What SAFE-T towers can you monitor from your home?

[racin06]

I'm curious as to what SAFE-T towers and ISP districts you can monitor from your home. Please list the SAFE-T tower location, distance (straight line distance) to the tower from your home, ISP districts monitored from each tower and radios/antenna used. I'll start:

Hamilton County (Hortonville)
Distance: 4.9 miles
ISP District 51

Tipton County (Tipton)
Distance: 20.2 miles
ISP District 16

Boone County (Lebanon)
Distance: 15.5 miles
ISP District 14

Madison County (Pendleton)
Distance: 20.8 miles
ISP District 51

Marion County (Indianapolis Zone 2 Controller)
Distance: 17.0 miles
ISP Districts 52 and 53

Equipment:

I can pick up the above towers on both my Uniden BCD396T and Radio Shack Pro-96 scanners w/each radio using the Radio Shack 800 Mhz Scanner Antenna.

I'm sure that many of you are aware that you can monitor certain ISP districts from outside the ISP district in which a certain SAFE-T tower is located. For example, from the Boone County tower, I can monitor both ISP Districts 52 (Boone County's ISP district) and 14. I program my radios to monitor ISP District 14 from the Boone County tower because I monitor District 52 from the Marion County tower. As you can see, I can monitor a total of 5 ISP districts covering 24 counties. Quite a bit of territory and not bad with using just handheld antennas. I wonder what additional towers I could monitor if I were to put up an 800 Mhz outdoor antenna on my roof at an estimated height of 30 ft.? Any ideas on the reception distance to one of these SAFE-T towers I could expect at this antenna height or am I pretty much at the maximum distance of 21 miles (Madison County tower) regardless of what type or height of an 800 Mhz antenna I may use?

Anyway, I really enjoy monitoring the ISP. Being able to monitor 5 ISP districts provides alot of traffic. Very interesting monitoring, IMO and my favorite of all police and fire agencies overall.

 

[hcsd35-32]

I live about 4mi. away from the Huntington County (Huntington) Tower. I can receive that one at 100%. However, because my house kinda sits down in a hole, that is the only tower I can receive worth anything from home. I have a Pro-96 with the RS 800MHz antenna.

I do most of my monitoring of other sites in my vehicle, I have a Pro-2096 and a mobile 800MHz antenna on my car.

 

[delallen]

I live in Greenwood and have a 25' high 12 element yagi antenna pointed towards the southwest. I use a BC796D for that antenna. My goal with that set up was to be able to monitor Bloomington. I fish Monroe and just have a general interest in that area since I grew up in Morgan Co.

On a good day I can use that site however the only time I ever hear Dist 33 is when IU has a home game. I get mostly DNR which I can get off of several sites. My list is as follows:

Greenwood
Signal 100%
Dist 52 & 53
Dst: 2 mi

Franklin
Signal 90%
Dist 52 & Dist 42
Dst: 9 mi

Martinsville (Yagi pointed straight at it)
Signal 75%
Dist 33 (2 times) & Dist 53
Dst: 23 mi

Mooresville
Signal 60%
Dist 52 & 53
Dst: 14 mi

Indianapolis (Zone 2)
Signal 40% (Yagi points in opposite direction)
Dist 51, 52 & 53
Dst: 12 mi

Bloomington
Signal 5-10% (on a ggod day)
Dist 33
Dst: 39 mi

Columbus
Signal 5-10% (on a good day)
No ISP that I have heard
Dst: 30 mi

I also have a 25' high omni antenna on my BC296D and it looks like I get about the same mileage as you do.

I do have 25' of LMR 400 an each set up.

I've been curious about distance on this system!

 

[delallen]

I find it hard to believe that only 3 people from Indiana would be the only ones with no lives and would be interested in this thread!

I thought it was a great post!

lol

 

[racin06]

I find it hard to believe that only 3 people from Indiana would be the only ones with no lives and would be interested in this thread!

I thought it was a great post!

lol

Thanks, delallen. I also thought many more would respond. I am very interested in this type of information.

 

[pblumer]

I will let you know as soon as we come online which ones I can hear.

Patrick

 

[retroactiv]

I live in downtown Terre Haute, and get horrible reception, looking into getting an 800mhz whip for my pro 96, I can hit the Terre Haute Tower that is out at the ISP post, and also the Brazil Tower (which is blah, no action). At night I can get the Newport Tower barely.

 

[scout250]

Question On Safe-T System

I am not able to monitor digital yet, and im not knowledged on this system. Will any tower be repeating all districts and talkgroups, or will they only repeat talkgroups near that tower? I live in Stilesville, (look hard on the maps it small) between greencastle and plainfeild on US 40, andi know of a few towers near, Mooresville and Martinsville. Will i hear traffic from say danville PD or Fire on there or do i need to monitor a tower near there. Any info or links to sites with info would be great. BTW are any of you Indiana Guys Hams, KC9HKT here i monitor the 146.700 repeater in indy pretty much all day. Thanks Again

 

[hcsd35-32]

Check out this page in the Wiki for more info on how the system works, The SAFE-T system is a Motorola Type II SmartZone Omnilink system. Read the other types of systems on that page also, they are all similar.

 

[GTO_04]

Check out this page in the Wiki for more info on how the system works, The SAFE-T system is a Motorola Type II SmartZone Omnilink system. Read the other types of systems on that page also, they are all similar.

Is SAFE-T considered a Motorola "Splinter" System. I am looking at the RS Manual for the Pro-96 and was wondering if I have to program this as a Splinter system. I did not do that and everything works except for one thing. When I monitor SAFE-T from the Indy tower, the Pro-96 will stop on 857.9625 MHz and I will hear a whistling sound.

GTO_04

 

[racin06]

Is SAFE-T considered a Motorola "Splinter" System. I am looking at the RS Manual for the Pro-96 and was wondering if I have to program this as a Splinter system. I did not do that and everything works except for one thing. When I monitor SAFE-T from the Indy tower, the Pro-96 will stop on 857.9625 MHz and I will hear a whistling sound.

GTO_04

No, you don't have to program SAFE-T as a splinter system in the Pro-96. I also use a Pro-96 to monitor SAFE-T. The only thing you do is set the Rx Mode of the control channel(s) to "MOT". That's it, I believe...at least this is what I am seeing in Win96, which is the software I use to program the Pro-96.

 

[retroactiv]

All you have to do is program the freq's you want into a bank, and hit MOT. Put in the control channels if you want to listen to if you want to close that bank. If you want to hear everything then just leave the bank open.

 

[DaveIN]

When in my home town:
Grandville (Clinton County)
Crawfordsville
Monticello
Monon
Benton County
West Lafayette
Attica

Ocassionally Kokomo and Cass county, NIPSCO 900MHz narrow band EDACS, but they are not SAFE-T.

 

[retroactiv]

Grandville in Clinton County? are you thinking of Geetingsville?

 

[DaveIN]

OOps! Yes, Geetingsville.

 

[columbus_east]

From the north side of Columbus, using a BCD396T with RS 800 MHz antenna:

Columbus: Excellent
Franklin: Listenable
Shelbyville: Somewhat Listenable
Greenwood: Poor

I can ALMOST recieve the Indy MECA system at my house here using the RS 800 MHz antenna, its a matter of yards, at least it was under certain conditions on a particular day.

 

[drunyon]

In downtown Terre Haute I can receive the following sites:

Terre Haute
Newport
Marshall
Bridgeton
Brazil
Greencastle
and sometimes Jasonville

That's using BC796D with a Diamond Discone mounted at 75' using 1/2" hardline.