WS 1065 Programming Help

[Miles62]

Hello Radio Scanner experts - I purchased a Whistler 1065 and am having more trouble programming it than I thought. I signed-up for the radio reference premium package and downloaded the PSREdit500 program. I have performed every step and then some and I am able to upload 56 different sites.
We live in the city of Galveston, Galveston County, Texas. After uploading to the radio, the scanner begins to scan. I can go to manual and see each site is there, but in scan mode, only a talkgroup appears and it's a broadcast from 30 miles away in another city and I would like to receive the Galveston Police calls. Only once did one Galveston PD dispatch site work for an afternoon. At night, there is no talk from the city police here, but only a talkgroup from up the road.. Very frustrating but I am new to this type of programming. When the program asks for "transmitter site selection", there are 2 available that show Galveston County-Galveston, and the other is Galveston County Simulcast. Those are the only 2 I have selected (but tried others) before moving to the talk group option, there I choose County of Galveston-Galveston, import, then upload.
I am hoping some of you out there can provide some suggestions as to what I a not doing or steps missing. Thank you all very much for taking the time to read all of this. I look forward to any suggestions.

Miles Arena

 

[KG1ADP]

I don't believe that scanner will do TDMA... They are TDMA 98% of the time on the Galveston PD channels

 

[hiegtx]

Hello Radio Scanner experts - I purchased a Whistler 1065 and am having more trouble programming it than I thought. I signed-up for the radio reference premium package and downloaded the PSREdit500 program. I have performed every step and then some and I am able to upload 56 different sites.
We live in the city of Galveston, Galveston County, Texas. After uploading to the radio, the scanner begins to scan. I can go to manual and see each site is there, but in scan mode, only a talkgroup appears and it's a broadcast from 30 miles away in another city and I would like to receive the Galveston Police calls. Only once did one Galveston PD dispatch site work for an afternoon. At night, there is no talk from the city police here, but only a talkgroup from up the road.. Very frustrating but I am new to this type of programming. When the program asks for "transmitter site selection", there are 2 available that show Galveston County-Galveston, and the other is Galveston County Simulcast. Those are the only 2 I have selected (but tried others) before moving to the talk group option, there I choose County of Galveston-Galveston, import, then upload.
I am hoping some of you out there can provide some suggestions as to what I a not doing or steps missing. Thank you all very much for taking the time to read all of this. I look forward to any suggestions.

Miles Arena

You need the Galveston, as well as the Galveston County Simulcast sites on TxWARN. However, since you are using two sites, be sure that you do not have set Multi site mode to "Off". I would suggest that you set it as "Stat" (Stationery) and also set it to check all control channels.

When set that way, your scanner will check both sites.

For Galveston PD, I see comments in another thread that they may have moved to P25 Phase II. The database shows that some talkgroups, for Galveston PD, are Phase I, others are Phase II, and some of them are encrypted.



Look at the Mode column. The ones with a letter D in that column are Phase I, which your WS1065 can receive (if they have not moved to Phase II). A letter T indicates a Phase II talkgroup, which your WS1065 cannot receive.

A number of the PD's talkgroups also have the letter E in the mode column. If the E is capitalized, then that indicates that encryption is in use all the time. There are no scanners that can monitor encrypted transmissions. For your WS1065, you would hear random noises if receiving an encrypted TGID. It's been described by some as sounding like "R2D2 on steroids". If the E was lower case (e), then that means that sometimes encryption is used, and sometimes it isn't. When no encryption is used, you could hear the transmissions, but when in use, you could not.

I don't believe that scanner will do TDMA... They are TDMA 98% of the time on the Galveston PD channels

KG1ADP typed a little faster.

 

[Miles62]

I don't believe that scanner will do TDMA... They are TDMA 98% of the time on the Galveston PD channels

Hello KG1ADP - I apologize for the delay in responding. Thank you very much for your information. Do you know of a scanner that may pick-up all of Galveston's PD channels? I am able to get PD Disp 1, but there is not much talk on that one. Also wasn't sure what TDMA means. Thanks again,
Miles

 

[hiegtx]

Hello KG1ADP - I apologize for the delay in responding. Thank you very much for your information. Do you know of a scanner that may pick-up all of Galveston's PD channels? I am able to get PD Disp 1, but there is not much talk on that one. Also wasn't sure what TDMA means. Thanks again,
Miles

TDMA is a digital mode where the frequency width is divided into two or more slots. For the system you are dealing with in Galveston, TxWARN P25, any talkgroup in the database that has a T in the mode column is TDMA, which in the case of this system means they are using P25 Phase II. Your scanner is only capable of P25 Phase I.
See this Wiki page for more discussion on signal types. Down about the middle of the page, you will see more information on P25 Phase II, and also which scanners can receive it.

APCO Project 25 - The RadioReference Wiki

wiki.radioreference.com

Depending on where you are in Galveston, you might have problems with the Galveston County Simulcast site. Simulcast issues are extremely location specific. If you happen to be in the 'right' location, where your scanner can only receive one of the individual towers, you may have no problems at all. On the other hand, if you are in a spot where signals from two or more towers reach you, your scanner may have issues clearly receiving the system. That could be anywhere from hearing not much, or nothing at all, to missing a goodly number of the calls, or hearing mostly garbled audio due to the simulcast distortion. More on simulcast issues can be found in the Wiki.
Simulcast digital distortion - The RadioReference Wiki

The only true scanners designed to deal with simulcast are Uniden's SDS100 (portable), and the base/mobile SDS200.

While the next two are not actual scanners, they will receive a P25 system, and can deal with Simulcast. The first is the Unication pager. It's downside is that you are limited to one site at a time, It's not a scanner, so you do not have as many options on programming. The other receiver is from Blue Tail Technologies. This can also deal with simulcast, but again is not a true scanner, so you do not have the same programming freedom as you would with one of the Uniden SDS series scanners.

BlueTail Technlogies

BlueTail Technologies specializes in the design and manufacturing of RF electronics. Our premier product is the stand-Alone P25RX Digital Police Receiver with Bluetooth Audio Support. The P25RX is not an old school police scanner! The P25RX uses a P25 Phase-1 Control Channel to automatically...

bluetailtechnologies.com

There is also a lengthy discussion thread on this receiver that may help fill in some of the details.

P25RX P25 Phase 1/2/DMR Receiver With Bluetooth Audio Support

https://bluetailtechnologies.com Open-source Configuration software https://github.com/bluetailtech/BTConfig

forums.radioreference.com

I don't own either the Unication pager nor the Blue Tail receiver, so I will leave comments to others who have experience with one of them.