STARCOM21 Cook County North NWCD - Evanston transmitters now active?

Hello to all,

A few weeks ago, I drove down Sheridan Rd from Lake Cook Rd into the city trying to see how well STARCOM21 could be received on the BCD436HP. I held it most of the way down to Evanston, but then lost it around downtown Evanston and never got it back.

When I came home, I looked up the transmitter locations, I found two licenses that looked like they included transmitters in downtown Evanston:

https://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?fccCallsign=WQRP741
https://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?fccCallsign=WQRD266

I see as part of those licenses that there is a transmitter location at Tower Rd and Sheridan, so that explained why I heard the system for most of the trip down Sheridan Rd.

However, I couldn't figure out why I couldn't hear STARCOM21 in downtown Evanston if the transmitter location was right there? I know the BCD436HP has issues with digital simulcast reception, but my experience throughout the rest of the NW suburbs with this site was that I could pretty much receive STARCOM21 whenever I was within a few miles of a transmitter location.

Last night, I was in downtown Evanston with the SDS100 and STARCOM21 was coming in like a champ. The RSSI was as high as -65dB in spots driving around so it appeared that the Evanston transmitter location was active. This morning I went out to Pratt Beach on the pier (where you can see downtown Evanston) and I was able to receive STARCOM21 without an antenna at -91db. So I'm pretty confident that the Evanston transmitter location is active at this point.

What I'm wondering is if anyone knows if the Evanston transmitter location has just become active, or has it been active all along? I didn't have my BCD436HP with me last night so I couldn't check it and the SDS100 side-by-side to see if there was a difference.

Figured I'd ask on here in case anyone on here had some insight.


Thanks!

Justin

Starcom21 #149?

Nothing wrong with #149 on my G5 Pager. There are years worth of posts about Starcom21 and P25 scanners. A few years back I took my WS1080 up through Glenview IL for a Sr. Pro Golf Tourney. Zilch on Starcom21. It was terrible everywhere I went when it came to P25 Simulcast. Even my old Pro96 did that far better. The WS1080 needs a yagi directional antenna at home to get anything. Mobile with the Unidens or Whistlers of the last 3 years or so? forget it, complete hit and miss. They get wiped out by Simulcast distortion or "bit error" for Simulcast systems like Starcom21. I gave up and bought a Unication G5 Pager and never looked back. Perfect P25 everywhere I've been for Starcom21 statewide from Rock Island to Peoria to Streator IL to Chicago or Rockford with no outside antenna in my car. The right tool for the right job is best. I'm very happy Uniden and Whistler are moving forward to address the P25 simulcast problems we all had over the last several years. The new scanners/gossip are promising

Sounds like that pager/scanner is excellent BUT, how do you hold or can you hold on a TG, can you employ as many P25 Systems as you want....TY

I was in the area around Northwestern University on Sunday and I decided to take a little listen to Site 149 using my PSR-500 and got a strong, reliable signal.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

I’ll have to go back up to the downtown Evanston area with the BCD436HP and see if there’s a difference now. Then it will definitely be an apples-to-apples comparison.

Was just curious if anyone had known specifically about any new transmitter locations coming on-board that were licensed but not yet active.

Either way it sounds like there’s something in Evanston so that’s good for us on the north side of Chicago!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Evanston Starcom21 down/up?

@RoninJoliet -- The Pagers do have a slight natural delay in microseconds. Can't remember what it was. SO you don't have to worry a lot about "holding" on a talkgroup with only 64 talkgroups per knob position. You don't miss a lot unless you load that knob position up with a ton of busy things. I did and actually have become used to the rapid fire coverage compared to my old WS1080 with it's SLOWwwwww scan speeds of the scanlists. I miss far more using a regular scanner than with this pager that doesn't YET have an actual "hold" button. I'm addicted to how fast it is and how much I hear in comparison. Simple programming beats the need for a Hold group. For example. I have ISP 2-5-15-Chicago, Local FIRE all on one knob. When I hear something I want to isolate? like a chase? or FIRE? I click fast to the knob position or ZONE where I have programmed IN ONLY each ISP .. 2 -5 -15 -CHI I listen to that until the event is over. I have all FIRE on one Knob position too. I rarely listen to my old scanners now because they're so slow going through long lists *where I thought that was better* somehow* even turning off most scanlists doesn't compare to the fast 64 talkgroups being scanned. I like it this way. So programming can get around the need for "HOLD" It would be nice for Unication to add one, but I don't mind. AS far as many P25 systems? you could add up to 256 CONTROL CHANNELS it says on the Unication site. So You could set up say "STARCOM21 the IL statewide site up to that many frequencies and set it for wildcard talkgroups in certain ZONES on the pager with different knob settings. As you travel, you'll hear everything when you come in range of the Starcom21 Control channels (encryption too) sadly. That is the only downside I feel. One has to remember this PAGER isn't a scanner for hobbyists. It's a professional grade pager/monitor for 1st responders who want to listen to just a few talkgroups on the scene. It's not designed to be a scanner with hold/pause/lockouts etc. Even with those things, I have been more than happy using it. What a pleasure, no dropouts or garbled BS where you KNOW the P25 Simulcast system is working. It has only gotten better since I purchased it in bluetooth sound and all around performance with each new firmware. It's what scanning should have been. Like I said though, I'm happy Uniden and Whistler are addressing P25 Simulcast finally with new units coming out. It will take a lot for me to give the G5 up though

My understanding is that, for at least the Uniden models and I have to imagine the Whistler ones as well, the amount of talkgroups in your talkgroup list doesn't affect its performance at scanning a given site. The control channel spits out the active talkgroup(s), the frequency its on and the scanner checks to see if it's in your list, not locked out, or if you're in "ID Search" mode and voila! If it had to scan the list like a conventional system you'd never hear anything

Now it is flipping back to the control channel to check for transmissions after each talkgroup transmission ends so there could be some lag there. Also, if you have multiple sites you're scanning for a given system it has to hit each of the control channels, check for traffic you're interested in then switch the appropriate frequency to receive it but that should happen within milliseconds. The amount of time spent checking each site for traffic is set in the programming so if you're scanning multiple sites plus a conventional system or two there will be a greater chance for missed conversations.

My StarCom "favorites list" has 85 departments, probably 1500ish talkgroups and almost 14,000 radio IDs alpha tagged (To which I had to create a separate favorites list because I went over the max file size if I had any other systems in it) and if I hold on the local tower I'm not missing any traffic (watching Pro96Com to see each transmission) due to the size of that system.

Thanks to you guys for very good info....

So to try to compare apples-to-apples, I brought the BCD436HP with me in the car driving around Skokie and then by downtown Evanston where I lost STARCOM21 reception a few weeks ago.

The difference is dramatic now. I had no problems copying the 01-049 site in downtown Evanston anymore and the signal was full-strength even without an antenna. In fact, I'm now able to hear the site reliably now within 3-4 miles of the transmitter location in Evanston with minimal simulcast distortion only on the fringes.

I've noticed over the past few days that I can now hear this site in multiple places in my home now whereas before there wasn't a single spot where it worked. At home I do have problems with simulcast distortion so it's not flawless, but I found a "sweet spot" for my antenna where I can copy 75-80% of the traffic on my BCD536HP. I'll take that over 0%!

So, based on all these facts, especially how I can now receive this site at home on the non-SDS100 scanners (even the Whistlers are starting to hear it now too), I'm gonna guess that this transmitter location just went live in the past week.

Maybe some of you have more information on this, but I'm wondering if Evanston and/or Skokie Police/Fire (or other Northshore suburbs) have plans to migrate over to STARCOM21 and maybe this transmitter location going live is part of that kind of plan? I think they're on UHF-T at the moment and I know a bunch of public safety agencies are scrambling to get off UHF-T since they're going to be losing that spectrum usage over the next few years.

Wondering what you all think?

Skokie and Lincolnwood PD's have already transitioned to SC21 and are ENC. I last heard activity on their UHF freq on Sunday when I was in Skokie and Evanston. Yesterday, I tuned into their freq (Net-21) for an hour and heard nothing. Evanston PD/FD is still using their analog frequencies.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

Oh wow, so they have! I heard them on analog last month but I didn't listen to them often so I didn't realize they had moved. Looks like it may have happened in the past couple of days. Bummer to see so many local agencies going encrypted though.

How does SC21 sound on your SDS100 from other locations around the city and burbs?

Would you recommend purchasing the SDS100?

justinkmunger said:

Hello to all,

A few weeks ago, I drove down Sheridan Rd from Lake Cook Rd into the city trying to see how well STARCOM21 could be received on the BCD436HP. I held it most of the way down to Evanston, but then lost it around downtown Evanston and never got it back.

When I came home, I looked up the transmitter locations, I found two licenses that looked like they included transmitters in downtown Evanston:

https://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?fccCallsign=WQRP741
https://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?fccCallsign=WQRD266

I see as part of those licenses that there is a transmitter location at Tower Rd and Sheridan, so that explained why I heard the system for most of the trip down Sheridan Rd.

However, I couldn't figure out why I couldn't hear STARCOM21 in downtown Evanston if the transmitter location was right there? I know the BCD436HP has issues with digital simulcast reception, but my experience throughout the rest of the NW suburbs with this site was that I could pretty much receive STARCOM21 whenever I was within a few miles of a transmitter location.

Last night, I was in downtown Evanston with the SDS100 and STARCOM21 was coming in like a champ. The RSSI was as high as -65dB in spots driving around so it appeared that the Evanston transmitter location was active. This morning I went out to Pratt Beach on the pier (where you can see downtown Evanston) and I was able to receive STARCOM21 without an antenna at -91db. So I'm pretty confident that the Evanston transmitter location is active at this point.

What I'm wondering is if anyone knows if the Evanston transmitter location has just become active, or has it been active all along? I didn't have my BCD436HP with me last night so I couldn't check it and the SDS100 side-by-side to see if there was a difference.

Figured I'd ask on here in case anyone on here had some insight.


Thanks!

Justin

Click to expand...

jklecyngier said:

How does SC21 sound on your SDS100 from other locations around the city and burbs?

Would you recommend purchasing the SDS100?

Click to expand...

Here's a clip of the SDS100 scanning the Will/Grundy Counties Site:

https://youtu.be/WuvVVBkuYnY

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

jklecyngier said:

How does SC21 sound on your SDS100 from other locations around the city and burbs?

Would you recommend purchasing the SDS100?

Click to expand...

I've had great luck using the scanner in the city the few times I've taken it around. The Cook County South Simulcast system (01-002) has transmitter locations inside the city limits so that's probably the best site to listen to unless you're pretty far north.

Aside from my trip through the north shore suburbs, I've mostly listened to SC21 NWCD site (01-049) on the BCD436HP over a good portion of the NW burbs in Cook County without too much trouble, so I would think the SDS100 would defintely work great, and then some.

From my own experience, if you can get a few blips occasionally of traffic on a scanner like the BCDx36HP or the Whistler TRX-x, the SDS100 should be pretty solid. If you get nothing at all and can't anywhere around where you live, it might receive things marginally at best.

That's not a very scientific description, but hopefully that gives you a rough idea of the improvements, at least what I've seen myself.

I am very happy with the SDS100 because I got it specifically to be able to monitor SC21, and to that end it performs far beyond what I expected. However, because I'm in an RF-dense environment, it's proving to not be a great scanner for general-purpose tuning around. I'm seeing a lot of images from nearby (within 1/2 mile) transmitters showing up in the 450-480 bands. But if I'm scanning a conventional system with tones programmed in, it's not really a problem. I have other scanners/receivers that work great for tuning around for fun.

Hope that info helps!

SOLD! Thanks for your input justin and ILjim.

justinkmunger said:

I've had great luck using the scanner in the city the few times I've taken it around. The Cook County South Simulcast system (01-002) has transmitter locations inside the city limits so that's probably the best site to listen to unless you're pretty far north.

Aside from my trip through the north shore suburbs, I've mostly listened to SC21 NWCD site (01-049) on the BCD436HP over a good portion of the NW burbs in Cook County without too much trouble, so I would think the SDS100 would defintely work great, and then some.

From my own experience, if you can get a few blips occasionally of traffic on a scanner like the BCDx36HP or the Whistler TRX-x, the SDS100 should be pretty solid. If you get nothing at all and can't anywhere around where you live, it might receive things marginally at best.

That's not a very scientific description, but hopefully that gives you a rough idea of the improvements, at least what I've seen myself.

I am very happy with the SDS100 because I got it specifically to be able to monitor SC21, and to that end it performs far beyond what I expected. However, because I'm in an RF-dense environment, it's proving to not be a great scanner for general-purpose tuning around. I'm seeing a lot of images from nearby (within 1/2 mile) transmitters showing up in the 450-480 bands. But if I'm scanning a conventional system with tones programmed in, it's not really a problem. I have other scanners/receivers that work great for tuning around for fun.

Hope that info helps!

Click to expand...

Exactly what he said! LOL