Starcom, the south suburbs and my SDS100

NWI_Scanner_Guy · Jun 20, 2018

Even though I live in Indiana, I work the night shift in Lansing, so I have site 102 programmed into both my 436HP and now my new SDS100 as well. I enjoy listening to the ISP as well as the Pace dispatchers and drivers. Some of those dispatchers are a hoot. LOL!!

Anyways, I thought my 436HP was doing a good job of picking up the different talkgroups I had programmed into a favorites list, along with picking up some "unknowns" while in ID Search mode, but over the past two nights I have found out how poorly the 436 was performing.

I got my SDS100 last Thursday while on vacation, so even though I copied the 436 programming to the SDS100 about 5 minutes after it was out of the box, I didn't turn on the Starcom favorites list until I took it to work with me when I went back this past Monday night. Immediately, I could tell something was up. I was seeing TG descriptions pop up on the screen that I hadn't seen before. The reception was better, and I was seeing a few "new" unknown TG's pop up as well. I noticed the same thing last night while at work, so tonight when I go in, I'm going to take both with me and do some side-by-side comparisons to see just how much better the SDS100 will do on site 102 versus my 436HP.

I did a side-by-side comparison between the two on the Lake County (IN) simulcast system I had some difficulty receiving with the 436, and was blown away by how much better the SDS100 handled the system. While I don't think the differences will be as dramatic with Starcom, based on what I've heard the past two nights, the SDS100 should hear things I suspect the 436 will not.

werinshades · Jun 21, 2018

NWI_Scanner_Guy said:
Even though I live in Indiana, I work the night shift in Lansing, so I have site 102 programmed into both my 436HP and now my new SDS100 as well. I enjoy listening to the ISP as well as the Pace dispatchers and drivers. Some of those dispatchers are a hoot. LOL!!

Anyways, I thought my 436HP was doing a good job of picking up the different talkgroups I had programmed into a favorites list, along with picking up some "unknowns" while in ID Search mode, but over the past two nights I have found out how poorly the 436 was performing.

I got my SDS100 last Thursday while on vacation, so even though I copied the 436 programming to the SDS100 about 5 minutes after it was out of the box, I didn't turn on the Starcom favorites list until I took it to work with me when I went back this past Monday night. Immediately, I could tell something was up. I was seeing TG descriptions pop up on the screen that I hadn't seen before. The reception was better, and I was seeing a few "new" unknown TG's pop up as well. I noticed the same thing last night while at work, so tonight when I go in, I'm going to take both with me and do some side-by-side comparisons to see just how much better the SDS100 will do on site 102 versus my 436HP.

I did a side-by-side comparison between the two on the Lake County (IN) simulcast system I had some difficulty receiving with the 436, and was blown away by how much better the SDS100 handled the system. While I don't think the differences will be as dramatic with Starcom, based on what I've heard the past two nights, the SDS100 should hear things I suspect the 436 will not.

Starcom Site 102 will not be an issue and yes I found out how busy it really is. It was very active today with a shooting on 2 expressways, IDOT with the flood issues, I'm very happy after all these years being able to monitor this system flawlessly.

You mentioned the Lake County system working well, and I'll assume the Safe-T system being much improved? When I go through, it was spotty at best...but I think my next trip through will be different.

I've said it in another thread, but I'll say it here too...save your money up, sell off your others and buy this or the future desktop model I'm sure they're working on...you'll be very satisfied with it's performance.

NWI_Scanner_Guy · Jun 23, 2018

As I expected

werinshades said:
Starcom Site 102 will not be an issue and yes I found out how busy it really is. It was very active today with a shooting on 2 expressways, IDOT with the flood issues, I'm very happy after all these years being able to monitor this system flawlessly.

You mentioned the Lake County system working well, and I'll assume the Safe-T system being much improved? When I go through, it was spotty at best...but I think my next trip through will be different.

I've said it in another thread, but I'll say it here too...save your money up, sell off your others and buy this or the future desktop model I'm sure they're working on...you'll be very satisfied with it's performance.

Well, my side by side test pretty much showed me what I thought it would. Where I thought I was picking up the majority of site-102 transmissions, with my 436HP, in reality it's only about 60% as compared to what the SDS100 picks up. I am definitely hearing more with the new scanner.

The SAFE-T system comes in very well pn both radios. When I have them side by side listening to the system, they seem to hear pretty much all the same TGID's. The SDS100 may lock on to a transmission a fraction of a second sooner, but that's nothing to dis the 436HP over.

werinshades · Jun 23, 2018

NWI_Scanner_Guy said:
Well, my side by side test pretty much showed me what I thought it would. Where I thought I was picking up the majority of site-102 transmissions, with my 436HP, in reality it's only about 60% as compared to what the SDS100 picks up. I am definitely hearing more with the new scanner.

The SAFE-T system comes in very well pn both radios. When I have them side by side listening to the system, they seem to hear pretty much all the same TGID's. The SDS100 may lock on to a transmission a fraction of a second sooner, but that's nothing to dis the 436HP over.

Good to hear on both systems. A new beta firmware was released last night FYI.

RoninJoliet · Jun 23, 2018

This saturday morning I do not have a CC for T102 as of 10:30 am and im using all 5 freqys ??

werinshades · Jun 23, 2018

RoninJoliet said:
This saturday morning I do not have a CC for T102 as of 10:30 am and im using all 5 freqys ??

774.34375..

RoninJoliet · Jun 23, 2018

I had 5 bars on that CC on all my scanners now nothing ?

werinshades · Jun 23, 2018

RoninJoliet said:
I had 5 bars on that CC on all my scanners now nothing ?

I checked the Detailed Trunk feature on the SDS100 and seeing 774.34375 with an RSSI of -68 to -75-db's on a stock antenna by Midway...strong signal.

RoninJoliet · Jun 23, 2018

This is very unusual , its been received since SC started up, they may have Argonne site which I think is what I receive shut down, time will tell....Thank you both for your help will let you know the out come.....

Blunt630 · Jun 25, 2018

Purchased the SDS100 from zip scanners, now comes the the curve ball, what software do I need to program.. I am upgrading from a BCD396XT

jonwienke · Jun 25, 2018

Sentinel.
BCD436HP < UnidenMan4 < TWiki

Or Proscan, which can do both models.
https://www.proscan.org/

NWI_Scanner_Guy · Jun 28, 2018

werinshades said:
Good to hear on both systems. A new beta firmware was released last night FYI.

Yeah, I saw that. I did install it, but the reception is pretty much the same, so I guess my SDS100 wasn't affected by the issues that the beta firmware was released to fix.

werinshades · Jun 28, 2018

NWI_Scanner_Guy said:
Yeah, I saw that. I did install it, but the reception is pretty much the same, so I guess my SDS100 wasn't affected by the issues that the beta firmware was released to fix.

I discovered an issue that might take a few minutes to be noticed. Short transmissions (10-4's, ok etc) were being missed as the scanner switched off the original voice frequency. I reverted back to 1.02.03 and it isn't happening now. Submitted bug reports for both firmwares.

On site 1-002, a District 21 and District 1 radio's are affiliating with the site regularly. I added some surrounding ISP Districts and to my surprise, hearing traffic stops/crashes all the way from I 39 down to I 57 in Iroquois County without any simulcast issues. I'm very impressed with this scanner.

Blunt630 · Jun 28, 2018

I am very impressed with the scanner too. Arrived yesterday, loaded channels and to my surprise I was listening to ISP Dist 19 Carmi.

werinshades said:
I discovered an issue that might take a few minutes to be noticed. Short transmissions (10-4's, ok etc) were being missed as the scanner switched off the original voice frequency. I reverted back to 1.02.03 and it isn't happening now. Submitted bug reports for both firmwares.

On site 1-002, a District 21 and District 1 radio's are affiliating with the site regularly. I added some surrounding ISP Districts and to my surprise, hearing traffic stops/crashes all the way from I 39 down to I 57 in Iroquois County without any simulcast issues. I'm very impressed with this scanner.

Starcom, the south suburbs and my SDS100

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