Newbie from Ottawa

[rainydaybagel]

Just wanted to say hi and introduce myself. New member from Ottawa here. I'm just getting into this hobby and picked up a cheap Pro 95 for some analog scanning to get my feet wet. Had fun programming some conventional frequencies and setting up trunking for the analog EDACS. Of course, I'm already wanting a unit for digital signals and a better antenna!
Looking forward to being a part of this community. I'm sure I'll have some noob questions to pester you all with before long...
Joe

 

[mmisk]

Hello and welcome.

Hello Joe and welcome. Hope you are having fun,

 

[rainydaybagel]

Hello Joe and welcome. Hope you are having fun,

Thank you! I am really enjoying this even being limited to analog. Pretty cool to pull these signals out of the air with an inexpensive older scanner.

 

[mmisk]

SDR device

If you have fairly recent computer you can easily listen to digital comms using a very inexpensive SDR device.

Not hard to get going. If you buy two of them, the second one can actually follow the voice frequencies as they change.

Are you familiar with SDR and what it can do?

Mike

 

[rainydaybagel]

Thanks for the advice, Mike! Never heard of SDR but a brief googling gives me an inkling and has me excited. No Windows computers in the house though - Linux and Mac only so that might change things I would imagine. Going to have to do a bit of reading, methinks...
I was about to pull the trigger on a Uniden BCD436HP. Would that supersede an SDR setup or could the two be complimentary?

 

[mciupa]

No Windows computers in the house though -

No biggie.. Boxing Day is coming... Factory Direct sell refurbs, check Kijiji, e-Bay etc.

SDR x2 and cheap Windows computer is still cheaper than a 436.

 

[rainydaybagel]

No biggie.. Boxing Day is coming... Factory Direct sell refurbs, check Kijiji, e-Bay etc.

SDR x2 and cheap Windows computer is still cheaper than a 436.

Good point. And I may have an old netbook around running XP if the machine would handle the SDR software.

I've also been reading about Linux + GNU Radio + OP25 which seems possible but challenging (I have an i7 machine running straight Kubuntu).

Thoughts on either approach? I'll be wanting to access P2 systems, DMR, EDACS ProVoice...

Thanks

 

[mmisk]

PRO 95 discriminator tap

I looked up adding a discriminator tap to your PRO 95.
It looks super easy to do.

Then you would send the P-25 or provoice output to your computer and decode the audio with DSD.
It is all quite easy to do.

I have a scanner that tracks provoice so I just send the discriminator output to the computer and DSD decodes non encrypted provoice audio

Pro 93/95/96 Tap - The RadioReference Wiki

 

[rainydaybagel]

I looked up adding a discriminator tap to your PRO 95.
It looks super easy to do.

Then you would send the P-25 or provoice output to your computer and decode the audio with DSD.
It is all quite easy to do.

I have a scanner that tracks provoice so I just send the discriminator output to the computer and DSD decodes non encrypted provoice audio

Pro 93/95/96 Tap - The RadioReference Wiki

This is really cool - thanks!

 

[mciupa]

A mono audio jack, drilling a small hole to mount the jack,mono audio cable, some wire, solder, and you are in business.

TP4 has that nice pin to solder to and looks uncluttered to access.