Any Analog At All Still Used In Elizabeth, Linden, or Westfield?

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Analogrules

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Since I removed most of the older analog frequencies out of my scanner, I was just wondering if there is any comms still heard on 154.860, 155.835, or any of the old Linden or Westfield channels? Should I even bother putting these frequencies back into the scanner?
 

scannersnstuff

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Ben, put them back in scanner. scan them for for about a month, and go from there. don't give up right away.
 

Analogrules

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Ok. Will do. Just curious if anyone has heard anything at all on those channels since the switchover.
 

RadioDitch

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Westfield Fire as of last week (last time I was in town), was still using 476.825 for recall/callmen pagers. Linden maintain theirs as fallback, but they see no activity at the moment. Elizabeth was maintaining theirs for fallback, but the appropriate user will likely chime in with more accurate info on EPD.
 

Analogrules

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Thanks Radioditch. I sold my bcd436 because I think digital sounds like total crap in general, so was just wondering what is left to monitor in those towns. An EMS buddy told me that Westfield repeater is still up and working, but Linden's and Elizabeth's analog repeaters are currently down/offline.
 

RadioDitch

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Thanks Radioditch. I sold my bcd436 because I think digital sounds like total crap in general, so was just wondering what is left to monitor in those towns. An EMS buddy told me that Westfield repeater is still up and working, but Linden's and Elizabeth's analog repeaters are currently down/offline.

Digital sounds fine, just not on a scanner. And that's the issue.
 

ansky

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Digital sounds fine, just not on a scanner. And that's the issue.

The biggest factor in how good digital sounds is reception. Digital sounds fine on a scanner when you have really solid reception. If you're in a fringe area then it's likely the transmissions will sound garbled, assuming you can pick up anything at all. It's much easier to listen to distant/weaker frequencies on analog.
 

GM

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My experience with all of the digital Uniden scanners I've owned in the past/present (BC250D, BC296D, BCD436HP, and BCD325P2) has been that P25 (both Phase 1 and 2) sound a bit muffled, even after adjusting settings, etc. The worst sounding digital with the scanners mentioned above for me was on the BCD436HP, though P25 on the BCD325P2 does sound superior.

N2ZGE, maybe a GRE/Whistler or a Radio Shack P25 Phase 2 scanner might be better luck with reception? I have a friend of mine that resides in Elizabeth that uses a Radio Shack Pro 668 with the Whistler 1080 firmware update and his scanner sounds much crisper and clearer than my BCD325P2, both on P25 and DMR digital modes. Maybe that might be a better choice for monitoring the NJ ICS than the BCD436HP?
 

RadioDitch

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The biggest factor in how good digital sounds is reception. Digital sounds fine on a scanner when you have really solid reception. If you're in a fringe area then it's likely the transmissions will sound garbled, assuming you can pick up anything at all. It's much easier to listen to distant/weaker frequencies on analog.

Scanners just can't adequately handle digital transmissions with weak signal, or even moderate signal on some systems. It's an inherent flaw. Same as their issues with LSM. Commercial radios will always be king when it comes to digital. That was my point.
 

GTR8000

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There are some who are on an endless crusade to trash any form of digital modulation. The OP has a long history of making disparaging comments about digital whenever possible, so his comments in this thread are nothing new. At a certain point, it becomes an exercise in futility arguing with them, regardless of the facts.

The same facts, by the way, which many who argue against digital don't possess. Instead they often rely on badly outdated data and reports; anecdotal "evidence"; or their own disappointing experience using consumer grade receivers, whose performance will always be sub-par as compared with public safety grade transceivers.
 

slingshot202

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I've heard the Elizabeth fire channels from time to time from the fire academy or fire training but blocked most analog since just don't want duplicate scanning.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
 

Analogrules

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Thanks for all of your feedback. Perhaps Elizabeth and Linden will keep their FCC licenses since they may just continue using their old frequencies for academy chatter. However, would this be allowed anyway since the FCC supposedly wants to knock everyone off the Tband in the future? Will they keep renewing these licenses anyway? Just curious.
 

GM

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As a personal preference, I always keep all licensed freqs by the agencies I monitor in the scan pattern. An example recently occurred in East Brunswick where there was an incident, and fire ops were told to "switch to low band to keep the air clear" on the digital trunked system. So I would highly suggest that the old analog freqs be programmed in your scanner (but perhaps in a separate bank as I have them) just in case this happens where you are.
 
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