help picking sites

[michaelayers]

when i go to program scanner do i pick multiple sites for different counties,example if i wnt to listen to iredell county ems and pick a site in iredell do i also have to pick a site if i want to listen to say hickory ems or charlotte police reason im asking is i programmed my scanner and picked multiple sites but am only hearing iredell ems and sherriff not hearing none of the other counties

 

[troymail]

Knowing what radio you have and how you programmed it will help better answer your question.

Your local site many or may or not carrying certain traffic - either because there are no units affiliated with that site on the talkgroup and/or the system admins could set it up to only allow certain talkgroups and/or radios on certain sites.

Programming additional sites can help but only if those sites are in range. If they are out of range and you are stationary, the additional sites could impact on performance to some degree.

Some scanners will try to scan all sites that you have programmed - in range or not. Other scanners will find the best site (signal strength/quality) and hold on that site - not looking at the others.

If you are using any type of location control, that can impact what the scanner tries to scan as well. I recently drove through the UASI area and encountered issues using location control. However, if you are not using location control, I won't bore you with that stuff.

 

[michaelayers]

I’ve got a Whistler was 1040 so do u think I should put all the sites in my area in the scanner

 

[troymail]

Ok - so back to your original question....

It is VERY unlikely that most or all talkgroups on the system are carried on all sites - it may be "possible" but it isn't likely.

So - yes, you'll probably want to program multiple sites -- but that should be sites that (a) you would expect to carry those talkgroups and (b) sites that are in range for you to receive.

As for scaning all of the sites you program, there are a couple of options. The WS1040 type radios have some settings that tell the radio to look at one vs. multiple programmed sites/control channels. Info can be found here:

Easier to Read Pro-651/652/106/197 - WS1040/1065 - PSR 500/600 Digital Scanner Manual

Multi-Site Systems
Some Motorola and EDACS systems covering a very large geographic area use multiple antenna sites that each operate on different frequencies and use the same talkgroup IDs for traffic. You can program up to 32 frequencies for each trunking system (all you need are the control channel frequencies) but if you have more than 32 frequencies for a system (such as large multi-site system), you will have to split it into separate sites (or groups of sites) and duplicate the IDs for each site (or group of sites). Each talkgroup object can be assigned to one or more scan lists but only assigned to one trunking system or site. That's when the software comes in handy. This method fixes the 32 control channel limit per system but also defeats the Multi-site 'Roaming' functionality. Each TGRP object can be assigned to multiple Scan Lists but only to one trunking system. But, you are really only able to monitor sites within about a 30 mile radius and that usually wouldn't be more than 15-20 sites or 32 control channels anyway. Splitting your big system up will also allow you to tag the smaller groups (or sites) as the scanner only displays tags for systems and not sites.

 

[michaelayers]

Thanks a bunch for the replies your really helpful I’m gonna see if my scanner will read multiple sites but say if I have Statesville police programmed in why is it not saying anything shouldn’t they also be using Iredell county sites and one more thing on my conventional freq I hear hardly anything my question is am I able to listen to trunk and conv

 

[jonwienke]

There's no benefit to scanning a site that is out of range. The traffic carried by each site is determined by the system managers. Some talkgroups may be carried on all sites, but most will only be carried on one or a few sites to reduce overall system traffic. Program all of the sites that you can actually receive a signal from, and you'll have to monitor to determine which traffic is carried on each site. Some traffic will be duplicated, but some will not.

 

[troymail]

Thanks a bunch for the replies your really helpful I’m gonna see if my scanner will read multiple sites but say if I have Statesville police programmed in why is it not saying anything shouldn’t they also be using Iredell county sites and one more thing on my conventional freq I hear hardly anything my question is am I able to listen to trunk and conv

So there are at least two possible systems in Iredell County:

Statesville Public Safety and Charlotte UASI Region.

It looks like Statesville Police and Fire are on the Statesville system and (I suspect based on the available information), the Charlotte UASI system doesn't play a role in monitoring that activity.

To hear things outside Iredell County, you'd probably need to program one or more sites of the UASI system while keeping in mind that the activity (talkgroups) will likely mostly map to the sites of that system's sites.

For your radio, I'd typically program each system and site as a different system (TSYS).... Statesville certainly as a single system - but then the Iredell site of UASI as another standalone system and, if in range, any other UASI site as a standalone system. Each of these standalone systems could be all in the same scanlist but I'd (at a minimum) put the talkgroups for each "system" in a different scanlist.

Yes - you can listen to both trunk and conventional at the same time.

There is one more "advanced" topic that you will likely encounter trying to receive some systems/sites -- digital simulcast distortion. But that is something we can come back and discuss more later.

 

[michaelayers]

When I programmed my scanner it said viper or Charlotte usai I picked viper cause I thought all of nc went to viper and how do I find out which site I can receive a signal from I know these are stupid questions but I’m a newbie

 

[troymail]

Ah - ok.... doh! I forgot about VIPER - but probably because I see two other systems in Iredell that are probably more where you want to look.

VIPER does list lots of Iredell talkgroups also -- you can program one of more sites of VIPER for Iredell in a similar fashion. You have lots of things to try.

However, again, you're only likely to receive the VIPER sites that are fairly close to you. I have four VIPER sites in Brunswick county and typically only pick up to of them. So unless you are on the southern edge of Iredell county, you probably won't be able to receive much VIPER inside Charlotte. Also, I believe Charlotte is mostly using UASI but I could be wrong.

The good news is you have lots of things to play with in your area!

BTW - are you using software to program your radio? If so, which software?

 

[michaelayers]

ye s im using the win 500 how do i knw what sites i recieve a signal from and another ques so do i put all the viper sites on a scan list then usa1 an another scan list and then the tgrp on another im confused

 

[michaelayers]

and how do i go into my ws1040 and change to multiple sites

 

[troymail]

Win500 - great.

Here's what I'd do ---

1. Create a TSYS for the local VIPER site and put in the frequencies.
2. Create some talkgroups (specific or wildcard) attached to that TSYS and assign those talkgroups to scanlist 1

3. If desired, create a TSYS for another VIPER site and put in the frequencies.
4. Create some talkgroups (specific or wildcard) attached to that 2nd TSYS and assign those talkgroups to scanlist 2

5. Create a TSYS for the Statesville Public Safety system and put in the frequencies.
6. Create some talkgroups (specific or wildcard) attached to the Statesville TSYS and assign those talkgroups to scanlist 3

7. Create a TSYS for the the UASI system Iredell site and put in the frequencies.
8. Create some talkgroups (specific or wildcard) attached to the UASI system Iredell site TSYS and assign those talkgroups to scanlist 4

9. Create a TSYS for the another UASI site and put in the frequencies.
10. Create some talkgroups (specific or wildcard) attached to that additional UASI system site TSYS and assign those talkgroups to scanlist 5

Load the programming on the scanner and enable one scanlist at a time....

Does it seem you are receiving a control channel for each scanlist?

 

[michaelayers]

what is a control channel all my scanners is doing at the moment is im hearing iredell sheriff,ems and occasional catawba ct ems and ive got two scan lists going scan in scan list 1 mostly iredell co and catawba co scan list 2 some state trooper stuff and statesville pd,ems,fire and mooresvillepd,ems fire which i havvent heard anything from

 

[troymail]

For trunking systems, the system (and/or system site) is "controlled" by a computer. The computer manages which talkgroups are carried on which frequencies at any given time. This produces a data stream that all radios "listen to" and the frequency for each site that actively carries that data stream is known as a control channel.

On the RRDB, these control channel frequencies are shown in RED (primary) or BLUE (alternate).

For P25 and some other trunking systems, your scanner pretty much only requires the active control channel frequency to be programmed and it will figure out the rest of them (best case, most times).

While learning and trying to get things working, you probably should look at only a single system (and maybe even a single site of each system) at a time -- that will probably be more than enough to get your head around at first.

 

[michaelayers]

I think what I’m gonna do is clear out scanner and go to win and redo my lists like u said to do maybe u can awnser this I’ve also got my conv freq on a scan list but it only picks up sherif and ems do I do anything special when I download them from rr cause the way I did it was I downloaded the free from rr and plugged in my scanner and pushed upload and it did but that’s all the freq I’m hearing

 

[troymail]

I think what I’m gonna do is clear out scanner and go to win and redo my lists like u said to do maybe u can awnser this I’ve also got my conv freq on a scan list but it only picks up sherif and ems do I do anything special when I download them from rr cause the way I did it was I downloaded the free from rr and plugged in my scanner and pushed upload and it did but that’s all the freq I’m hearing

Using Win500 and the RRDB is nice to load things but to really makes sense of things, it's best to try to understand how these trunk systems work and how they are different from conventional channels.

The best way to learn - beyond asking questions and reading - is to then try and manually program (using the software) a system/site and some talkgroups. This allows you to get familiar with how the systems work and what they look like in the programming. Once you have this under your belt, it makes it easier to understand what you are looking at when you use Win500 and RRDB to import alot of programming data (as well as helping you decide which things to select and import).

After many years of this, the best recommendation I can give you is (a) be patient while learning (b) don't be afraid to experiment and try things (c) in doing so, keep your manual (via software) programming small enough to try something without having to fear losing a large amount of time and effort.

It is very easy to get overwhelmed and frustrated - trust me - I've been there.

 

[michaelayers]

hey troymail do u think a bigger or more powerful antenna would help me or is the factory one good enough and my scanner is a whistler ws1040

 

[troymail]

hey troymail do u think a bigger or more powerful antenna would help me or is the factory one good enough and my scanner is a whistler ws1040

There are some better handheld antennas. I use Radio Shack 800 Mhz antennas on my radios. They may be hard to find tgesedays. I think there is a similar antenna under the Whistler brand and another under Remtronics.

These do help quite a bit under you're already seeing solid 5 bar signals.

 

[ofd8001]

With regard to which sites to program, a little research may be beneficial. Look at this system, which is for VIPER: https://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?sid=7118

When you get to this page, you'll see a list of sites. Examine those that are in your county and in the counties contiguous to your county. Then click on the site name which opens another page. That second page will show the Range for that site and a circle showing the approximate coverage area. If you are in that circle, it would be reasonable to program the site. The only caveat is if you aren't interested in transmissions for that area, there is no benefit to programming it. For example if you are close enough to Raleigh but don't want to hear anything "Raleigh", don't program Raleigh.

I think it's better to put too much in at first just to see what you can get, then delete those you can't.

A couple of other thoughts. The 800 spectrum radio waves won't travel as far as something in the 150 spectrum. Also given how statewide system sites interact with each other, power output is not as high. The way it works is that if a unit from County A travels in to County B, the radio may be allowed to affiliate with the County B site and then the County A and B sites are "linked" together so that unit can still communicate with its "home base".

The "newfangled" statewide trunked radio systems are a definite breed of cat as compared to conventional stand alone systems of old days.

A different antenna could help some, but an outside antenna as high as possible with as good as affordable coax will give the best results possible.

 

[michaelayers]

Do you know what MHz my factory antenna is and do you think I should get a 800mhz for mine