NXDN: What am I doing?

OK, I purchased the NXDN upgrade from Uniden and installed it, I have a county that borders my county here in Northeast Georgia; Banks County that has been using NXDN for a while. Their nearest repeater is about 10 miles from me.

I tried to manually input their frequencies into my scanner but didn't seem to have any luck so I decided to wait unit they were in the RR database and Sentinel. Yesterday I did the firmware update and then the latest Sentinel update and now Banks County shows up as NXDN in Sentinel. So I write everything to my scanner and even though they show up properly I haven't heard a peep out of them for 6 or 7 hours straight.

Shouldn't I be able to pick up their repeater at 10 miles away? Have I missed some simple settings? I know they've had SOME traffic in the 6 or so hours I've been listening. What gives? Any ideas?

twotoejoe said:

Shouldn't I be able to pick up their repeater at 10 miles away? Have I missed some simple settings? I know they've had SOME traffic in the 6 or so hours I've been listening. What gives? Any ideas?

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Newer radio systems typically use directional antennas to minimize the amount of signal that leaks out of the intended coverage area. So that repeater may be using a directional antenna aimed away from you. Also, depending on terrain between you and the repeater, there's a good chance you'll need an outdoor antenna raised above your roof and nearby trees to pick up a signal 10 miles away, even if the repeater is not using a directional antenna.

You have the service types of law dispatch, law tac, and multi-dispatch enabled, right?

You wrote that "they show up properly" - where? On Sentinal, or on the scanner?

Are all the lcn’s correct?
Have you tried running lcn finder?
A lot of the nxdn systems in rr do not have the correct lcn’s listed and without the correct lcn’s your not gonna get anything



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I looked at the site locations for the Banks County system. Only one tower MAY have coverage for Clarkesville, and that is the Baldwin tower. Try programming just the control channel and frequencies for the Baldwin tower (453.3375c, 453.44375, 453.55625, 453.7625) and see what you get.

wbswetnam said:

I looked at the site locations for the Banks County system. Only one tower MAY have coverage for Clarkesville, and that is the Baldwin tower. Try programming just the control channel and frequencies for the Baldwin tower (453.3375c, 453.44375, 453.55625, 453.7625) and see what you get.

Click to expand...

Will still need to run lcn finder after entering these also



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Encrypted??

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kbod9633 said:

Are all the lcn’s correct?
Have you tried running lcn finder?
A lot of the nxdn systems in rr do not have the correct lcn’s listed and without the correct lcn’s your not gonna get anything



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

Running LCN finder for the Baldwin Repeater now. They are not encrypted, unless they just started within the last couple of weeks. Posters on here with other scanners w/NXDN capability have been listening to them recently.

I may have to go mobile and travel to close to the repeater and just wait for some traffic to verify everything is working properly.

If the NXDN your are looking at is a business it may only be active during business hours.

The new SDS100 has a readout choice for LCN but I do not know if it only shows you the LCNs you have already found and/or can detect new ones. For that matter I don't know if it will record it someplace if it does find a new LCN (have not checked it out yet).

I mention this since some people only have one scanner and this may keep you from tying up your only scanner doing an LCN search (if it works the way I hope it does).

It appears to only show LCNs that have already been discovered. It will not show LCNs for trunked channels that have been programmed conventionally.

jonwienke said:

It appears to only show LCNs that have already been discovered. It will not show LCNs for trunked channels that have been programmed conventionally.

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Thanks Jon, this will save me some time.

I put the scanner in my truck today with a roof top antenna. I drove down to the Baldwin area (very small town) and spent a couple of hours with the scanner only scanning the Banks County NXDN channels. Even though Banks is a small Georgia County, it has a major interstate dissecting the county along with a major 441 4 lane divided highway that intersect in the county. There is a huge outlet mall at this intersection that encompasses both sides of the intersection. I would think there would have been SOME traffic during this time. Nothing. Nada. I'm confused.

Were you running LCN finder, or just monitoring?

jonwienke said:

Were you running LCN finder, or just monitoring?

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I ran the LCN finder for about 15 minutes for the Baldwin Repeater and then went back to monitoring the Banks County System ONLY. No luck.

Just curious; when traveling am I going to have to run the LCN finder to receive NXDN systems when using the GPS attachment on a trip? Makes it kind of useless if this is the case.

A lot of the nxdn systems in the database don’t have the correct lcn’s yet
As you find correct lcn’s send the updates to the database

Then yours and my gps setup will work great [emoji16]



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twotoejoe said:

I ran the LCN finder for about 15 minutes for the Baldwin Repeater and then went back to monitoring the Banks County System ONLY. No luck.

Just curious; when traveling am I going to have to run the LCN finder to receive NXDN systems when using the GPS attachment on a trip? Makes it kind of useless if this is the case.

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Unless it's a busy system, 15 minutes may not be enough. I've seen some users say hours or longer.


If you tried on some school bus systems this time of year it might be months

phask said:

Unless it's a busy system, 15 minutes may not be enough. I've seen some users say hours or longer.

If you tried on some school bus systems this time of year it might be months

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How quickly the LCN finder works depends largely on how active the system is (obviously, decent signal strength for reception matters as well).

If the system is not very busy, which may well be the case in the evening or perhaps weekends (depending on who uses the system), it may take a while for the conversation to roll down to and through all the LCNs. On the other hand, if its extremely busy, you may not get an accurate read.

There's one local NXDN system that took a long period (overnight into the next day) for the LCNs to be verified on its sites. While it is a public safety system, it's used by three of the smaller suburbs in my area, each with their own site.

As phask noted, if it's a NXDN TRS belonging to a school district, you may be waiting for a while. Summer recess is definitely not 'rush hour' for radio usage.

I thought I was clear but maybe I was not. This is the Banks County Public Safety system, with channels assigned to the Sheriff, fire, rescue, ambulance, etc. Small County but a major Interstate highway along with a divided 4 lane US Highway intersect in the middle of the county. This intersection has created a small 'city' of it's own, with an outlet mall, every fast food outlet imaginable plus hotels, truck stops and the Atlanta Dragway is located right off this exit. So they 'should' have fairly constant traffic.

I drove down to Baldwin to a store to do my weekly shopping today that was about 200 yards from where I tower is that I think the repeater is on. I turned the LCN finder on to the Banks system-Baldwin repeater about 15 minutes before I arrived. I was in the store for over 1 hour and left in on in my truck and again for about 15 minutes on my way home. Nothing again.

I still don't understand the GPS deal. The Banks County NXDN system ALREADY shows up in the RR database in Sentinel. It also shows all their repeaters with does include the one in Baldwin. I thought that was what you looked up the LCN for, was to find the repeatersl Confused??

twotoejoe said:

I thought that was what you looked up the LCN for, was to find the repeaters

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NO.

LCN is the mapping between channel numbers (broadcast on the control channel) and actual site frequencies. If you don't have them programmed, the scanner doesn't know what frequency to go to when the control channel says that a voice call is on channel 13. If the LCNs are programmed for a site, the scanner can look up LCN 13 in the site data, see the actual frequency, and then tune to that frequency. If not, the scanner has no way to know what frequency to tune to. So if the LCNs aren't programmed, or programmed incorrectly, you will never hear any traffic.

GPS tells the scanner where it is, so it knows which sites and systems are within scanning range.

Here's something to make ALL your lives a little easier with NEXEDGE trunking systems - 99.5% of all North American systems follow this channel ID table.

Put in all repeater outputs shown on the license (usually listed as 'FB2' or 'FB8'), and the number next to the frequency is what goes in the 'LCN' box in Sentinel. Even if some of the channels might not be in use at the moment, the control channel calls the assignment by the channel ID (very similar to the way a Motorola Type-II system does). No need to spend hours or days on low-traffic systems anymore...

Take a look at this site here in NJ for a better description: https://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?siteId=31641