MarcsIP help, BCD996XT

pplaugher · Jul 12, 2016

I'm having a problem receiving MarcsIP on my Uniden BCD996XT. The problem seems to be listening to my local Sheriff's Office. I use FreeScan to program the scanner. I have downloaded the tower sites located in my county and in the surrounding counties. I also downloaded the TG's this way. The problem I have is that the scanner will sometimes not pick up the initial radio transmission such as the dispatcher calling the patrol unit, but will pick up the patrol unit's response and then the traffic after that. Occasionally, the radio transmission will cut off in the middle and you'll hear two or three seconds of silence and then the audio picks back up. I've tried several things without much success. Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks!

W8RMH · Jul 12, 2016

Simulcast digital distortion - The RadioReference Wiki

rcool101 · Jul 20, 2016

Weather,Close Call.....etc... something is turned on for 2-3 sec of silence

Sent from my XT1080 using Tapatalk

radioscan · Jul 20, 2016

W8RMH said:
Simulcast digital distortion - The RadioReference Wiki

There are no simulcast sites in Preble County so that would not be the issue.

pplaugher · Jul 22, 2016

Weather, close call and priorities are all turned off. We use the Butler County towers frequently, and they are simulcast, but I don't know if that has anything to do with it. Sometimes I'll just completely miss transmissions. For example, I won't hear the dispatcher call the patrol unit to do a "checkup", but I'll hear the patrol unit answer and say they're ok, then hear the dispatcher giving the time.

swcscott · Jul 22, 2016

Preble County Ohio MARCS

Don't use the Butler county site. Use only one of these site's depending on which is closer to your actual location. West Alexandria or New Paris. This should help your missing transmissions. You can use both site's if you want but I have had the best luck using the one site that is closest to my home. Hope this helps.

Scott

W8RMH · Jul 22, 2016

radioscan said:
There are no simulcast sites in Preble County so that would not be the issue.

I was so used to helping people with the new Franklin County/Columbus Sim Sites I didn't even notice the OP's location.

wbowery · Jul 23, 2016

You can assign a quick key (actually called a system quick key I believe) to each tower you have in your scanner. Your 396XT will still pick up all the talk groups you have running, but only off of the one tower of your choice.

I am line-of-sight to the sole MARCS tower centrally located in my county, so the local police and sheriff come in great. Neighboring county stuff is hit-or-miss, so if I want to monitor them for a while I use that tower's quick key.

In my Freescan MARCS-IP file, entries marked MP25 are the towers. I assigned each one a different quick key to allow listening to just one, several or all towers at the same time.

pplaugher · Jul 25, 2016

Using just one tower seems to have fixed the problem, thanks!

wa8pyr · Jul 25, 2016

pplaugher said:
Using just one tower seems to have fixed the problem, thanks!

I'm assuming it's the one you picked, but the best bet is to use the tower site in the county seat (or closest to the dispatch center, usually located in the county seat). That one will most likely always have the Sheriff on it.

In your case that's Eaton, and there is an Eaton tower site, so that would be the most likely site for the Sheriff to always show up on.

pplaugher · Jul 25, 2016

The only problem with the Eaton tower site is that it's actually in Darke County, near New Madison. The closest tower to Eaton is the West Alexandria tower. I've actually never assigned quick keys to a tower site, I'm wondering if I put all the tower sites in adjoining counties into the same system if you could turn on and off the tower sites using a quick key, and if so how to do that?

Thanx again for all the help!

Nasby · Jul 25, 2016

Nasby · Jul 25, 2016

pplaugher said:
The only problem with the Eaton tower site is that it's actually in Darke County, near New Madison. The closest tower to Eaton is the West Alexandria tower. I've actually never assigned quick keys to a tower site, I'm wondering if I put all the tower sites in adjoining counties into the same system if you could turn on and off the tower sites using a quick key, and if so how to do that?

Thanx again for all the help!

Yep. That's the way a lot of Uniden users set up their systems with quick keys.

Just read this and follow the instructions and you'll be all set:

Uniden Scanners Systems, Sites and Groups - The RadioReference Wiki

wbowery · Jul 26, 2016

pplaugher said:
The only problem with the Eaton tower site is that it's actually in Darke County, near New Madison. The closest tower to Eaton is the West Alexandria tower. I've actually never assigned quick keys to a tower site, I'm wondering if I put all the tower sites in adjoining counties into the same system if you could turn on and off the tower sites using a quick key, and if so how to do that?

Thanx again for all the help!

In Freescan, find the entries on your MARCS IP system marked MP25. Click on it, and under Quick Key pulldown, assign it a quick key. Do this for each MP25 (tower site), using different quick keys for each site. Save the file and send it to your scanner.

To turn a system on or off, simply press the quick key number on your scanner while the scanner is in scan mode. If the quick key you used is higher than 9, press the "no" key followed by the two digit quick key.

One consideration - be sure to use quick keys that aren't assigned to other systems already. You can use Freescan to download from your scanner to check for quick keys already assigned.

wa8pyr · Jul 26, 2016

wbowery said:
In Freescan, find the entries on your MARCS IP system marked MP25. Click on it, and under Quick Key pulldown, assign it a quick key. Do this for each MP25 (tower site), using different quick keys for each site. Save the file and send it to your scanner.

To turn a system on or off, simply press the quick key number on your scanner while the scanner is in scan mode. If the quick key you used is higher than 9, press the "no" key followed by the two digit quick key.

One consideration - be sure to use quick keys that aren't assigned to other systems already. You can use Freescan to download from your scanner to check for quick keys already assigned.

I've personally never been a big fan of assigning quick keys to sites; I find it works better to assign the QK to a particular "system."

What I've found works best is to create a "system" including the sites I can hear well from my location (the fewer the better, as monitoring more sites means the radio has to stop on more control channels), and the talkgroups I want to monitor. In your case, that would be the Eaton and West Alex sites (if you can receive them both), and whatever Preble County talkgroups you want to listen to. Assign the Quick Key to the "Preble County" system, and group keys to the talkgroup lists.

I usually create a "system" for local fire, another for local police, still another for public works, and so on. It duplicates site entries, but it's a lot easier to use a Quick Key to turn fire, or police, or public service on/off at will.

wbowery · Jul 26, 2016

wa8pyr said:
I've personally never been a big fan of assigning quick keys to sites; I find it works better to assign the QK to a particular "system."

What I've found works best is to create a "system" including the sites I can hear well from my location (the fewer the better, as monitoring more sites means the radio has to stop on more control channels), and the talkgroups I want to monitor. In your case, that would be the Eaton and West Alex sites (if you can receive them both), and whatever Preble County talkgroups you want to listen to. Assign the Quick Key to the "Preble County" system, and group keys to the talkgroup lists.

I usually create a "system" for local fire, another for local police, still another for public works, and so on. It duplicates site entries, but it's a lot easier to use a Quick Key to turn fire, or police, or public service on/off at will.

Since I live in Podunk, I just choose a specific tower or two to monitor - usually my local one in Middle Point. Then I use group quick keys assigned by county to select which counties I will listen to (OSP has their own group quick key. I turn them on if the SO is requested to back them up or vice versa). If something big happens around here, all agencies in the county will likely be involved anyway.

MarcsIP help, BCD996XT

pplaugher

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W8RMH

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rcool101

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radioscan

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pplaugher

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swcscott

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W8RMH

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wbowery

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pplaugher

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wa8pyr

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pplaugher

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Nasby

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wbowery

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wa8pyr

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