Contacts in the Charleston, SC Area

[jduffy3]

Is there anyone in the Charleston SC area that might have the time to help me program my new Uniden 996T scanner. I have downloaded some info from RR but I have only been able to listen to a few police and EMS stations. Any clubs or group around that might be able to help me learn a bit more? This is my first scanner. Many thanks

 

[brian]

Check your email.

 

[ARCA-Dave]

Charleston Area......Summerville actually

Hey all, Dave here in Summerville SC. I recently had my Pro 2096 programmed by the local radio shack and he used some Scan cat software I believe. Anyway, I have read that the 2096 is a CCO scanner, meaning all you would have to do is program the control channels only to pick up the Palmetto 800 stuff around here. Well it had lots more channels programmed into it before he reprogrammed it, and it NEVER got any of the SCHP stuff OR the Dorchester County OR Summerville City. He programmed all of the control channels along with several but not all of the channels it had before he messed with it. Bottom line, I believe I have the proper Control channels for dorchester county but I still hear nothing. Should I program the remainder of the channels or take it to Radio Shack and see if there is an underlying problem with this unit? Bummed beyond all belief......thanks for any help, Dave

 

[brian]

In general, folks at Radio Shack aren't very familiar with programming scanners and don't do a very good job at it. No real fault of theirs, but it's a specialized knowledge that very few people have or need.

And the ScanCat program doesn't work well at all with the PRo-96/2096, so that's another strike against this arrangement.

It is true that the 2096 is CCO, and that you only have to program the active control channel frequencies of the sites you want to hear. If you can step through the channels manually and hear the "idling deisel engine" noise of the CC, they you have the correct channels.

That channel has the set to MOT mode, as does the scan bank (0-9) that the channel is in. And if you didn't program any talkgroupsin the talkgroup scan lists, then you'll need to make sure that bank is in OPEN (+) mode. If all that is set correctly, and you're within receiving range of the sites you programmed, then you should hear SCHP.

You're best bet (though it means spending more money) is to invest yourself in a programming cable and the Win96 programming software, and then use that software to download the information from this site's database directly into the scanner. You're a premium subscriber, so that's one of the benefits you get.

Brian

 

[ARCA-Dave]

It is true that the 2096 is CCO, and that you only have to program the active control channel frequencies of the sites you want to hear. If you can step through the channels manually and hear the "idling deisel engine" noise of the CC, they you have the correct channels.

That channel has the set to MOT mode, as does the scan bank (0-9) that the channel is in. And if you didn't program any talkgroupsin the talkgroup scan lists, then you'll need to make sure that bank is in OPEN (+) mode. If all that is set correctly, and you're within receiving range of the sites you programmed, then you should hear SCHP.


Brian

Summerville (SUMRVL)
856.76250
857.46250
857.76250
858.46250
858.76250c
859.46250a
860.46250a

Hi Brian and THANK YOU for your help. Noted above are the 7 frequencies he programmed in there. You are absolutely correct on th "idling diesel" sound on the 858.7625 which is listed above with the "c" noting that it is the control channel. Is there anything particular I should look for when I manually hit this channel? It looks like there is some other information on there and I am not sure what it means. I DO have the manual and the bank is "open" as noted by a "+" on the second line of the display below the number of the bank where the freqs are programmed when it is in SCAN mode. When I manually tune to the control frequency, the top line shows D for delay, a "+" then "MO" and I would think this is for the motorola you mentioned. I know someone is using these frequencies because I can manually go through them slowly and I hear conversations on some of them, but it doesn't stop. Right now the bottom line says "M36:2B02--- 58%" and the percentage value varies from 13% up to 85%. If you have any other insight as to what I am seeing, please let me know. He said also if it is still not working up to my satisfaction, I could send it in for diagnosis since it was purchased used. Also I have on occasion had a Dorchester County Deputy in my house and his radio was busy and the scanner was quiet. He switched to HWY Patrol, Summerville City along with his County dispatcher and he was hearing a lot and I was hearing nothing. I haven't tried this since the reprogram but will be able to try it within the week. Thanks for any help you may offer and if you are local, there would be a beer in it for you if you wanted to look at it and see if there might be something programmed incorrectly...Thanks, Dave

 

[WGONE968]

Hey Dave,
I live in the Goose Creek and area and hopefully I can help.
My first question, In what general area of Summerville do you live? Close to the Interstate, Dorchester Rd, or Town Center?
Could you check on the control channel on your scanner display and make sure you don't see a Capitol A on the 1st line. If you do press the ATT button on the scanner to make it go away and see if your signal strength picks up any. Higher than 58%
What type antenna do you have for your pro-2096?
The reason I ask these questions, over here in Goose Creek I can get at least 70-85% signal strength on the Summerville Cell using different 800 antennas that I have purchased through the years, in order to get the "best possible signal".
Send me a private message on who you want to listen too, and I will load up a file in my pro-96 and put it in your 2096 and see if that helps.
Thanks
Wally

 

[brian]

So, 858.7625 is the active control channel, and probably won't change ever, so you can delete those other 6 channels. You say that you hear the "idling diesel" sound, so you're within receiving range of the site. Though, as noted, the decoding percentages are rather low - work on the antenna or move the radio around to find a spot in the room that provides better reception. You say the channel shows +MO in the top right corner, so the channel is set to the correct mode and the bank is open. All good.

When manually stopped on the control channel, you could press ./DELAY because you don't need delay on it. Then press PROG, followed by TRUNK. Make sure that it says "MOT: " on the third line down. If not, press MODE until it does. Then press scan.

Then make 100% sure that the bank that the control channel is programmed in is the only bank that's active when you scan. In other words, if 858.7625 is programmed in, say for example, channel 230, make 100% sure that bank 2 is the only bank being scanned when you press scan.

If you do all of this and work to improve your reception, then you should hear SCHP. If it still doesn't work, maybe by some weird chance you've locked out the active talkgroups.

To chech this, press PROG then TRUNK, then FUNC, then L/OUT. If it displays a talkgroup with an "L" next to it, press L/OUT to clear the "L". Do this repeatedly until no more locked out talkgroups appear. Then press scan again.

Let us know how this works.

So, w

 

[ARCA-Dave]

Thanks for the help Wally.

Hey Dave,
I live in the Goose Creek and area and hopefully I can help.
My first question, In what general area of Summerville do you live? Close to the Interstate, Dorchester Rd, or Town Center?
Could you check on the control channel on your scanner display and make sure you don't see a Capitol A on the 1st line. If you do press the ATT button on the scanner to make it go away and see if your signal strength picks up any. Higher than 58%
What type antenna do you have for your pro-2096?
The reason I ask these questions, over here in Goose Creek I can get at least 70-85% signal strength on the Summerville Cell using different 800 antennas that I have purchased through the years, in order to get the "best possible signal".
Send me a private message on who you want to listen too, and I will load up a file in my pro-96 and put it in your 2096 and see if that helps.
Thanks
Wally

Hopefully I can clear things up for you Wally. First of all, I am over off of the interstate off of Miles road in the Greenhurst subdivision, near the Old Ford Fire station #2. I would say probably 3 or 4 miles from the Home Depot by the Wal Mart on Main Street. As for the "A" on the top line, I don't have the Attenuator on. The only freq I have it activated on is the Goose Creek police. They talk way too much and they have good modulation. It definitely blasts out loud. So you are saying that the percent sign "%" is showing something about signal strength? So higher is better then. I drove around up Highway 78 through town today and heard a lot of Summerville and Dorchester Co. activity. I did get a visual on Summerville City when he mentioned his location so I took a left turn and went to where he was. It was only about a mile or so away but the signal sounded weak, like something on VHF down on the Air Force base or something like that...not like I was within a mile of the car. I could definitely tell the signal was stronger in town and as I got farther away from Summerville toward St. George, I couldn't hear anything any more. I guess I got out of range. I have a roof top magnet mount I got at Radio Shack many many years ago and it is about 18 1/4 inches long and I have a home made 800mhz ground plane I made many many years ago from copper wire and an "SO-239"plug. I am posting a pic of the ground plane so you know how crude it is, but it seems to work. The one on top is the original design I saw and the one on the bottom, is not as pretty but seems to work. Insted of plugging the PL259 into the end of it, I turned it upside down and stick the vertical element into the magnet mount and it looks like a naked umbrella. The vertical element is 3 and 1/2 tall and the 4 angled elements are 3ish long. As far as what I want or "NEED" to hear, is the Summerville City and Dorchester County because I work with my neihborhood crimewatch and when we call for assistance, I need to know when they are on thier way. Thanks for your help on everything. Now that I know what the "%" means I can drive around till I find a spot where it is high and park there for a while.

 

[ARCA-Dave]

Thanks for your help Brian.

So, 858.7625 is the active control channel, and probably won't change ever, so you can delete those other 6 channels. You say that you hear the "idling diesel" sound, so you're within receiving range of the site. Though, as noted, the decoding percentages are rather low - work on the antenna or move the radio around to find a spot in the room that provides better reception. You say the channel shows +MO in the top right corner, so the channel is set to the correct mode and the bank is open. All good.

When manually stopped on the control channel, you could press ./DELAY because you don't need delay on it. Then press PROG, followed by TRUNK. Make sure that it says "MOT: " on the third line down. If not, press MODE until it does. Then press scan.

Then make 100% sure that the bank that the control channel is programmed in is the only bank that's active when you scan. In other words, if 858.7625 is programmed in, say for example, channel 230, make 100% sure that bank 2 is the only bank being scanned when you press scan.

If you do all of this and work to improve your reception, then you should hear SCHP. If it still doesn't work, maybe by some weird chance you've locked out the active talkgroups.

To chech this, press PROG then TRUNK, then FUNC, then L/OUT. If it displays a talkgroup with an "L" next to it, press L/OUT to clear the "L". Do this repeatedly until no more locked out talkgroups appear. Then press scan again.

Let us know how this works.

So, w

Hi again Brian. When I posted the values I was in the house and I have a very very old Radio Shack ground plane up on top of the house with the good RG8U coax running in to the radio from my old CB days. I am pretty sure it is set up for Motorola systems and the bank is definitely open. When I was driving around today, that bank, #3 was the ONLY one scanning so I would not be interrupted by anyone else talking. I did hear some SCHP or at least that is what I would guess it was. They were calling the dispatch simply "Charleston" and they were running 28's on the Mark Clark, and on I-26. The display was showing a 5 digit number and I saved it by hitting the "Trunk" button and I captured 11 or 12 today. When the Summerville and Dorch. Co dudes were talking it said Summerville in the last line, so I would say when they programmed it at the Shack, it was supposed to tell me who it was. Sometimes it said Summerville and sometimes it just said "Sherriff" so I guessed that was Dorch. Co. The 5 numbers that I guessed were the talkgroup numbers were what I thought was the SCHP. I don't think any talk groups were locked out because I just got it programmed again 2 days ago and this was it's first trip out experimenting and capturing talk group ID's. Take a look at the funky ground plane pics I have on the car and on this post is a pic of the ground plane I have on the house. It is about 15 feet up so I "SHOULD" have pretty good reception, but you never know, I may be in a dead spot. I am about 15 miles or so from the airport and I can hear the 124.75 constant broadcast of the Air Terminal Information Service (ATIS) and I also hear Goose Creek PD really really loud and clear...and I have the Attenuate activated on them just to knock the modulation down a notch. Thanks again and I am still open for suggestions. I am actually thinking about getting the Win96 and going back to the Shack for the cord, unless one of the sight sponsors has them cheaper...Talk to ya later and thanks again, Dave

 

[WGONE968]

Dave,
Sounds like the scanner is working correctly. The fact that you have talkgroups with alpha tags, (Summerville and Sheriff), Radioshack was on the right track.
I use the Win96 software to program my 96 and 2096. It works great.
If you need, I can program my 96 with you want and reprogram your 2096. It only takes about 20 or so seconds to transfer the data from one to the other.
Just let me know,
Thanks,
Wally
Quick ps
Out of curiosity, have you tried a right angle BNC Connector with a Radioshack 800 antenna. Your VHF and airband will probably suffer, but you might be able to get a better signal. Where your located, you should be able to pick up the Summerville Cell, Hagood, and Moncks Corner Cell with no problems

 

[brian]

I agree it sounds like the scanner is trunking properly. Those 5-digit numbers you're seeing are certainly talkgroup IDs. If they show up as MOT: XXXXX in the last line, then those are talkgroups that are not programmed in the ID scan lists of that bank. If they show up with a name (you mentioned SHERIFF and SUMMERVILLE, then those are programmed in the scan list and have an alpha-tag associated with them.

I agree with Wally that you'd probably be better off with a RadioShack 800MHz antenna. They're only $20 and well worth it. I think you'll find it works better than your groundplane, but experimentation is the key.

Now that you know you have the bank set up properly, you'll want to review the list of talkgroup IDs programmed in the bank and add/delete/rename based on what you're interested in hearing. The list of all known talkgroup IDs is here: http://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?sid=429, scroll down below the frequency lists. Most likely those 11 or 12 that you stored are listed here so you can identify what you heard.

As Wally said, programming is much easier with Win96 and the programming cable. I also have a p96 file for your area that I would share with you if you choose to go that route.

 

[ARCA-Dave]

Should I go get the cable?

It sounds like it would be a whole lot easier to use the software and get everything I need. If I go buy the cable and try to upload these files yall mentioned, will this delete anything or change anything that is in here right now? It seems like it works right when I am near town. St. George is the Dorchester County seat and I just went up that way to vote, and I heard absolutely NOTHING once I got out of the town limits of Summerville, so I was wondering how the Dorchester Co. Officers and such can talk to thier dispatchers? There was a dorchester deputy in the voting place and his radio was busy, and when I got back out to my car, I was not even able to get the "Diesel engine" sound on the control channel. I didn't pick up anything till I got back into Summerville Town limits on 78. I did hear some SCHP then finally got some Sville and DC stuff. This trunking thing and seeing the percentages on the display still confuse me sometimes, I guess I just need to study it more....I can go get a cable if that is what I need, they had plenty of them at the Shack..Thanks for all the advice and help, Dave