Not hearing Livingston county

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B1717

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Livonia, MI
Hello,


Trying to program Liv. Co into my scanner. Its a pro96 and im using Win96. I programmed the Northville tower and input all the Talkgroups I want to here but im not getting anything. I also have local talkgroups programmed such as Northville township and Plymouth township and can hear them fine. I did here one transmission for Livingston county EMS but that was it. Can anyone think of what I am missing here. Ive confirmed all freqs multiple times.
 

GeneseeCoMI

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Mount Morris, Michigan
Hello,


Trying to program Liv. Co into my scanner. Its a pro96 and im using Win96. I programmed the Northville tower and input all the Talkgroups I want to here but im not getting anything. I also have local talkgroups programmed such as Northville township and Plymouth township and can hear them fine. I did here one transmission for Livingston county EMS but that was it. Can anyone think of what I am missing here. Ive confirmed all freqs multiple times.

Northville is a little outside of their "safety belt" area. Try to pick up something closer to them, i.e. the Howell or Holly towers, or maybe Washtenaw Co Simulcast, or the Southfield or Romeo towers.
 

B1717

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Livonia, MI
Yea Ill give it a try. I used to listen to Livingston from the Northville tower for years. Then took a break. I dunno what changed. Ill give some other towers a try. I live in Livonia at Plymouth and Newburgh. If anyone has any ideas please post!
 

Jimmy252

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Oakland County, MI
Northville is a little outside of their "safety belt" area. Try to pick up something closer to them, i.e. the Howell or Holly towers, or maybe Washtenaw Co Simulcast, or the Southfield or Romeo towers.

Ditto. I've found that it only comes across both the Southfield and Northville towers only sometimes. You really have to use Holly or Howell for guaranteed reception. Never tried the Washtenaw Simulcast but that's definitely worth a shot if you're living in Livonia. Not for sure on the reception of that particular simulcast though.
 

B1717

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Just programmed washtenaw county simulcast. Does not come in clear enough where im at. :-( thanks for the suggestion on that though.
 

B1717

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Livonia, MI
Ill look into setting up an outdoor antenna but not sure if I will be able to. Apartment complex might be against it. I guess my question is why was I able to hear it all years ago on the Northville tower and now its next to nothing? Im still considered very new to scanning and MPSCS. Is there something im not understanding?
 

GeneseeCoMI

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Ill look into setting up an outdoor antenna but not sure if I will be able to. Apartment complex might be against it. I guess my question is why was I able to hear it all years ago on the Northville tower and now its next to nothing? Im still considered very new to scanning and MPSCS. Is there something im not understanding?

Well if that's the case just get a little 800 MHz antenna. The stock units are usually junk.

In regards to your other questions I'm not sure since I don't go down to that area very often. Do you have talkgroups you want to hear programmed? Is it in closed mode instead of open mode? Is the squelch turned up too high or the attenuation on? Try going outside and see what happens. Being indoors might be blocking the signals. What floor of the building are you on?
 
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RayAir

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Try just locking onto the control channel to verify the signal strength. If you can receive it well, you're looking at a programming issue.

You could try a wildcard TG (65535) just to see if you are pulling traffic from the site. It could be Livingston County traffic is limited across that site, as others stated.

Cell towers can wipe the receive on many scanners too. If you have full bars of interference you could try attenuation. I can tell you I can receive the Northville site on a handheld as far north as I-75 and M-15. It starts dropping out near Clarkston. So that site does have good range.
 

RayAir

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Yep.

The Northville site (near him) and him wanting to rx Livingston county traffic, will yield poor results.

I monitored it for a while today. Lots of 82's, some 50's, but no 47's for UID's.
 

B1717

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Livonia, MI
Yep.

The Northville site (near him) and him wanting to rx Livingston county traffic, will yield poor results.

I monitored it for a while today. Lots of 82's, some 50's, but no 47's for UID's.
Im still pretty new to the scanner world... I thought as long as I had good reception on the control channel I would get traffic? I've got 95% reception of the Northville tower...

Oddly enough right now as I listen I hear tons of traffic on TG 2146 PD dispatch and some on 2147 fire dispatch but miss everything on LCEMS 2148. 2146 is hit or miss. Got some traffic but missing others.

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B1717

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Livonia, MI
Im still pretty new to the scanner world... I thought as long as I had good reception on the control channel I would get traffic? I've got 95% reception of the Northville tower...

Oddly enough right now as I listen I hear tons of traffic on TG 2146 PD dispatch and some on 2147 fire dispatch but miss everything on LCEMS 2148. 2146 is hit or miss. Got some traffic but missing others.

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Sorry 2147 fire dispatch is hit or miss but I'm getting everything on 2146 pd dispatch.

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RayAir

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The system can be set up to deny registration/affiliations of specified groups.
For example, I occasionally see radios assigned to the Genesys Hospital TG get denied registering to the Holly site.

If the TG's you're wanting to receive are not within the service area of the site there's not really much you can do.

I can't give a clear answer cause I do not know exactly what MPSCS TG's are allowed over x number of towers. Basically the system programmers decide this.

Can you pull in the Southfield site?

Maybe there is more Livingston traffic on there.

Anyway, at least you're getting some of the traffic you're after.
 

B1717

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Livonia, MI
The system can be set up to deny registration/affiliations of specified groups.
For example, I occasionally see radios assigned to the Genesys Hospital TG get denied registering to the Holly site.

If the TG's you're wanting to receive are not within the service area of the site there's not really much you can do.

I can't give a clear answer cause I do not know exactly what MPSCS TG's are allowed over x number of towers. Basically the system programmers decide this.

Can you pull in the Southfield site?

Maybe there is more Livingston traffic on there.

Anyway, at least you're getting some of the traffic you're after.
I'll have to try the Southfield tower after work tomorrow. I don't understand why 2 days ago nothing came through and now all the sudden I can here PD.

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opps2016

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If the traffic isn't affiliating with the site your scanning you won't hear that talk group. It doesn't mean there isn't any traffic. You shouldn't expect to hear Livingston county on Northville unless a user drifts down that way. It may very well be hit and miss.
 

B1717

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Livonia, MI
If the traffic isn't affiliating with the site your scanning you won't hear that talk group. It doesn't mean there isn't any traffic. You shouldn't expect to hear Livingston county on Northville unless a user drifts down that way. It may very well be hit and miss.
Ok I think this is what I was not understanding. So when someone keys up and it actually goes through the tower I'm scanning I'll hear that talkgroup. If not I wont.

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krokus

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Ok I think this is what I was not understanding. So when someone keys up and it actually goes through the tower I'm scanning I'll hear that talkgroup. If not I wont.

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You will do better with the Washtenaw towers, as more units will be affiliated with the towers.

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opps2016

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Ok I think this is what I was not understanding. So when someone keys up and it actually goes through the tower I'm scanning I'll hear that talkgroup. If not I wont.

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That is correct. Traffic is only carried on the tower which the radio is affiliated with. Washtenaw should be on your list if you can receive it from your location. Back when the state built this system it was originally designed for the state police and for mobile coverage. That changed once they allowed other agencies to come on and those agencies built simulcast systems. Abesent that the state hasn't put up many new radio sites and probably won't anytime soon. Oakland county is a GREAT example, tons of MPSCS users go there and it's crap coverage to be nice about it. (Yes I know Oakland has there own)
 
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