Spotty LTR Reception On An Pro-92?

[precoislen]

Being new with the LTR stuff, did some research, and got the old Pro-92 fired up but am having some reception problems. Like I am missing transmissions somewhere. Maybe fringe area operations on the users end that is coming thru on some of it?

I can one system very reliably, as I am only about an mile from their downtown tower, and that comes in real good.

I have reconfigured this scanner a couple times and even have it set up on just one system, on three banks, programmed in three different ways on each bank. ie... Bank 1- all Freqs in the LCN in order, channel 1,2,3,4,5 and so on. Bank 2, freq in the LCN lined up as was suggested by somebody, and on Bank 3, freq in the LCN lined up as you would do with an Uniden scanner.

I get the same type of reception on each bank. I have tried different flavors of monitoring, all 3 banks on at the same time, 2 banks, and 1 bank at an time, etc... I am beginning to think maybe the scanner can't just track as reliably as it should. I am open to suggestions or comments from anybody on this who uses an has used an Pro-92 in the past.

By the way, I am only trying to track an regular LTR system, as I am aware you can't do an Passport LTR system..

Special thanks to Mr_Hankey for initially helping me out. His advice and information has been accurate and dead-on, and helped me get off the ground and running. 8)

 

[loumaag]

It's good to be able to talk about a Pro-92 every once and a while.

This entire discussion will be in reference to LTR Regular only and the Pro-92. (This is for those people who come in later, read half a paragraph and have some objection to something said. :roll: )

First, the Pro-92 (or its mobile cousin the Pro-2067) does not require the LTR frequencies to be placed in LCN order. Any order will do as it does not actually take LCN instruction from the "home channel" repeater. The reason for this is that the Pro-92 is probably the best scanner ever built for rapid decode of sub-audible tone information. It is so rapid, that it does not need to know what LCN a TG is moving to, it can scan all the LTR frequencies in a bank and find where the subject TG moved to.

So that being said, you really don't need to worry about order or relative position when setting up a LTR system in a Pro-92/2067. Now a couple of things you do have to be aware of.

1. If you don't have all of the frequencies for the system in the bank (and programed as LTR) you will obviously miss something. This was pretty obvious but if I didn't put it here, someone would point out that I didn't state the obvious.

2. If you put more than one LTR system (or indeed a single extra LTR frequency) in the same bank, you are subject to being mis-directed on a TG. This is because two different system may use the same TG and of course the radio has no way of knowing it is not on the same system.

So the bottom line is, only one LTR system in each bank with all frequencies in any order or position and a seperate bank for each LTR system you want to monitor. You can place other conventional frequencies in the same bank with no problem (other than maybe moving from a LTR conversation to a conventional conversation or the other way.)

If you are having trouble with those ones that are coming in weakly, well the same rule applies to all scanning, the better you can pick up the signal, the more reliable the scanning will be.

Hope this help out. 8)

 

[pro92b]

Improving the signal as much as you can will help but in the end the PRO-92 is not a great LTR tracker. Uniden scanners track LTR better than the PRO-92. I go into some of the reasons why at http://home.hvc.rr.com/bpetrow/ltr.htm.

 

[precoislen]

loumaag.. good deal, I have those bases covered correctly....I am pretty sure that all the freqs are there, and are set to LT Mode in their own banks....

I will err on the side that the end-user (AMR) is on the fringes of the operating system sometimes, and that is why they are coming in spotty...

Another question though. I set the system in closed mode (Function-2) and get the (-) indication on the screen, but I have been some bleed thru on that bank by other users. There TG ID's don't show up, but their voice comms come thru somewhat clear. AMR ID's show up as they should in Closed mode. Is this normal? I thought if I didn't have there other TG ID's programmed in that they wouldn't come thru in Closed mode..just in the Open mode...

 

[loumaag]

...Another question though. I set the system in closed mode (Function-2) and get the (-) indication on the screen, but I have been some bleed thru on that bank by other users. There TG ID's don't show up, but their voice comms come thru somewhat clear. AMR ID's show up as they should in Closed mode. Is this normal? I thought if I didn't have there other TG ID's programmed in that they wouldn't come thru in Closed mode..just in the Open mode...

Sounds as if you are getting front end overload from somewhere. Are indeed the snatchs of conversation you are hearing from other users on the same system, or are they from something a lot closer? Try in OPEN mode and see if the TG info is decoded or if you are getting something from some other close-by conventional frequency.

Oh, one other thing...LTR systems (yes even regular LTR) sometimes have "silent channels". In other words, channels that do not have that characteristic LTR 10 second idle keyup. This of course makes mapping a LTR system even more difficult.

 

[crayon]

This entire discussion will be in reference to LTR Regular only and the Pro-92. (This is for those people who come in later, read half a paragraph and have some objection to something said.)

You'll be lucky if they even read that!!


If I could simulate how these types of people read a thread. *achem*

words, words, words, letters, words, sentances, period.

OMG!! I think that punk little kid just called me a dirty so-n-so. Mabey I should reread the post just to make sure .. naaa. I need to fly off the handle and post a bunch of trash and/or "I totally have missed the point of the thread" comment before someone else does.

 

[precoislen]

Will do some more work with that scanner tonight, reconfiguring etc... and will monitor in an open mode. I started with just the one LTR system because I wanted to format it correctly, and get an good understanding before adding more. Read up all I could in the forums, especially the Texas forums, and am pretty comfortable with the information for this system on the database.

LouMaag and Pro92B, appreciate your help and helping clarify some of the things I was having problems with. Hopefully I got what I need now..and should be good to go.

 

[DaveIN]

Curious that you would be doing this with an old Pro-92. I had just picked up a CPU Version 1.0 for that reason. Thanks for the information, I guess I'll also be trying it on the Uniden LTR to compare results. Guess I will have to try out the LTRTRUNK program and see what kind of results I can get.

 

[mr_hankey]

precoislen,

when i had a PRO-92b, i found the antenna and reception TERRIBLE.

i was able to remedy this by either 1) getting closer to the source 2) getting higher up in the air, or 3) using an amplified GRE antenna (bulky)

it sounds like you have the LCN right, insofar as we have discovered it (could be missing a freq or two - these systems change all the time...)

you might try listening to an LTR system that is close to your base of operations - try looking up the mapping info on the RR database and see where the tower is located.

the Time Warner System North Tower is smack-dab in the med center - Fred and Wurbach - it makes a good LTR system to receive if you are near the Northwest side of San Antonio. their South Tower is out by highway 181.

AMR is out by Randolph AFB, and Texas Towing is off several towers, but their main one is right in their depot yard.

anyway, let us know how things work out!

 

[W4KRR]

Improving the signal as much as you can will help but in the end the PRO-92 is not a great LTR tracker. Uniden scanners track LTR better than the PRO-92. I go into some of the reasons why at http://home.hvc.rr.com/bpetrow/ltr.htm.

pro92b, did you write the information on that site? It's a very informative page.

There's a local Indian casino that uses four conventional UHF frequencies for their operations. At least two of their frequencies have the LTR data burst every 10 seconds or so. But the LTR system (or systems) have nothing to do with the operations at the casino, and the casino uses the channels as conventional with DPL tones.

 

[pro92b]

Ken,

Yes, everything on the page is my work. My stingy ISP allows only 5MB and it is just about full. Glad you found it interesting and thanks for letting me know.

pro92b

 

[Landman]

Yes, thanks for the link. It was great information. The first method for finding the LCN ordering seems pretty doggone ingenious. I will try it on a system near me.

 

[precoislen]

Reconfigured last night, and moved around in a couple of areas, and got some of the reception problems ironed out. Monitored Texas Towing, as they were pretty active last night, and they came in loud and clear. Didn't seem like I missed too much of thier transmissions.

Still having problems with AMR. Maybe they weren't talking too much, but heard bits and pieces of somebody talking. Wrote down their TG ID, and it wasn't identified. As soon as I figure out who they are I will submit them to the database.

Question though. Manually monitored each individually frequency, and some of them had no data burst as described on here. Maybe an frequency change for the system, or do some frequencies not provide an burst?

 

[loumaag]

Question though. Manually monitored each individually frequency, and some of them had no data burst as described on here. Maybe an frequency change for the system, or do some frequencies not provide an burst?

See my post of 7/20/04 AM in this thread.

 

[precoislen]

Overlooked that!!! Answers that question. Thanks LouMaag :wink:

Appreciate all the help from everybody on this.

 

[Halfpint]

Hmmmmmmmm... Something I did to increase the `speed' at which my PRO-92s and PRO-2067s `track' particular conversations was to program the freqs in `LCN' in the first `channels' of the bank. Then I spaced by one blank `channel' and re-programmed the freqs again this time I started with what would be the second `LCN' freq and put the first `LCN'` freq on the tail end of that string. I did this all the way through the bank until I got back to the `regular' `LCN' order. (This is with a 5 freq system, BTW, and I did end up with a bunch of empty `channels' at the end which I locked out just like I had done the `blanks' between the `clusters' of freqs.) Before I did this there were times when the power company system I usually monitorwas busy that I'd miss a piece of a conversation and maybe actually even end up `latching onto' another completely different one. Now I don't have that problem nearly as much as I used to and usually when it does happen it's more likely that it is because something other than the radio itself that's causing it to happen. (I've also done this with regular FM `conventional' freqs in the `blanks' if they also have something to do with whatever it is I've designated that bank for. Though it doesn't seem to work quite as well as just leaving a `blank' and locking it out.)

Another system Iisten to uses 5 freqs for their LTR system and a 6th one seems to be some sort of `supervisory?' freq that's plain FM `conventional'. In the case of that system I've been using that freq as my `blank', so to speak, freq . Since it isn't a system I regularly monitor all that much I haven't really been able to tell if it works as well as putting an actual `blank' in place and locking it out. Though what I have been able to tell from the times I have spent really monitoring it this does seem to help *almost* as much.

The worst monitoring setup, at least for what I'm listening to, was putting a bunch of unrelated FM `conventional' freqs into the bank as `filler'. I had more `drop outs' and losses of conversations than I did with just the system freqs only and the rest of the `channels' locked out'. Add to that the hassles of having to go through and lock and unlock various FM `conventional' stuff every time something changed during listening and I quickly `deep sixed' that setup.

Oh, well... {GRIN!} Just my 2¢ worth. I guess that everyone has something that works for them, too, and one just has to try it and see if it helps or not?