BCD996P2 and new Chester County, Pa. system

[rmotzer]

I have a 996P2 which works great on the Montgomery County, Pa. Public Safety system and several other trunked and conventional systems. Chester County, Pa. just changed over to a P25 Phase 2 system and I programmed all the information in correctly via Freescan - yes the firmware upgrade was done as well. Reception is great when the scanner actually locks on to a Chester County system signal .... but I know that is is locking on only very infrequently and skipping over most of the transmissions on all talk groups. I've tried a number of corrections, fixes and changes as listed on a number of forums .... but the unit still doesn't work on the Chester County system well or reliably at all. Any suggestions?

 

[mciupa]

I've played with the P25 Hold Time. The default 2 was not good enough for the simulcast site I was listening to. Put Chester on hold and then go to settings and increase the P25 Hold Time for that troublesome site by one increment until you find the sweet spot that will let you hear a whole conversation.

Voyager may say that this is not the best solution (he told that me before) but I say do what ever works for you and this does for me.

 

[policefreak]

You may want to watch the screen to see if transmissions flash up on the screen but no audio passes. You also want to see if it loses the control channel. If that were the case, underneath where it says "I'D SEARCH/SCAN" instead of seeing a frequency, it will just say NFM.

 

[HM1529]

I am a few miles east over the river in the Norristown area. I cannot track the new system with my BCD436 or with a PSR800. When I take the 436 on the road with me, it sporadically picks up the system. The 800 shows a lot of talkgroup activity but I have yet to get audio out of it, even when I have been in the West Chester area with it..

Phase 2 systems can be very tough to monitor. It all depends on your location because of the simulcast overlap issues. The scanners just cant handle it. If you're stationary, you might want to try hooking up a yagi antenna and pointing it toward one of the tower sites. It may not be a workable solution for you, though. I am thinking about buying one myself.

I know I am in range when home. I can decode the system with Unitrunker and a PRO106.

 

[jcardani]

Hi All,

The simulcast issues also affect Phase I systems too (like Philly). It's any simulcast system using CQPSK modulation.

Until the scanner manufacturers get their act together and design the front end of the scanners with an IQ demodulator (instead of the legacy limiter-discriminator type) users will continue to have problems with these systems. If the OP25 and SDR Trunk authors can solve the LSM problem, I'm sure the engineers at Uniden and Whistler can as well.

 

[rmotzer]

policefreak .... you may be on to something. In scan it sits on NFM continuously ... if I hold on a single talk group the second line on the display flashes between what that talk group is and 'Finding CtlChan'. Just not sure what to do now .....

 

[mciupa]

Distance must be an issue. Are you using the stock antenna or an external one?

 

[phask]

That means ONE thing: You are not receiving the control channel. IMHO - you should have done this #1 - but live and learn.

Now why?
Improper programming - do you have the closest site(s)?
I set each site as a separate quick key, but that is me and how i prefer it.
Not able to receive do to poor reception - physically can't , poor antenna, Cell tower or other factors.

Edit - looks like it's also a Simulcast system. If you are not aware, users experiences vary with these, from Good to bad to UGLY.

policefreak .... you may be on to something. In scan it sits on NFM continuously ... if I hold on a single talk group the second line on the display flashes between what that talk group is and 'Finding CtlChan'. Just not sure what to do now .....

 

[rmotzer]

I have tried three different external antennas, the stock antenna and two others as well - all received the MontCo system and others but make no difference on the Chester County system. I'll add a little more weirdness here .... I have two identical lBC996P2 units. One is in the house and getting worse and worse the more I play around - it currently receives NOTHING on the Chester County system but does just fine on the MontCo system and others. The other is in my vehicle. Both were originally programmed from the same computer at the same time. The mobile one is mounted on the dash and has a UHF stubby duck on the back. It misses some transmissions on the Chester County system but receives far more than it currently misses. And it also does quite well on the MontCo system and others. I just re-programmed the home unit with just the EAST-Central systems (eliminating the simulcast) which are closest to me and just 2 Police talk groups. Still not working at all.

 

[policefreak]

Well if you don't get the control channel, you don't get anything at all. So what I would do is manually tune to 851.0625 and turn the squelch down to 0. Move the antenna (or the unit if possible) around until the static quiets and you see "DAT" in the bottom right hand corner of the screen.

 

[Voyager]

I've played with the P25 Hold Time. The default 2 was not good enough for the simulcast site I was listening to. Put Chester on hold and then go to settings and increase the P25 Hold Time for that troublesome site by one increment until you find the sweet spot that will let you hear a whole conversation.

Voyager may say that this is not the best solution (he told that me before) but I say do what ever works for you and this does for me.

Generally, I would.

A TRS should not need a 2 second Hold Time in order to work (0 seconds will scan the system long enough to get all the data as long as the signal is strong enough to decode), but I have a theory about why it might...

If the system in question is subject to interference or weak signals, the 2 second hold might give it enough of a window to get a good decode and trunk. But, the Hold Time will have zero effect on the loss of a voice channel so "let you hear a whole conversation" would not be a result of the Hold Time change. Only the delay time would affect Voice Channel loss.

But, I do agree with "whatever works for you". Personally, I would not want the scanner spending extra time on a TRS because I want to scan other things, too, and don't want to put those on the back burner that long.

 

[u2brent]

If you don't see DAT displayed, regardless of anything else (Hold,NFM ECT..) you're not getting the control Channel.

 

[rmotzer]

I took everything out of the home unit and cloned the mobile unit to it. I'm back receiving various Chester County talk groups - but not consistently and reliably. Montgomery County and several other systems are still received quite reliably .... The Chester County system is Harris and was just put on line Monday - so hopefully some dial-in on their part and mine - and maybe another firmware update from Uniden - will do the trick.

 

[HM1529]

You did not "remove the simulcast" by reprogramming the scanner with on the East/Central cell instead of bot the E/C and West cells.

The simulcast refers to the fact that both cells are made up of multiple simulcasting tower sites. So, even if you only have the E/C frequencies programmed, there is still the simulcast issue. From your area, your scanner would likely be able to receive signals from Valley Forge, Phoenixville, and Spring City which are all tower sites in the E/C simulcast cell. Receiving the signals from multiple towers sites simulcasting on the same frequency set is what these scanners cannot handle on the newer digital systems using CQPSK modulation. P25 phase 1 systems using C4FM modulation are received fine on the newer scanners. But, all phase 2 P25 systems use CQPSK which the scanners just cannot handle right now. Depending on the physical location of the scanner, it might work like a charm or it might be deaf as a post. It likely has nothing to do with the programming you did.

 

[rmotzer]

So you are essentially saying I paid $650 for two door stops? After reading a number of similar posts regarding the same problem I'm close to sending the units back by claiming they really can't do what Uniden claims they do. If there is no fix on the horizon and the present units (both Uniden and Whistler) simply can not handle the new Chester County system then they do me no good.

 

[HM1529]

So you are essentially saying I paid $650 for two door stops? After reading a number of similar posts regarding the same problem I'm close to sending the units back by claiming they really can't do what Uniden claims they do. If there is no fix on the horizon and the present units (both Uniden and Whistler) simply can not handle the new Chester County system then they do me no good.

Unfortunately, this is the experience some folks have had in areas where new Phase 2 P25 systems have come online. I have seen similar reports out of Bucks County whose new system came online late last year. Folks who had great reception on the old 500MHz digital system at their homes could not copy the new 700MHz Phase 2 digital system at all or experienced very inconsistent reception of the system.

Trust me, there are a lot of people who are frustrated about this issue. Some folks find a solution that works and other just throw in the towel because it isn't worth it or no solutions worked. Since a user's experience depends on the relative signal strengths you get at your location from the various towers that may cover where you are, your experience is going to vary wildly from another person in the county. I have seen reports in the Pennsylvania forum here and on other message boards that run the gamut from "this is great" to "why the hell did I waste my money". Same model scanner, different locations.

I totally agree that it sucks. If I didn't travel so much, I would have gotten rid of my 436 by now.

 

[Scoop531]

I am super close to a tower and have problems so I dunno what it is. I have a 536 and just uploaded the database right off here. Sometimes I get action on different talk groups sometimes nothing. The other night there was a 2 alarm fire less then a mile from my house I got the fire police clear as day but nothing on the ops channels. Didn't even register. I'm running a Discone 30 feet in the air. Dispatch seem to be works ok (seems) but not getting much else on talk groups am I missing something am I supposed to reprogram the list that I pulled off of the rr database every week with the sentinel software?

 

[Scoop531]

It's actually quite funny my old pro 2006 picks up the dispatch calls about a second quicker than the 536

 

[jcardani]

Hi motzer,

Yes you should let Uniden and Whistler know your dissatisfaction. They need to understand our frustration on this issue otherwise they will just keep designing the scanners the same old way.

Joe

So you are essentially saying I paid $650 for two door stops? After reading a number of similar posts regarding the same problem I'm close to sending the units back by claiming they really can't do what Uniden claims they do. If there is no fix on the horizon and the present units (both Uniden and Whistler) simply can not handle the new Chester County system then they do me no good.

 

[jcardani]

Hi Ben,

Great explanation! Only one minor correction. P25 Phase I simulcast systems (9600 baud control channel) also use CQPSK LSM. Philly is a good example, they are Phase I simulcast and use CQPSK LSM.

It's the older systems 3600 baud control channel systems that use C4FM CAI on the voice channels.

You did not "remove the simulcast" by reprogramming the scanner with on the East/Central cell instead of bot the E/C and West cells.

The simulcast refers to the fact that both cells are made up of multiple simulcasting tower sites. So, even if you only have the E/C frequencies programmed, there is still the simulcast issue. From your area, your scanner would likely be able to receive signals from Valley Forge, Phoenixville, and Spring City which are all tower sites in the E/C simulcast cell. Receiving the signals from multiple towers sites simulcasting on the same frequency set is what these scanners cannot handle on the newer digital systems using CQPSK modulation. P25 phase 1 systems using C4FM modulation are received fine on the newer scanners. But, all phase 2 P25 systems use CQPSK which the scanners just cannot handle right now. Depending on the physical location of the scanner, it might work like a charm or it might be deaf as a post. It likely has nothing to do with the programming you did.