Miltown Police

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W2PSK

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I recently started to listen to the Milltown police. They are on the Middlesex County P25 system: https://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?sid=7232

I am using a Uniden BCD996P2. I downloaded the data from the database here, using Freescan.

The problem I'm having is that frequently, parts of the transmission seem garbled and at other times, it seems like I'm missing parts of the conversation. I haven't changed any of the settings in the downloaded data. Does anyone have any suggestions for what might be wrong?
 

W2SJW

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That's a Phase-II multi-site simulcast system, so you are experiencing what is known as LSM distortion (the scanner's front-end is receiving signals from multiple towers at once, some nanoseconds or milliseconds out of phase from the others).

The only thing out there right now that will properly handle that (other than a real radio) is the Uniden SDS100 or a Unication G4/G5 P25 pager.
 

W2PSK

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Freescan has an option to turn on 20dB attenuation. Will that help? Right now I have two repeater sites active. Should I disable one?
 

W2SJW

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The attenuator will probably not help. It's not a situation of too strong a signal, but too many coming in from different directions at once.

The county system is one main site - not sure what you mean about having more than 1 enabled.
 

W2PSK

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From the data downloaded from here, there are two site setups. I don't know what the right phrase is for this. It's the entry that has the frequencies used in the system. There are two separate ones. One has 16 frequencies and the second has 4. Here's a couple of screenshots of Freescan:

https://ibb.co/mKuiP8
https://ibb.co/eGziP8
 

ansky

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Are you sure Milltown police is not encrypted (or partially encrypted)? That may be why you are hearing garbled transmissions. Most police departments in Middlesex County are encrypted, so I would assume Milltown is too.
 

W2PSK

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Are you sure Milltown police is not encrypted (or partially encrypted)? That may be why you are hearing garbled transmissions. Most police departments in Middlesex County are encrypted, so I would assume Milltown is too.

Since I can hear some of what they are saying, I doubt they're encrypted. It seems like it gets harder to understand them when they are mumbling. Usually the dispatcher's voice comes in clearer. It sounds like the officers are talking a bit away from the microphone, as their audio is usually considerably lower than the dispatcher.
 

GM

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Milltown is in the clear, but sits between a few tower locations. One in New Brunswick, one in East Brunswick, and one in Sayreville. Also, the mic gain settings on the radios are turned a bit down from what one of the techs told me. Highland Park had that issue when they first went to the County system, but was adjusted accordingly. The issue is LSM distortion associated with some of the new P25 systems.
 
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