Lexington/Richland P25 questions

Proud (but dazed) new owner of BCD436HP. Longtime scanner enthusiast, have owned mobile and base, all Uniden, and am IT-advanced, but this baby is a radical change. I was hoping one of the many experts on here who are in my area can give me some tips, pointers, etc to maximize what comes through in these two counties. I have the latest firmware (1.11.31) and Sentinel 1.0.7 v05. Bought Diamond SRH77CA whip and Procomm Mini Magnet Mount Mobile antennas. Questions: (apologies for length, but figured I'd get it all out at once)

1) After reading several posts on general BCD436HP/P25 issues, I've set the Threshold to Manual and set it at 8. I did notice some improvement. What's the best way to find the optimal setting? Test each of them one by one?

2) I've reduced the site frequency to only the control channel (per RRDB), again with some improvement. However, 5 bars don't stay static -- they display, then blank, then display, etc., with no regular rhythm. Does this indicate it's not getting a constant capture/lock on the cc? If so, how can I improve that?

3) Home and work are within both the Lexington County Simulcast circle and the Richland County one. At home, closer to Lex, at work Rich. While at home should I put both control frequencies and hope it locks on the stronger of the two? How about while driving from one to the other? Will it transition to the strongest one?

4) Display under "ID Scanning" alternates between DAT and blank... occasionally LNK will flash. When transmissions are heard, it generally shows P25. What is the meaning/significance of these?

5) Something odd I've noticed, that I only found reference to in one other post, is that (it seems) when I press the Function button, control channel is acquired for a varying period of time. Anything to this or just my (and that other user's) imagination?

6) Lastly, usability preferences -- I've currently got one FL, under which is one System. Under that System, I have several Departments and one Site. One of the Departments is Lexington County, which has all services in it -- EMS, Police, Fire, etc. I believe that if I leave it like this, there's no way to listen to just Fire, or just Police, or both Fire & Police but nothing else, etc. Wouldn't I be better off making Departments with the various things I might want to listen to individually and assign QKs to them? Then I could toggle on/off easily. Yes/No? Other suggestions?

Thanks very much in advance!

I'm not a Uniden guy, so I'm useless trying to answer most of your questions. But I'll offer a few comments;

- As you know, scanners struggle with P25 Simulcast systems/sites, and both Lexington and Richland are simulcast. So your inconsistent reception referenced in #2 is consistent with that issue. The best solution is to find a location for the radio that strengthens signal from one tower location and nulls out the other tower locations. (Note that a single "site", ie Richland Simulcast, has multiple "tower locations" all of which transmit the same audio on the same frequencies at the same time, hence there is no way to distinguish one from another). How do you determine that location? Trial and error. Since your scanner (and your ear) can't tell one tower location from another, it's purely moving and testing.

- Sometimes less signal (and therefore antenna) is better because it helps to attenuate the less strong tower locations. Again, trial and error. In most cases, I use the RS (no Remtronix) 800MHz duck antenna. It's a stellar performer on 800. That may or may not help. Your SRH77CA is a 2m/70cm antenna that's not optimized for 800. Having a few different antennas to try can be helpful.

- Regarding programming Richland vs Lexington simulcast sites, the key is to know which sites carry the talkgroups you want to hear. Again, this is determined by some listening research. It may be that the Lexington talkgroups you want to hear aren't carried on the Richland site, and the Richland Co talkgroups you want to hear aren't carried on the Lexington site. You have no control over which talkgroups are carried on particular sites. So, if you want to hear Lexington talkgroups while at work, you'll need to keep that site programmed and active to hear those talkgroups. Same is true for Richland.

In general, SCHP, Medical Helicopter, and other such agencies will be carried on both sites, but not always.

If you're ever in range of other neighboring sites like Harbison, Salley, Sandy Run, etc, you may find that you have better decode from these non-simulcast sites and they might carry the talkgroups you're interested in. Most folks will set their radios up so that they can control the sites they listen to for this very reason.

Again, I'm not familiar with specific Uniden issues, hopefully someone else will chime in on those questions. But I hope this information will give you some insight into some of your inquiries.

Brian

If you can get a decent signal, I suggest making the Harbison site your primary monitoring site as it carries most Lexington County and Richland County talkgroups. You will not experience the same simulcast issues that you do with the Lexington and Richland sites. Otherwise, you will have loads of frustration trying to find the perfect spot where the 436 decodes well.

I will also take the opportunity to plug the Unication G5- it decodes beautifully on P25 simulcast sites and I haven't regretted the purchase one time.

Brian and Evan-

Thanks very much for quick replies and advice!

Never would have occurred to me to try the Harbison site, so that's a valuable tip.

@Brian, RS800 was also my choice but it was out of stock and, as I'm sure you know, when you get a new toy, waiting just won't do... I should hopefully be getting it soon. Re the TGs, I just presumed (again, in my relative ignorance of the technology) that both would carry the other's TGs given the close proximity and potential interoperability. Thanks for the heads-up. I'll see if I can find some info on that in the Google-sphere...

Sounds like it might be best to set up a Richland FL and a Lexington FL, each with the services I know for sure will be carried by it, and then duplicate the schp, med helo, etc... Question about the control channels -- would I put both lex and rich CC's in each site (thinking that it will lock into the strongest), or only the lex CC in the lex site and same with rich?

Related -- is there any visual cue that it has captured/locked the control channel?

@Evan, noted re the Unication, thanks. I'll have a look and maybe put it on 2018 Christmas list...

Thanks again!

Again, I can't answer specific questions about your radio model. But I can give some clues.

RS OEM'd the 800MHz duck antenna. It's now available under the Remtronix brand name, available from a number of different retailers. A google search will turn it up I'm sure. Just remember that a better antenna may make your situation WORSE because you'll have more signal from the various tower locations to cause problems. Trial and error is the only way to figure it out.

The whole reason for having simulcast sites is so that radios can associate with one (logical) "site" (say, for instance, the Lexington County simulcast site) and stay associated with that site over a relatively large area (the entire county). They can also travel into Richland County but stay on the Lexington site given the overlap in coverage. Same is true in Richland. This helps minimize the total number of required frequencies to be used in the area. So, again, generally speaking, there probably isn't a lot of site roaming allowed for county agencies between the sites. If there was, multiple frequencies would be used for the same transmission in the same area, eating up valuable RF resources.

I'm sure that there are interoperability plans in place for the agencies to talk to each other. I don't know exactly what those are or how they work.

You would not want to mix the control channels of both sites within the same "FL" (again, I'm not that familiar with the Uniden way of doing things, so that might not make sense). You may wind up with the scanner tuned to the Richland CC and never hear anything on the Lexington talkgroups, and vice versa. You'll miss traffic, at worst, and slow down effective scan speed, at best, by trying to monitor both sites.

But you could throw in the CC for Harbinson to both lists, and that way your radio would "roam" to Harbison when you're within range.

Hope that helps.

Awesome -- you've clarified some of the simulcast confusion for me, which will allow me to better program the radio. Thanks very much!

Will definitely include Harbison -- hopefully close enough to pick it up.

What you say about the control channels makes sense -- and when I said interoperability, I meant exactly what you refer to; driving into the other's area. I forgot that interoperability has a specific meaning...

Your help is much appreciated, and your work on this site especially so. Keep up the great work!

Hey Scanguru and welcome to the uniden family, i also live in Lexington, work in Richland and use a BCD436HP so my setup is very similar to yours. I am still working out programming but I should have my file completed this weekend and I can send it to you if you would like.

On the old pal8 system I had my radio setup:
1 - Lexington Site
1.1 - Lex Fire
1.2 - Lex EMS
1.3 - Lex PDs
1.4 - SCHP etc etc etc
2 - Richland Site
2.1 - Columbia FIre
2.2 - Richland EMS
2.3 - Columbia PD
2.4 - Richland Sheriff etc etc etc

that way i could just turn bank 1 on for lexington or bank 2 on for richland and i duplicated all the talk groups in each bank so I could still listen to whichever agency i prefer since a lot are carried on both sites.

I also programmed Harbison CC into both the Richland and Lexington Sites but set it to Avoid and would only unlock it when i traveled to the Harbison area.

The sites are very interesting right now if you do ID Search because Richland Site is carrying all Richland traffic plus Kershaw County and the Lexington site is carrying Lexington, Orangeburg, & Aiken county traffic and I'm also picking up Greenwood Co EMS currently, not sure if they have a unit int he area affiliated to the site or if it is just currently doing it since they just switched over a couple days ago.

Hey Caesar-

Wow, small world! Sounds like a carbon copy of my situation! Yep, what you describe is exactly what I envision -- the ability to turn on and off various groups. Believe I'll have to redo my current, since Number Tags don't work for what I want. I need Quick Keys, and will prob do just as you have from the old Pal800, with QKs assigned for each one.

Interesting about the Harbison frequency and the avoid -- I may PM you, if you don't mind, to discuss further.

Speaking of the Harbison site, it ROCKS! Many thanks to **Brian** for that suggestion -- huge difference, and, just as he said, none of the simulcast issues I was experiencing. I had rock-solid Rx all the way to work and back. Unfortunately, reception at home is weak, so I'm hoping the RS800 will resolve that.

Kind of you to offer your list -- looking forward to it! I'm sure between the two of us we can come up with the perfect setup.

Didn't realize Lex carried all that traffic -- definitely have to spend some search time, and overnight Discovery with logging and recording.

Thanks again for reaching out.