opp bruce county how do i listen in? I'm a n00b

[shores]

Hi.

I live in saugeen shores, ontario
I saw a previous post about the local police, I pick them up fine for the most part.
I can pickup all the local ambulance, etc.
However I cannot get any OPP stuff at all even when I am about 10 miles from the Glammis repeater.
I am using a BCT-8 scanner and have tried telescoping antenna and the suction cup antenna to the window so far.
I am not sure if I just don't have good enough reception or if I am missing something..
It is a motorola smartnet system?, but most of the frequencies seem to be unique to each repeater ID on the info on the OPP page.

I am a newbie to trunking, read the wiki but still a wee bit lost.
The talkgroups are listed for south bruce, north grey etc on another page in the database.
What would be the easiest way for me to listen in on the OPP (ontario provincial police) near me, in south bruce/north grey/bruce talkgroups?

Should I listen to the trunked part or do I just program in the frequencies of the repeaters near me? Do I program in the blue/red control channels or just the black text voice frequencies?

Thanks for helping such a noob.

 

[Forts]

With a BCT-8 you need to program in all the channels shown for your nearest tower... both the control channels and the voice channels. Your biggest problem though will be that the OPP are digital, and you have an analog scanner. You should however be able to hear any EMS activity in your area that is carried by that Fleetnet tower. Your best bet for the OPP is to enter the conventional frequencies found on this link:
http://www.radioreference.com/modules.php?name=RR&aid=577

(you can pretty much ignore the NOR channels... they are reused by Fleetnet for the most part in this neck of the woods). You should hopefully hear some traffic on the Vehicular Repeater channels and occasionally Sim11.

 

[shores]

tnx

thanks for the info.
i am just getting into scanning so didn't want a digital one.
the description said fleetnet stuff for OPP and MTO, etc were part analog and part digital, wasn't sure what I could pick up or how.

I'll try that tonight when I get home and see what I can pull.
The Kincardine OPP station is maybe 20 minutes away from me, the repeater maybe 10 minutes away.

 

[jellotor]

Try programming in a few control channels (the red frequencies) and see how strong a signal is for you. Based on your location (somewhere between Kincardine & Port) you should be able to pick up the Glammis tower and *maybe* the Durham or Ipperwash towers as well. Listowel may also be a possibility.

I don't know if the BCT-8 has an s-meter but if it does you've got an invaluable tool for sussing out which towers you are able to trunktrack.

ps...writing from lovely Tara in glorious Bruce County tonight.

 

[motomeso]

The BCT-8 has no S-Metre but will track the Fleetnet system, I find I get a lot of falses when monitoring fleetnet especially when my lock-out list is getting full. Do you have this problem Forts? The only other issue is the lack of memory space but the DIN size is what I bought it for to fit in the dash of the truck.

 

[shores]

yup

yes im right near port
tara is maybe 15 or 20 min away
i dont have a strength meter on the bct8
and im a total trunking newbie so i get lost, theres way too many frequencies in the OPP list of the fleetnet to do anything
i do pickup some noise on those channels but mostly false positives or digital info i cant get on my bct8
should i still program in the frequencies just for my tower as a trunking one and see if i can get anything?
right now all 5 channels including control channels are just in bank 1 of bct8 scanning as conventional channels to see if i can pick up anything
not usually though

 

[jellotor]

Again, you're going to have to experiment somewhat with which tower you can recieve. Usually there's a fair amount of traffic on the Glammis, Owen Sound and Durham towers. I don't really monitor any of the other ones, but you should be recieving the London North ems talkgroup in analog.

 

[Forts]

I do get false positives on my BCT-8, but not too bad....

What you will have to do is program in all the frequencies for the tower you want to monitor... typically anywhere from 6 to 8 or 9 frequencies. Then basically lock out the digital talkgroups (OPP, MNR and MTO enforecemt). You should pretty much be left with the analog EMS and MTO road crews to listen to....

 

[shores]

ok

ok so i would program these in as a trunked radio bank and then just lockout all the stuff i dont want and it should just pickup the leftover stuff i am able to hear
ill check it out tnx

 

[shores]

i rtfm 3 times for the bct8 and its not bad help wise.
set bank 3 to be trunked, motorola, type II hi
put in the freq's for the local tower, tried changing for 3 diff towers
set base, offset and spacing as per the zone 1 info for all 3 columns
the bct8 manual says i should just be able to do that, and itll let me know the talk group ID when it finds someone
i get occasional analog voice but it doesnt ever tell me who it is/talkgroup id
im actually mostly interested in the MTO road crews because near hwy 21 here, they close the highway on average 10 days at least per winter and be nice to know when they are closing them before its on the radio an hour later for example...

has anyone run into this or what im doing wrong for the zone 1 fleetnet to get it going?
thanks for everyones help, im slowly getting the hang of this

 

[mikewazowski]

Did you enter the frequencies as trunked?

 

[shores]

im pretty sure
as far as i can recall from the start
i switched to bank 3
hit trunk for 1.5 seconds
set it to motorola and then II hi
punched in the freq.
then i had to hit trunk again and change to base, then offset, then spacing for each of the 3 in the columns
and the scanner has "trunk" at the top as its scanning bank 3 only
i do hear occasional bops and bips and gibberish that isnt static that sounds like digital which i obviously cant hear on the bct8
so its picking stuff up, just doesnt show any talk codes to lock the digital ones out

ive got the manual in front of me and cant see anything wrong with the setup =/

 

[mikewazowski]

Unfortunately I don't have a bct-8 so I'm not sure if the procedure is right.

Sounds like you are scanning the channels in conventional mode not trunked mode.