SDR/SDRTrunk for Greenville Simulcast, 2 or 3 dongles ?

[mister018]

Hey just wondering anyone in the Greenville area is monitoring the simulcast system and if so how many dongles are you using ?

I've got 2 currently(NooElec Smart XRs) but I get a lot of "tuner unavailable" because the computer/dongles are busy with "muted" calls.

I'm just wondering if adding a third tuner would possibly improve the number of calls I actually want to hear

Thanks

 

[TJX400]

I would 100% get a third or even fourth one. My setup has 6 and I haven't had any issues. I'm not from the area but if you're getting the tuner unavailable messages then it'd be worth while to invest in 1 or 2 more.

 

[brian]

The frequency range for that site is from 851.1875 on the low end to 859.9625 on the high end. And there are a couple of 854 and 956 frequencies in the middle.

Maybe SDRTrunk has the capability of the user defining the range of frequencies for a specific tuner, or at least defining a center frequency for each tuner? You probably need two dongles for the 851-855 range, and then a 3rd tuner for the 859 frequencies. Maybe you then only miss transmissions that use the 856 frequency?

This is Palmetto 800 site 2-23.

Site Frequencies

851.1875	851.875	852.1875	852.450	852.550	852.7375
853.2125	853.2625c	853.5375c	853.750c	853.8625c	854.9875
856.2375	859.2625	859.9625

 

[KMG54]

I use DSD+Fastlane here in the upstate, even with a single dongle I don't miss much of the site Brian listed. 853.8625 is the current control channel.

 

[mister018]

So I got 2 more dongles(the NooElec Smart((Black ones)) and while I've been experimenting, I've ran into another issue concerning indoor "Rubber Duck" vs Outdoor antennas trying to receive Hogback or Caesar's Head ...I posted a thread in the SDR sub cat under Computer aided monitoring SDRTrunk fails to lock(drops) CC on outdoor antenna If you want to read more specifics

My question for the local guys: Is anyone using an outdoor antenna(s) on SDR dongles of any brand ?

I'm just south of I-85 in Conestee SC. and can pick up Hogback/Caesar with the outdoor antennas hooked to my HomePatrol-1's

 

[brian]

I use DSD+Fastlane here in the upstate, even with a single dongle I don't miss much of the site Brian listed. 853.8625 is the current control channel.

DSD+ Fastlane has the option to monitor in combined Control Channel/Voice Channel mode much like a scanner would. You hear one transmission at a time.

SDR Trunk has the ability to monitor (and record) multiple frequencies at a time, including the control channel. With multiple dongles operating together, you can record/monitor all activity simultaneously, which I think is what the OP is asking about.

 

[brian]

So I got 2 more dongles(the NooElec Smart((Black ones)) and while I've been experimenting, I've ran into another issue concerning indoor "Rubber Duck" vs Outdoor antennas trying to receive Hogback or Caesar's Head ...I posted a thread in the SDR sub cat under Computer aided monitoring SDRTrunk fails to lock(drops) CC on outdoor antenna If you want to read more specifics

My question for the local guys: Is anyone using an outdoor antenna(s) on SDR dongles of any brand ?

I'm just south of I-85 in Conestee SC. and can pick up Hogback/Caesar with the outdoor antennas hooked to my HomePatrol-1's

Lots of possible issues here. I'd say that you're probably on the fringe of reception range for both Caesars Head and Hogback sites at your location. I would be surprised if you could receive them reliably without an outdoor antenna. It's very unlikely that it's too much signal causing your issue, so I'd think more gain would be better than less gain. I'd never run the dongles with maximum gain, as you're certainly going to overwhelm the dongle receivers with strong nearby signals, even in a different band.

I'm not very familiar with SDR Trunk software, but you might have better luck using SDR# or even FMP24 (from DSD+) to tune and optimize reception of your dongles, and using those to prove you can reliably receive those sites before trying to figure it out with SDRTrunk. However, if you're not familiar with either of those other applications, that might be more trouble than it's worth.

In an ideal world, you'd feed all of your dongles from the same antenna using a multi-coupler. Those can be expensive. But this would ensure you're getting the same, consistent signal to all dongles. As opposed to using a different antenna for each dongle, which can cause varying signals among the different receivers.

I do use outdoor antennas with my scanners and dongle receivers, and they work fine. I have both a 800MHz omni-directional antenna and an 800MHz 7-element yagi on rotor. From Spartanburg, I typically have to use the yagi to get enough consistent signal from any of the Greenville sites. I generally don't use more than one receiver at a time because I lack a multi-coupler.

Your HP1 likely has a better receiver (in terms of sensitivity, selectivity and filtering) than your SDR dongles. But with the right tuning, you can probably get the SDR dongles pretty close to the same.

 

[KMG54]

Understood, but fastlane also lets you lock out and set priority with what you want to listen to on the fly. You will see and hear all calls on the site just have to click on them until you have a scanlist of what you want. I find it much easier than two dongles for everyday listening. But you are 100% correct if you want to record everything

 

[KMG54]

Screen shot of my setup with a single dongle. I am only interested in TR city PD and greenville fire, but left Greenville north sheriff on but low priority. Also notice my gain setting.

 

[brian]

Understood, but fastlane also lets you lock out and set priority with what you want to listen to on the fly. You will see and hear all calls on the site just have to click on them until you have a scanlist of what you want. I find it much easier than two dongles for everyday listening. But you are 100% correct if you want to record everything

I agree with you. The two applications are similar, but they have different features that lend themselves to different monitoring goals and preferences.

 

[JohnSC]

Screen shot of my setup with a single dongle. I am only interested in TR city PD and greenville fire, but left Greenville north sheriff on but low priority. Also notice my gain setting.View attachment 128426

You appear to be covering more than 8MHz with a single dongle. Which one are you using?

Screen shot of my setup with a single dongle. I am only interested in TR city PD and greenville fire, but left Greenville north sheriff on but low priority. Also notice my gain setting.View attachment 128426

 

[KMG54]

The orange flight aware stick with a pre amp built in.

 

[JohnSC]

I've just set up SDR-Trunk with two RTL-2832u receivers trying to capture as much of the traffic as possible and recording priority channels. It's like a firehose with everything coming at me, but it's remarkable that I don't hear fragments, unlike my SDS200 radio. Awkward not being able to lock onto to a TGID on the fly, but there is probably a way to do it. Pretty low on the learning curve at this stage, but having a lot of fun with it.

 

[JohnSC]

I spent a little time with SDR-Trunk today and it is quite impressive. The simulcast audio is better than my SDS200. With two dongles and the number of simultaneous channels set to 10, it displayed as many as 10 channels simultaneously on Greenville Simulcast.

I was unable to find a way to copy my alias group channels from a group I had created last night. Not good. So I again downloaded from the Radio Reference database of every channel from the surrounding counties and HP troops 2 and 3. I locked out every channel except several fire channels and a few others, and by this afternoon the recording folder was loaded with recordings from all of the selected channels. And, with only two dongles, I had recordings from every frequency in Brian's list for Greenville Simulcast.

As was mentioned above, there was no way to lock onto a channel or turn off a channel, but I was able to set priority using SDR-Trunk. Still, it is a powerful resource for overnight recording. Can't say for sure I didn't miss any transmissions today, but it is a lot to wade through in a folder filled with recordings.

 

[mister018]

Morning Y'all, I figured I'd give a update:
Well after some trial & error I'm able to receive the Hogback site on one of my SDR setup(got 2 older laptops running SDRs) I just had to find the correct gain settings and antenna combo.

So now my listening consist of:
1. 2012 Macbook Pro with i7 cpu, Running Linux Mint Xfce, monitoring the Gville simulcast system for Gville PD, Mauldin, S'ville, Ftn Inn, and picking up some Laurens SD along with some Anderson small town PD stuff.

2. 2014 Sony Vaio with i5 cpu, Running Linux Mint Mate, monitoring the Hogback site for Spartanburg, County FD and some Misc stuff.

3. The two Home Patrols, one on Caesar's Head and the other on Hogback both locked onto Gville SD and SCTAC and GSP FDs.

 

[brian]

Sounds like a great setup you have. Glad you got it working.

You won't hear much Spartanburg County FD off Hogback (referenced in point #2) since Spartanburg County FD is VHF conventional. Perhaps what you meant was you're monitoring Hogback and hearing various Spartanburg County agencies (Sheriff, EMS, maybe even City PD and Muni PDs), Greenville County Fire, and other misc stuff.

 

[mister018]

Sounds like a great setup you have. Glad you got it working.

You won't hear much Spartanburg County FD off Hogback (referenced in point #2) since Spartanburg County FD is VHF conventional. Perhaps what you meant was you're monitoring Hogback and hearing various Spartanburg County agencies (Sheriff, EMS, maybe even City PD and Muni PDs), Greenville County Fire, and other misc stuff.

Sorry I meant Spartanburg Sheriff..and yes, Gville Co FD q

 

[JohnSC]

Trying to figure out how to set up custom alias groups. Loaded the entire RR database in 10 channel mode using just the control frequency of 853.8625. Runs for a while and stops.

 

[kb5udf]

I skimmed this quickly at lunch. I didn't catch if someone mentioned this but check your max number of calls. Encrypted calls count against this number.

 

[JohnSC]

UPDATE: The Max Channels was 10, so it was probably OK. But I failed to switch the modulation from C4FM to LSM for simulcast. That was probably killer. Thanks again.

Thanks, I'll check that. I added a third RTL 2832u and mistakenly thought the drivers would recognize it. Used zadig 2.7 to install the driver and it seems to be running fine at the moment.

I skimmed this quickly at lunch. I didn't catch if someone mentioned this but check your max number of calls. Encrypted calls count against this number.