Chester County Police

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quixote

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Jerry, who also provides the Chester County Fire/EMS feed took down the police feed some time ago. I had tried e-mailing him, but he didn't reply, so I'm hoping maybe someone here might be willing to help. My father is 75, and has always enjoyed listening to the police feed. Back in simpler times, he had scanners that would allow him to listen, but that changed when the system was upgraded. Jerry's feed gave me another option, but now that is gone. I'm hoping that if I knew which scanner to purchase for him, I could figure out how to program it, but I'm not sure what hardware I need. If anyone could let me know, I'd really appreciate it. Thank you.

Scott
 

HM1529

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Jerry, who also provides the Chester County Fire/EMS feed took down the police feed some time ago. I had tried e-mailing him, but he didn't reply, so I'm hoping maybe someone here might be willing to help. My father is 75, and has always enjoyed listening to the police feed. Back in simpler times, he had scanners that would allow him to listen, but that changed when the system was upgraded. Jerry's feed gave me another option, but now that is gone. I'm hoping that if I knew which scanner to purchase for him, I could figure out how to program it, but I'm not sure what hardware I need. If anyone could let me know, I'd really appreciate it. Thank you.

Scott

You could buy a basic analog scanner and program in the frequencies for the current trunked system in conventional mode. You will not be able to "trunk track" and follow a conversation exclusively on a single police channel (i.e. West Police), but you will be able to hear all the audio from the system that way. The drawback to this is that if you only wan't police comms, you'll be bogged down by fire/ems and other traffic from the system. I do this now and, while not ideal, it is better than not hearing anything at all.

One of the frequencies will be the status channel which will always have an open carrier on it. That frequency would need to be locked out.
 

quixote

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Ben - Thank you very much. If I understand you correctly, I should be able to program any analog scanner to do this. Is that correct??

Scott
 

bberns22

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Scott

Right now the Chester system is an analog LTR trunking system so you could go with a Uniden Bearcat BCT15X, which is around $200. However, I don't know how long they will stay with that system given almost all other systems in the area either have, or will be moving to P25.

Ben
 

HM1529

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Ben - Thank you very much. If I understand you correctly, I should be able to program any analog scanner to do this. Is that correct??

Scott

Correct.

The other Ben is right that the lifespan of the current system is not too much longer. Chester Co is in the process of building out their new digital system which should be online in the next 3 years or so.
 

quixote

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So, the new digital system might be available anywhere between a few months and three or so years?? I still might look into the BCT15X. I'd really like for my father to be able to hear the Chesco information again. Some of the reviews makes it sound like the programming is a bit of an effort. Is that accurate?? Thanks again for all of the help!!
 

quixote

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I'll admit to feeling a little intimidated, but I ordered the BCT 15X, and hope to have it late this week. After a bit of research, it looks like the way to go will be to get a premium subscription here, download the Freescan program, and hope I'm able to figure it out from there. If I run into any trouble, are any of you good folks willing to help out a rookie??
 

quixote

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If anyone is willing and able to help, please let me know. I have the scanner, upgraded my account here, dowloaded Freescan, tried to follow the instructions on the video, but nothing is happening. The scanner seems to be stuck on Alabama.
 

MickBurke

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I hate to say it, but I've had lots of trouble getting the feed on my grecom psr-500. Tried setting them up 'in conventional mode' and couldn't Downloaded them from Radio Reference , I either get nothing or it sits on the control channel (which i tried to lock out) and gets occasional broadcasts on that channel, otherwise static. That said, I came here to find out if I'm doing all this wrong, so it may be a lot easier than I know!
 

chankel

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ChesCo is LTR *Multinet*. I am not aware of any COTS (commercial, off-the-shelf) scanners that will decode the control channel, so programming it as an LTR system on any scanner simply won't work. The only way to listen to specific groups would be to obtain and program a Multinet-capable commercial radio with all of the talkgroups on the system...with transmit locked out.
 

krokus

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ChesCo is LTR *Multinet*. I am not aware of any COTS (commercial, off-the-shelf) scanners that will decode the control channel, so programming it as an LTR system on any scanner simply won't work. The only way to listen to specific groups would be to obtain and program a Multinet-capable commercial radio with all of the talkgroups on the system...with transmit locked out.

Will DSD, or the like, handle it?

Sent via Tapatalk
 

MickBurke

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Now I saw somewhere else that "Chester County, Pennsylvania, uses analog radio frequencies and trunked communications, however the trunked communications can be monitored only in conventional mode because the county's trunking system is LTR Multinet." Is it no longer possible to do this? I had some luck previously getting some traffic, but never understood why I got what I did or didn't get what I missed...
 

chankel

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As Ben R. mentioned, you can enter the system frequencies into conventinal (non-trunked) channels and listen to communications on them, but you will hear all of the traffic on the system as there is no way to differentiate talkgroups. It will also be necessary to lock out the control channel.
 

MickBurke

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Gotcha, what about the audio that sometimes comes up on the control channel? Is that redundant, or will I just miss that? Also, It seems like they are on their way to a new system, a "P25 Phase II" system. Will that make the situation better or worse? Thanks!
 

Septa3371CSX1

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Gotcha, what about the audio that sometimes comes up on the control channel? Is that redundant, or will I just miss that? Also, It seems like they are on their way to a new system, a "P25 Phase II" system. Will that make the situation better or worse? Thanks!

A P25 Phase II system would be able to be trunk tracked by commercially available scanners (currently only the PSR-800, BCD-436, and BCD-536 can accomplish this). It is unknown what the exact specs on the P25 Phase II system will be in terms of encryption usage and such.
 
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