Need help scanning in the suburbs of Houston.

[eashmore]

Hello,
I'm a new scanner and have little knowledge of all the scanning lingo and technology.

I live NW of Houston in the Klein area and I'm finding it hard to pick up any local, relevant police/EMS/fire signals. I can listen to Tomball PD, but I'm south of there and want to get Harris County Pct. 4 Constable, Klein VFD, Cypress Creek VFD, Cypress Creek EMS, and Klein ISD but can't find any freq. that work where I live.

If anyone knows of any good freq. that I could use in my area I would be very grateful.

I'm also having some trouble trunking on the STARNET network. It could be due to the fact that I don't have a digital scanner (I have the RadioShack Pro-97) and the recent rebanding. When I manually browse channels I get a modest amount of activity, unfortunately it's all Tomball or HPD, but when I scan I don't pick up anything. (I can go straight from scanning to manual mode and instantly pick up a signal)

Thanks in advance for the help,
Erik

 

[bpckty1]

Go to these websites, first the Database on this Newsgroup and Yahoo's HoustonScan:

Harris County
http://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?ctid=2623

Starnet
http://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?sid=38

HoustonScan
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HoustonScan/

FreqZone
http://home.comcast.net/~freqzone

The tower closest to you will be Tomball, so choose the control channels for that site as your primary freqs. The other towers you can choose are:

Downtown (systemwide)
Tamina
Huffman
Humble

Hope this helps.

 

[mike_webb59]

I am working in the I-45/Sam Houston Tollway Area during the week and then going back home on weekends.

I pickup Downtown and the Tomball towers quite well. They are on a 800 Mototrola with no encryption. I have a digital scanner (the now problematic 396T) and don't pickup any P-25s from STARNet.

I also pick up the City of Houston's conventional channesl very well. Nice flat land out here, signals travel a good distance.

Looking for Cypress Creek so I can program in in.

HTH, Mike

 

[bpckty1]

See the links in my previous post for Cy-Creek VFD.

 

[gbakerj]

Erik,
If you are still needing a little help with scanning, I can try and show you what I have learned. I live just off 290 and 1960 and can meet you somewhere. When I started I would read everything I could and still could not grasp the concepts, then someone explained it and showed me how his scanner worked. This weekend is filled up with out of town family maybe a few hours on Sunday I can get away. All next week I have some time. Good luck!
glen
w5hke

 

[FlashSWT]

Erik, your Pro-97 should work just fine on STARNET for a little while into the future. It might be worth checking out Win97 programming software to help you get everything programmed how you want.
http://www.starrsoft.com/software/win97/default.asp
Basically you program in the Control Channels for the tower nearest you and also program in the TalkGroups for the agencies you want to hear. The 97 will hold 150 TalkGroups per system.

.

 

[loumaag]

I am working in the I-45/Sam Houston Tollway Area during the week and then going back home on weekends.

I pickup Downtown and the Tomball towers quite well. They are on a 800 Mototrola with no encryption. I have a digital scanner (the now problematic 396T) and don't pickup any P-25s from STARNet.
...

Not sure what you mean by "problematic 396T", but you won't pick up any P-25 on STARNet because there isn't any. The STARNet P25 TRS is a seperate system.

 

[mike_webb59]

Not sure what you mean by "problematic 396T", but you won't pick up any P-25 on STARNet because there isn't any. The STARNet P25 TRS is a seperate system.

The 396T firmware update has P-25 decoding issues, so I am having problems with my 396T. I was referring to the P-25 STARnet `4653` system. Sorry that wasn't clear. But STARNet and Houston Conventional frequencies are coming in fine in this area.

Mike

 

[loumaag]

The 396T firmware update has P-25 decoding issues, so I am having problems with my 396T. I was referring to the P-25 STARnet `4653` system. Sorry that wasn't clear. But STARNet and Houston Conventional frequencies are coming in fine in this area.

Mike

Mike,

You are having problems on the P-25 STARNet system? I can't listen to much of it (downtown is the only site I can hear from home) but what I hear is just fine. I have taken my updated 396T to New Orleans and noticed a vast improvement on the decoding of the simulcast sites on LATIE. Indeed any problems that the 396T had before seems to be addressed pretty well by the update.

I have the Walker Co. sites in the radio but have very little reason to head that way (especially with gas where it is.) But if I do have reason to head north, I will certainly give a listen to see what is up.

 

[motorola_otaku]

With the exception of Tomball VFD (on Starnet with a VHF multicast), all of the Fire/EMS on your side of town is UHF conventional. They don't like trunking and will probably never switch to Starnet, so a cheapie conventional scanner will serve you well for listening to them for years to come. Go to the Houston page here or to Myles' Freq Zone and program in all the 1960 Comm Center frequencies for your immediate vicinity, plus Cy-Fair VFD, Northwest VFD, Northwest EMS, and the ESD1 freqs for the surrounding areas.

Precinct 4 and HCSO District 1 provide law enforcement for your area. When setting up the trunk systems, use ONLY the frequencies for the Tamina and Tomball towers in separate banks with duplicate talkgroup lists of Precinct 4 Constable and HCSO District 1 talkgroups. One note on HCSO: if you program in all of their talkgroups instead of just the Dist. 1 ones, you will hear a lot of talking that has nothing to do with your immediate area.

edit: Don't worry about the new Starnet P25 system yet unless you really want to listen to it.. no one uses it for primary operations yet except for Walker County, Matagorda County, and some DPS/county/federal drug enforcement groups. Also, the analog Starnet system has not been rebanded yet; just program in site frequencies like you see them.