closecall vs. spectrumsweeper

This is probably a moot point,from a Uniden lover. On my wish list, a more sensitive closecall, like on a par with spectrumsweeper. This is where Whistler/gre, shined.

This is an update to what I had originally posted, in the sds100 thread. Today, I took a ride to Sandy hook park, in coastal Jersey. This is under the JFK airport tracon. I had my bc246xt hooked up to a mag mount all band antenna, on my car. It was crushing the closecall from aircrafr on 128.125 mhz. I was quite happy with the performance.

That reminds me, I've been intending on cruising around Selfridge ANGB to see if I can detect what they're currently using form ground based communications. Most of what's listed in RR's database is obsolete.

You can't park too close, but no law against driving around the place a few times!

Already discussed here:
https://forums.radioreference.com/u.../339896-close-call-dmr-freqs.html#post2919926

Nearfield receivers are only so sensitive. Maybe Discovery would be more appropriate for your purposes.

I'm about 7 miles from one airport and disable commercial aircraft because I typically get a lot of close call hits.

With spectrumsweeper, inside the house, I would get constant aircraft. With close call, I will not. Yes, I understand how each react.

My aircraft closecall range increase from 1 mile to 10 miles using a FM broadcast filter.

/Ubbe

Ubbe said:

My aircraft closecall range increase from 1 mile to 10 miles using a FM broadcast filter.

/Ubbe

Click to expand...

I read somewhere here that CloseCall is affected by the noise floor, so that makes sense. FM broadcast is very close to AM air. I believe FM can be blocked on the scanner too.

Close Call hits happen when a signal is about 18dB stronger than any other signal in that band.

I still like the idea of two settings for close call one for city where the noise floor is higher and one for country where the noise floor is lower. Either that or it triggers 18db/9db above? Just a wish list thing.

18 dB is just how it works. That's the weakest the nearfield receiver will detect.

It's an industry standard $10 frequency counter chip. It needs a clean signal to be able to calculate the frequency. If two signals are equally strong it would mess up the timing calculation completly. When all other signals decreases in strenght it will be easier to get a steady reading and a 18dB difference are probably what the quality of that simple frequency counter chip can handle to give an accurate frequency measurement.

It could probably be possible to reduce the difference some dB but then the frequencies would be unpredictable at times and we would be upset that the CC frequency doesn't match what actually are being transmitted. Uniden have set a duration timer for 1 second, or close to it, that the frequency reading must be consistant to trigger a closecall but if they reduce it to 0,5 sec it would trigger much more often but with some readings being off so far that you wouldn't hear anything on that frequency.

/Ubbe

I have a stand alone fq.counter, but it has no audio alert, so it's a pita.