doesn't take that much upload bandwidth to provide a feed.

AtlasFBG2 · May 26, 2015

The broadcast uses about 5gb of bandwidth a month. Which is really not much. I have Att dsl and my bandwidth limit is 150gb a month. Att uverse has a 250gb limit.

I was just checking into this a couple days ago. This will tell you everything you need. www.broadcastify.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/204740055-Becoming-a-Feed-Provider

Only thing i didnt like about it was they limit what you can broadcast.

Jag2274 · Jun 15, 2015

I thought I may have caught a break and was going to be able to monitor our radio traffic via the PulsePoint app. However, the powers that be decided not to stream the radio traffic through the app. I can't say that I blame them...that would include every fire dept in Lucas County on one feed. It would be difficult to follow a particular incident.

Thank you to everyone that responded in this thread. I appreciate the ideas and feedback. If anyone decides to host a Toledo Fire/ Sylvania Fire feed in the future please drop me a line.

I used to be a scanner junkie in my younger days. My first one was my dad's with the "crystals" that had to be programmed. Then a couple mobile versions that were a constant in my truck. A Pro-96 maybe?? I don't remember. As scanning got more complicated it kind of fell by the wayside for me. Reading these forums though has me itching for a new one. If I get one I'll definitely be back here to dip into the wealth of knowledge available.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

FreedomOH · Jun 19, 2015

Hello Jag and other posters.

Sadly, I miss the police scanner in Toledo. I live in the heart of Toledo and actually do have a strong connection for internet. I would be open to discussion of hosting the scanner and streaming it to a virtual server if money truly is not an issue. Very sad for me, but money is an issue for me and I live paycheck to paycheck. I will 100% donate the bandwidth if someone is willing to provide me the scanner(s) and the location they would like me to VPN the traffic. I have spare PC's laying around, so this isn't a problem on the hardware side either.

Thanks & let me know -

A concerned Lucas county citizen

K4IHS · Jun 20, 2015

I listened to that feed a lot and missed it when it went offline. I live in NC now and am a retired paid member of Sylvania Fire. I put a scanner at my daughter's house in Sylvania with an old XP laptop and use the WIN500 remote software. It works great and I can listen to whatever talkgroups I want without the RR restrictions. Currently I listen to just Sylvania FD, Sylvania City and Sylvania Twp. PD without it stopping on the Toledo and LCSO talkgroups all the time. Every once in awhile it goes offline but I call my daughter and have her reboot the laptop and I'm good to go again.

dfrank1987 · Sep 8, 2015

North Toledo

I Live Right Behind The Greenbelt Apartments, My Upload Speed Is 5MBPS. Most Likely Would Run Great Off A Indoor Antenna!

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