Madison County Questions

[Northzulchrancher]

Howdy Y'all,

I am new to the forum and have a couple of questions for you. I am not nearly as technical savvy as most of you are so please bare with some of my simple questions. I live between North Zulch and Madisonville and monitor both the sheriff's department and the fire department on the Madison county primary channel using my old Radio Shack Pro 51 connected to an outside antenna on a 15' pole that I have been using off and on for 12 + years. I get pretty good reception from this set up and have even gotten skip from stations as far away as Mexico and Canada when the atmospherics will allow.

My first question is: does anyone know when Madison county is going digital?

My second questions is: does anyone know of a secondary frequency for Madison county shriff's dept. such as a car to car freq. Etc.

My third question is: I am considering upgrading my equipment and the two receivers I am looking at are the Uniden BCT15x and the BCD996XT. I would also be purchasing the Butel ARC-XT software for these receivers. My decision on which receiver to purchase would be based on when Madison county will be going digital. What is your opinion of these receivers?

Thank you,

Richard

[mfn002]

As for Madison County going digital, I have heard nothing about that. As far as I know, no changes will be happening in the near future. A digital scanner would be a good idea to be able to listen to DPS, though.

Madison SO doesn't have a secondary frequency. They use 154.950 (TX LAW 1) for car-to-car.

I would recommend the 996XT. It's alot easier to use than the GRE/RadioShack models. You get more channels and it's alot more flexible (Check the "Scanner Models" section of the RadioReference Wiki).

Welcome to RadioReference!

[Northzulchrancher]

Thanks for the quick reply. I finaly decider to go with the home patrol unit as it sounds like it will cover my needs for the digital aspect and use my Pro 51 for doing simple scans.

Thanks,

Richard

[motorola_otaku]

Originally Posted by mfn002

A digital scanner would be a good idea to be able to listen to DPS, though.

DPS in Madison County operate off the SO repeater. In fact, the only counties between Houston and Dallas in which they don't operate off the SO radio system are Montgomery and Walker.. and the repeater on 159.2175 in Huntsville has been mighty quiet the last several times I've been through there.

[JonL008]

Originally Posted by motorola_otaku

In fact, the only counties between Houston and Dallas in which they don't operate off the SO radio system are Montgomery and Walker.. and the repeater on 159.2175 in Huntsville has been mighty quiet the last several times I've been through there.

Here in Walker County, DPS does use the SO channle for anything they are dispatched to be Walker County Comm Center. Anything else they do on their MDT's. That's why the repeater here for DPS have gone so quite. I miss it actually, it used to have alot of action on it and now since they have better MDT's thats all they use here.