Pro-652: can't receive wv sirn and ohio marcs

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Medziatkowicz35

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I have a radio shack pro 652. I can not for the life of me receive wv sirn network and when I receive ohio marcs it is choppy.
How can I fix this?
I am located in weirton on the border of brooke and hancock counties. I am 25 miles north of wheeling which is the closest wv site and 15 miles south east of empire which is the closest ohio marcs site. Will this make a difference and are there more sites that aren't listed on the radio reference site or is there better programming software than arc 500?

I'm completely new to this so thank you.
 

budevans

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I have a radio shack pro 652. I can not for the life of me receive wv sirn network and when I receive ohio marcs it is choppy.
How can I fix this?
I am located in weirton on the border of brooke and hancock counties. I am 25 miles north of wheeling which is the closest wv site and 15 miles south east of empire which is the closest ohio marcs site. Will this make a difference and are there more sites that aren't listed on the radio reference site or is there better programming software than arc 500?

I'm completely new to this so thank you.

Medziatkowicz35,

Regarding MARCS. There are two MARCS systems. The first is referred to as MARCS, it is a Motorola Type II Trunking system. The MARCS system is being retired. The new system is MARCS-IP, which is a Project 25 system.

Looking at the map it appears that you are the closest to the Jefferson County MARCS-IP system. There are two MARCS-IP tower fairly close to Weirton. The MARCS-IP system is setup as a Simulcast site. Which means multiple towers that act as one site. The towers all have the same frequencies and carry the same traffic.

For your scanner, you would setup MARCS-IP as P25 Auto.
Here are the Control Channel freq's for MARCS-IP Jefferson site: 853.66250, 853.23750, 851.41250, 858.46250
When setting up the Talk Groups be sure to add the Group Wild Card and the Private Wild Card. The Wild Cards will allow your scanner to find new system users that are not listed in the RR Database.
Here's the link to the RR Database for MARCS-IP: Scroll down the list to find Jefferson County. There are quite a few Talk Groups listed, here's a link: Ohio MARCS-IP: Multi-Agency Radio Communications (P25) Trunking System, Various, Ohio - Scanner Frequencies

One note about the MARCS-IP Jefferson County Site. Being a Simulcast Site can cause problems for scanner users that are located close to multiple towers. If you find you are getting a lot of garbled transmissions, it is most likely Simulcast distortion. Your best bet is to try moving your scanner to other locations. Even a small move can make a big difference in reception.

There are two other MARCS-IP sites that might be within range.
Stratton: 771.95625, 771.68125...Which is North 10 miles.
Adena: 774.40625, 772.98125.. Which is roughly South West 10 plus miles.

Last but not least, your software ARC500. To be honest I never liked it. I found it hard to figure out. My preference it WIN500, which I find very easy to use. Making the setup of systems a simple straight forward process. Here's a link: Win500: WS1040, WS1065, PSR-500, PSR-600, PRO-651, PRO-652, PRO-106, PRO-197, PSR-310, PSR-410 Scanner Software for Data Management, Monitoring, and Control
You can download WIN500 and use it for up to 30 days for a free evaluation. If you like it, you can purchase the KEY to keep it running. I've used WIN500 for the last eight years.

If you have questions specific to monitoring MARCS-IP in Jefferson County please post them in the Ohio Forum. You'll find plenty of folks willing to help.
 

Medziatkowicz35

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I can get the sheriff in and out but am having problems with the Steubenville police department and can't get the highway patrol at all. What am I doing wrong?
 

DickH

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I can get the sheriff in and out but am having problems with the Steubenville police department and can't get the highway patrol at all. What am I doing wrong?

The location of your scanner is very important. Get as near a window as possible, then S L O W L Y move it up, down, left and right until you get a good signal. A 1/4 wavelength is only 3-1/4 inches at 850MHz, so there will be nulls and peaks every 3-1/4 inches (theoretically).
Also try other rooms in your house.
The same applies to the length of your antenna. Multiples of 3-1/4" will work best. 3-1/4", 6-1/2" & 13".
 

mtindor

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One of your problems is that being in Weirton, you are going to be monitoring the Ohio Co Simulcast of SIRN (Site 3-001) and the Jefferson Co Simulcast of MARCS-IP (Site 3-001). Don't let the fact that the site #s are the same confuse you -- two different systems, two different bands.

At any rate, since both of those are simulcast sites, you are going to have one heck of a time monitoring them. The Ohio Co Simulcast of SIRN is strong from up in the northern panhandle, and it is notoriously difficult to monitor from up in Jefferson / Hancock Cos because of the distortion. Signal strength likely good, but lots of distortion.

Same thing is going to apply with you trying to monitor the Jefferson Co Simulcast of MARCS-IP. From your location you are going to be seeing pretty strong signals from multiple towers within the simulcast, which will make monitoring difficult.

Add to that the fact that you are using a scanner with GRE guts. They are nice and sensitive, but they are horrible in strong signal environments and are horrible at monitoring simulcast systems. The only scanner I've ever owned that could monitor those two systems fairly reliably is my BCD436HP and BCD536HP.

As far as not hearing OSP or certain other traffic, you need to make sure you have all talkgroups programmed in. For instance, if you have 51541 (XPOST41) talkgroup programmed in your MARCS-IP system, you'll hear Steubenville post if they are on that talkgroup. But, you also need to program in talkgroup 51752 (XSTCLAIR). The St Clairsville post is where the consolidated dispatch center is, and they dispatch for Jefferson, Harrison, Belmont and Monroe Cos.

Mike
 

N8IAA

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How can I tell signal if I can't get any WV sirn transmissions?

When on the WV scanlist, find the CC using the up/down keys, then press MAN, press TSYS (F2) then Analyz (F3). The % will show you what the signal strength is.
I believe that you are on the fringe of receiving the tower. Maybe an outside antenna (yagi) pointed at the tower. But, being where you live, I believe that it's terrain that is keeping you from hearing the signal.
Same for trying to hear the MARC's system.
HTH,
Larry
 

mtindor

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I get the marc's but it's choppy and nothing on WV side.

Why not manually tune your scanner to 453.3375 and listen with your ears to see if there is a control channel.

TUNE 453.3375 ENT

1. Do you see a signal?
2. Do you hear a control channel?
3. Does the scanner show the control channel information
- NAC, RFSS info, etc

?

Mike
 

Medziatkowicz35

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i get

tune >paused< zd
p25 853.662500
85% n341 w:bee00 then sy:348 r003 s001
frl/0 mode stor

the percent keeps bouncing around between -- and 95%
what does this mean?
 
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mtindor

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That is the decoe quality. 95% is a great decode quality. But if it is jumping back and forth and losing decode, that's probably a sign of simulcast issues.

But from what you show, it sounds like [at this point in time] you are getting a pretty nice decode on the Ohio Co simulcast site.

Now the key is to make sure you program in a TSYS object with the red/blue control channels for the Ohio Co Simulcast, add talkgroups to that TSYS and associate those talkgroups with a scanlist and then be sure to enable the scanlist.

Might be wise, in the beginning to add a group wildcard. Your documentation will tell you how to do that, and so should ARC500.

Mike
 

Medziatkowicz35

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I am getting Steubenville fire just fine but Steubenville police has choppiness still. Also I have no idea which one it is but I get Jefferson county sheriff division 3 just fine but the rest are choppy.

I am still having problems getting the highway patrol and odot. I don't get anything for west Virginia besides the analog transmissions.
 

Medziatkowicz35

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it's not that important to listen to wv sirn but I'd like to hear what the doh and state police are talking about or do they use the county sheriff channels up in brooke and hancock counties?
 
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