Marion County Public Safety

[southpaw92]

Anyone have issues with signal when listening around Marion County? I continuously seem to lose signal in several places around the county including at my home. I've found a few sweet spots but for the most part when I'm home the scanner is useless. I live on the east side in Irvington and drive to and from the airport 5 days a week. If take 70 to the airport somewhere between Holt Road and Sam Jones my signal disappears and typically does not come back until I head back home. I have also taken 465 to the airport and it seems to be somewhere around 37 on the southside the signal is gone. My parents live farther east and between my house and their house the signal is very hit and miss and nearly obsolete when I'm there.

I have a Uniden 396xt and a 396. Same issues on both of them. My dad has 2 396's and his issues are identical.

Thoughts?

 

[bclark206]

I live on the Hancock/Shelby County line and have no issues for Marion County freqs out this way. I am running a Unication G5.

 

[INDaviation]

My guess is that simulcast distortion might be causing issues, if you're using the 396. My 436 really struggled with it too

 

[INDY72]

Well documented simulcast multipath distortion. Same with all 4 of the IDPS systems.

 

[RTmed519]

I was in Indianapolis 2-3 days ago, I wasn't able to pick up any traffic on the IDPS system. My SDR Trunk on my laptop was able to pick it up just fine. I was running the BCD996P2 which I hardly take while traveling. the 996P2 doesn't handle simulcast very well at all.

 

[Dispatch2323]

I have heard from more than one person that IMPD and IFD will go full encryption at some point in 2022. Not saying it's good or bad....just saying what I've heard.

 

[RTmed519]

I have heard from more than one person that IMPD and IFD will go full encryption at some point in 2022. Not saying it's good or bad....just saying what I've heard.

Sure hope it doesn’t happen, it’s pretty nice having IMPD and IFD in the clear, one of the only major cities near me that does.

 

[INDY72]

IMPD has no plans for full E on all TG's. Nor does SPD, LPD, or any of the others on S1. They have and use the E wisely now, and added new E TG's after the riots. Also, due to the way interop is done, ALL agencies would need to have the keys to the E TG's if they did go. ALL surrounding agencies have the IMPD, and IFD TG's in their radios, as Marion County has ALL the main TG's for the surrounding areas in theirs. All the Marion County radios just got upgraded to APX'es, and new codeplugs. Going full E will mean retouching or OTAPing all of them, and the surrounding agencies. AGAIN. Though if the feeds disappear so does all talk of E, as that IS the primary thing that has Hancock and Hendricks more E now, and all the E in Hamilton and Madison.

 

[southpaw92]

Well documented simulcast multipath distortion. Same with all 4 of the IDPS systems.

I assumed that was the case. Are there any settings I’m missing within the 396 that would help? Is there a handheld scanner that performs better? What do you guys use?

 

[INDY72]

For scanners, I use a BCD396XT, an BCD436HP, and an TRX-1. The BCD436HP does the best job on System 2, But all three work very good on System 1. Using the P25 Adjustment mode cuts WAY down on the distortion issues on the BCD396XT. The SDS100/200 would be even better but can't quite afford one yet. Though I may just skip that and pop for an Unication G5 come tax time. "Why would you need an Unication, when you have an actual system radio?" Well, future proofing for one, as the legal use of my radio won't be legal forever, and once the "rights" to access the systems goes away, that Unication can still hear everything I need/want to monitor without ANY distortion etc, just as good as the APX, but just won't be able to use the advanced features like SMS, location, emergency features, and of course, actual 2 way voice communications.