Can someone answer this?

snapperq · #1 (**permalink**) 06-11-2011, 10:04 PM

I live in Northwest Ohio and am trying to monitor Lucas County/Toledo (P25 system) which is 800Mhz. I live about 50 miles south of Toledo. As I monitor Lucas Co the signal is strong but the audio breaks up.
Can someone tell me what settings should the P25 adjust level and the P25 adjust mode be?
I have heard several settings 20, 50 and 130 to 150. Which should it be?

Please help here!

ka3jjz · #2 (**permalink**) 06-12-2011, 6:55 AM

Unless you've got a good high antenna, 50 miles at 800 mhz is pushing the limits of how far a signal can go at these frequencies, depending on the terrain. Otherwise there's every chance here you are out of range.

best regards..Mike

snapperq · #3 (**permalink**) 06-12-2011, 7:59 AM

I have a new Uniden BCD996XT with a Diamond 130-J mounted at 62 feet above flat ground. I can hear about 90% of the transmission but breaks-up in between.
Any advice?

jackj · #4 (**permalink**) 06-12-2011, 8:30 AM

I'm in Fulton county, about 20 miles west of Toledo, and I have the same problem. The Lucas county system is a simulcast system that appears to use the same frequencies throughout and I think that is my problem. If you pickup data streams from two different transmitters they will interfere with each other and cause dropouts. I'm hoping that, when Fulton county joins their system, the new transmitter at Wauseon will solve my problems.

snapperq · #5 (**permalink**) 06-12-2011, 9:14 AM

I was told that you must change the P25 adjust level. I did change it to 20 and get about 90% of transmission but it's choppy at times. I can monitor Adrian, MI (VHF) all the time, which is about 80 miles from me.
Wish someone had the answers.

ems170 · #6 (**permalink**) 06-12-2011, 10:59 AM

snapperq- you are either on a fringe area for coverage or more than likely it is multi path distortion from the simulcast system. The P25 adjust level will only set the strength that the RSSI has to be at to begin auto adjusting the decode rate. setting it too low can actually make it worse beause it will try to adjust a high error rate which is caused by weak signal and not an incorrect decode rate. This can then cause the first few strong transmissions to have to be re-adjusted. Unfortunaty scanners are plagued with multi path distortion that a professional grade radio can overcome.

snapperq · #7 (**permalink**) 06-12-2011, 1:57 PM

So what do you suggest I set the rate to?
20 or something else and what about the P25 rate mode?