I'm trying to listen to this system from across the mountain in Augusta County. The signal was marginal so I purchased an 800MHz directional antenna which has greatly improved reception, but it still drops out on occasion. I think the signal is strong enough now, so I'm wondering if there are any settings I can change in the 996T to help. The 996T is new and I'm not familiar with many of it's settings. RadioReference lists the system as a Motorola Type II Smartnet Analog and APCO-25 Common Air Interface. Thanks for any help.
Charlottesville/Albemarle on a BCD996T
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gcgrotz
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Find Buck's Elbow Mtn on a map, north of Afton along the Parkway in NW Albemarle and point your yagi at that. Where in Augusta are you? I can hear it very well around Waynesboro in the vehicle.
gcgrotz,
What type of antenna do you have? I've been thinking about the Austin Spectra. I can p/u Charlottesville pretty well with an 800 antenna on my psr500 from my house, outside of Bridgewater. I have almost nil on this side of the mountain in a vehicle. I don't have a real good antenna for 800, but I haven't been to Waynesboro recently and tried it.
What type of antenna do you have? I've been thinking about the Austin Spectra. I can p/u Charlottesville pretty well with an 800 antenna on my psr500 from my house, outside of Bridgewater. I have almost nil on this side of the mountain in a vehicle. I don't have a real good antenna for 800, but I haven't been to Waynesboro recently and tried it.
gcgrotz
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Hey Glen:
Well, I mostly use a magmount Ham 144/432 antenna, I think it is a Comet, it looks like a cellular antenna. I've tried to cut back my vehicle antennas and use only the 2 magmounts, one stays connected all the time to the FT-100 ham rig, the other floats between scanners and Ham HT duties. Never saw much difference at 800 in most antennas since it is such a defined line-of-sight band. Either you get it or you don't.
If I was going for the ultimate 800 mobile antenna, I'd go with a commercial roof mount antenna from antennex or some other well known name. Most of them will do a fair job at VHF too.
I seldom go beyond Waynesboro, which has a direct look at Buck's Elbow, so I don't know about the rest of the valley. Might be over there some this weekend for work, I'll give it a try with my newly updated '396. The jury is still out on that!
Well, I mostly use a magmount Ham 144/432 antenna, I think it is a Comet, it looks like a cellular antenna. I've tried to cut back my vehicle antennas and use only the 2 magmounts, one stays connected all the time to the FT-100 ham rig, the other floats between scanners and Ham HT duties. Never saw much difference at 800 in most antennas since it is such a defined line-of-sight band. Either you get it or you don't.
If I was going for the ultimate 800 mobile antenna, I'd go with a commercial roof mount antenna from antennex or some other well known name. Most of them will do a fair job at VHF too.
I seldom go beyond Waynesboro, which has a direct look at Buck's Elbow, so I don't know about the rest of the valley. Might be over there some this weekend for work, I'll give it a try with my newly updated '396. The jury is still out on that!
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