Overload? UPMan, any insight ?

[ERICMYERS]

This is a snip from a post I made in the antenna forum. I'm not sure if it's the simulcast issue or an overloading issue....nor how to fix it, nor why my current 'fix' is working. I am somewhat amused with the low tech and somewhat ironic approach working as well as it does ;-)

Anyone have any thoughts or advice?
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I"ve been having a lot of problems decoding Illinois Starcom21, a P25 system. I have the issue of simulcast interference, I think. I've got a lot of antennas, but NONE of my 'better' antennas will give me reliable reception on my 996 on this band. The tower I listen to is a 700 mhz CC and I am wanting to receive Plainfield PD, one of the very few municipalities on this Starcom network.

So, this weekend, I pulled out the (never been used) telescoping cheapo stock antenna that came w/ the 996. To date, this is the ONLY antenna so far that reliably will receive what I want to hear. I have it tilted back about 30 degrees from vertical, it's only extended about 4 inches from the fully collapsed position, and I have the attenuator for this site on and oddly enough it is working halfway decently. This configuration was a result of a LOT of trial and error.

I have to believe that the signal was overloading the receiver. The signal on this tower, according to the signal meter anyway, oscillates from nothing to 3/2/1 bars and back and forth with a 'good antenna', but not in a uniform pattern. That's pretty odd. With my cheapie antenna and the attenuator on, I have either NO bars or 1 bar of signal per the meter, but pretty reliable reception.
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[slicerwizard]

Sounds like you've managed to eliminate all of the simulcast and multipath (and maybe, but not likely, interference from other sources) and get a useable signal from one site only.

[Viper43]

Thats a simulcast issue not overload as such, instead of recieving multiple tower sites now your getting just one. One fix ie to use either a beam or Yagi direcrional antennas. If you put it on a rotator you can then turn it to change tower sites if you want.

V