Hello scanner people, I'm a Firefighter and fire buff in Creek/Tulsa Co. Oklahoma, trying to get this thing to work properly. I bought the radio reference premium, and the PSR500 software as it was recommended in the scanner manual. I've finally got the thing programmed with all the agencies I wanted, some Analog and most on P25 Phase 1, Trunked system. Used it listening to Stillwater Fire and PD on the analog system and it worked perfectly fine. Today and yesterday, I tried scanning the departments (Sand Springs FD, Sapulpa FD, Tulsa FD, and some PDs) on P25 Phase 1, and it worked perfectly well sometimes, sometimes picked up half the transmission, and the just stopped and went dead. I know they were getting calls, because I could hear them on my other 1040 with wildcard options. I can't just use that one though, because the wildcard picks up tons of other things on the trunked system that I don't want like security guards, and highway maintenance etc. Just wondering if it's something I missed while programming, or I'm just better off with a different scanner or what. As you can probably tell, I'm not a scanner expert, I just want to listen to the Fire and Police departments around me, I film fire scenes and response videos. Thanks in advance.
Whistler 1040 P25 Scanning Help
- Thread starter Tobruk41
- Start date
Welcome to the RR forums. Sounds like simulcast distortion to me. You can try the multipath mitigation methods in the afore-linked wiki, they may or may not work but you'd be much better off monitoring using a Uniden SDS100 or SDS200
Tulsa for example is heavily simulcast as shown below so if you're within monitoring range of two or more simulcasting towers it'll cause the issues you described with most scanners aside from the models I mentioned
Why not program your "other" scanner with only the items of interest to you, and remove, or lockout, the wild card? Since you have software & are a premium subscriber, you could import only the talkgroups of interest? If you do not (currently) have a programming file for that radio, then 'read' it into your software and save it before editing.
For your current scanner, which works properly some times, and others not so much, which site are you scanning? The Tulsa site is simulcast, which can cause erratic reception, as Whiskey3 noted. Note that simulcast issues can be extremely location specific, down to the point that moving a scanner only a foot or two can make all the difference between working, and not. In dealing with simulcast issues, sometimes "less" antenna is better than more. In some cases. using a paperclip for an antenna might work.
By chance, is your "other scanner" programmed for the same site as the one you are asking about? The Creek site is not simulcast, but it might not carry all of the talkgroups that are on the Tulsa site.
You might also post your programming file, so that we can take a peek & see if a modification of some sort is needed. Find your file on your PC via File Explorer. <Right><Click> on the file so that you can zip (compress) it. The zipped file can then be attached to a post.
I presume you mean PSREdit500 software, correct?
Thank you, guys that reflects some of my experiences, where I could move around in a parking lot, and the scanner worked on one side, but not the other. I attributed it to some kind of interference from a tower, because it typically performed worse when very near to one. I would show you my file, but unfortunately before I could save it, my Wi-Fi went out, but I am going to re-program my scanner and add/subtract a few things, so I'll post the file then. As for the other scanner (witch somebody copied their scanner info on to mine) I honestly, just didn't think you could do that, I'll plug it in and see what I can do. I was under the impression that, if you used the software to change something, it would wipe the whole memory. I'll test out the paper clip thing to, I suppose the nearer you are to a tower, the smaller the antenna should be? Thank you guys!
For the scanners that you are listing, if you load a programming file to the scanner, via software, it does overwrite whatever was programmed in the scanner. You can't simply add a system, nor modify an existing system, without reloading everything on the scanner. (That is, unless you were doing this via the keypad on the scanner instead of using software.)
But if you read what's in your second scanner, into the software, do that as a "new" file, after your first save any current programming to a folder on your PC.That way, you'll have a copy of how the second scanner is programmed, so that you can add systems, or modify existing systems, using the software before writing the modified programming file to the scanner.
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