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DarrellGuzman

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Joined
Mar 26, 2005
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25
Location
Livonia Mi.
I am entertaining the thought of buying a new scanner, again. I've had a few through the years. I am
currently using a Pro 96. Been a good radio but doesn't handle simulcasting very well. Several
agencies in my area, Livonia Mi. use simulcasting on MPSCS. Kind of torn between the Bearcat 436
and the Whistler 1040. Been doing my homework on both and sounds like Whistler handles simulcasting
better.Looking for some input from you pro"s out there. Thank you in advance.
 

smithken

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Joined
Dec 19, 2002
Messages
328
Location
Michigan
I'm in Livonia also, I monitor the Wayne County Simulcast site and have no simulcast issues, all of my scanners are Uniden. Something you might try, if you haven't already, is monitoring the Northville site, a lot of the traffic that's on the Wayne County Simulcast site is also on Northville and Northville is not simulcast.
 

jaspence

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Mar 21, 2008
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3,042
Location
Michigan
New scanner

Northville may not be part of the simulcast system, but if they are on the same frequency and talkgroups, the problem could still exist. Your experience may be because you are enough closer to the Northville tower than any other tower and therefore don't have competing signals. Two independent transmitters on the same frequency can interfere with each other if the receiving station is located between them. I have both Uniden and Whistler (actually GRE models), and my location favors the Whistlers for best reception.
 

smithken

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Dec 19, 2002
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328
Location
Michigan
The Northville site and the Wayne County Simulcast site share 1 frequency according to the database, 853.2875, my guess is that this is an error in the database. The closest tower to me is the Merriman/Ann Arbor Trail tower on the Wayne County Simulcast site. I am almost as far from the Northville site tower as you can get and still be in Livonia, the Northville site tower is at the State Police post on 7 Mile in Northville Twp.
 

kd8ati

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Feed Provider
Joined
Feb 5, 2008
Messages
319
Location
Southeast MI
Northville may not be part of the simulcast system, but if they are on the same frequency and talkgroups, the problem could still exist. Your experience may be because you are enough closer to the Northville tower than any other tower and therefore don't have competing signals. Two independent transmitters on the same frequency can interfere with each other if the receiving station is located between them. I have both Uniden and Whistler (actually GRE models), and my location favors the Whistlers for best reception.

Smithken is correct is what he says. Since the Northville site is not part of the simulcast, you will not have the simulcast multipath issues you do when trying to monitor Wayne County Simulcast, which the same could be said if you tried to monitor the Southfield site. Something to keep in mind however is if a Livonia radio is not affiliated with the Northville site then you will not get any Livonia radio traffic from that site.

On to your original question...
I currently have the 536HP and the RadioShack Pro-668 (twin of the Whistler 1080) and both are leaps & bounds better at simulcast systems then the old Pro-96, which I also still own. I have found that at my specific location there is little different in performance on simulcast systems between the two new scanners. While that performance could very well differ with your location, If I had to choose one with my knowledge of both, I would ultimately decide based on preferred options instead of simulcast performance.
 
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