Starcom-21 Cook-south tower location

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NWI_Scanner_Guy

SCANNING THE AIRWAVES SINCE 1987
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Maybe it's too early in the morning and my brain is still half asleep, but I can't seem to find a map that shows locations of the Starcom21 towers. Does anyone know where the Cook-south tower is located? Right now I'm still in the south Suburbs, but next week I'll be moving to Northwest Indiana and I'm trying to determine if I'll still be able to monitor the Starcom system.

Thanks in advance for any info provided.

:)
 

JT-112

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It's not *a* tower, it's a *series* of towers.

Usually, you can get excellent maps of the towers right here on RR by looking at the database.

If you go to the SC21 page, you'll see that the "tower" names are clickable. When you click on one, you'll get more information - the important part to look for is the callsign/callsigns. Those are clickable too, and when you click you will normally get a map of where all the transmitters are.

However, for the Cook South site, the one and only call sign displayed doesn't have a map associated with it. But if you look at other sites, you'll get really nice maps. DuPage is a good example.

Unsure why Cook South is this way.

Getting to your question - it all depends on the equipment you're using. Using commercial gear I can listen to SC21 from 25-35+ miles away from the closest transmitter. Scanner is more like 15, maybe 20.
 

NWI_Scanner_Guy

SCANNING THE AIRWAVES SINCE 1987
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Location
Hammond, IN
It's not *a* tower, it's a *series* of towers.

Usually, you can get excellent maps of the towers right here on RR by looking at the database.

If you go to the SC21 page, you'll see that the "tower" names are clickable. When you click on one, you'll get more information - the important part to look for is the callsign/callsigns. Those are clickable too, and when you click you will normally get a map of where all the transmitters are.

However, for the Cook South site, the one and only call sign displayed doesn't have a map associated with it. But if you look at other sites, you'll get really nice maps. DuPage is a good example.

Unsure why Cook South is this way.

Getting to your question - it all depends on the equipment you're using. Using commercial gear I can listen to SC21 from 25-35+ miles away from the closest transmitter. Scanner is more like 15, maybe 20.

Equipment will probably be my PSR-800 and PRO-197 scanners with antennas up in the attic. Looking at the map provided by cubn, it looks like the closest tower to my location is in/near Burnham, about 10 miles from where I'll be moving to, so hopefully reception will still be pretty good. Here in Alsip, reception has been quite good....once I figured out what the heck I was doing. :)




Here's a map of all the tower locations so you can see which ones will be within range: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=U...d=111451870734625024702.000471f4b4f35c71cd5b4

Thanks for the link cubn, I really appreciate it. With that info, I was able to determine that a tower will be within about 10 miles of my new location.



Thank you both for your replies. I really appreciate the information.

:)
 

JT-112

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Just FYI, while that Google map is pretty good, it's not up to date - I noticed the new north Cook/NWCD system towers aren't on there, for example.

Still a decent map though.
 

XTS3000

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Now I understand why I loose reception while on the Ryan from 75th-95th St. Nice map.
 

NWI_Scanner_Guy

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Well, got my scanners hooked up at my new place today and I'm pretty pleased with the reception I'm getting of the Starcom system. My PRO-197 and PSR-800 pick it up very well (only a few garbled transmissions so far), but my HP-1 is deaf for some reason. No big loss however. Two out of three scanners picking up the system here in NWI is pretty good in my book.

:)
 

N9HQ

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That Google map of the Starcomm locations is definately out of date (2009). It is missing 6 of the Dupage (Site 101) towers. I can only imagine how many statewide it is missing.
 
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