700 MHz question

[mspazz]

Hello.

I live in Iowa. They are building out a statewide 700 network. My county voted to expand the coverage and I live where they are going to have 12Db indoor portable coverage. The system for my county is a 4 site simulcast network. Will I need to put an antenna on my roof or should I be good having the scanner in my house? I live 1.85 miles, as a crow flies, from the prime site location for this 4 site simulcast system.

I intend on providing a live feed of the system to broadcastify once it's up and operational(12 to 18 months). The system is just about to go live on a state level and I could pick up mobile transmission from state agencies that are operating in the area, but it wont be my local agencies until they put the system live.

If I need an antenna setup, would I be good with a directional antenna and pointing it at the closest site or should I go omni-directional?

 

[R8000]

Just wait and try it once the system is built. If you do not have SDS 100/200 scanner, you may experience simulcast distortion. In that case you may want LESS antenna to reduce the chance of your scanner picking up more than one site. The SDS series scanners from Uniden and the Unication pager do very well in a simulcast environment. I'd recommend looking into either a SDS or a Unication (I could recommend Whistler's simulcast ready scanner but they don't have it out yet).

Remember, simulcast means all 4 sites will transmit on the same frequencies. Subscriber radios that the police, fire and ems will be using will work very well on the system. A non SDS scanner may experience issues. So what may sound bad to you, may not be an issue with the system user radios. I am surrounded by 700 MHZ and my Whister Phase 2 scanner struggles if I am in between two sites. This issue has been documented hundreds of times on RadioReference.

Again, just wait and try it and see. In some cases (like mine) less antenna is better. You could be proactive and budget now for a updated scanner that can handle P25 simulcast systems.

 

[mspazz]

Thank you. Due to my job I know exactly where the sites are going to be located however I don't know how strong the signals will be. I'd rather drop 400 than 700+ on a scanner if you know what I mean. I guess I will wait for the system to go live and hope I can squeak by with a cheaper scanner.

Prime site: 1.85 miles
Site 2: 12-14 miles
Site 3: 15-17 miles
Site 4: 12-14 miles
State owned site: 21.2 miles

Those are my distances from the closest towers.

Would I need to go with an SDS or simulcast scanner in this obviously untested scenario?

 

[R8000]

A SDS 100 or SDS 200, Unication Pager or the unreleased SDR based Whistler scanner would be the way to go for sure. I have a PRO 668 that's been upgraded to a Whister, and at my home, thankfully I only hear one site, so it's no big deal. At my office, I am smack dab in the middle of two sites and it croaks. I am saving up for either the SDS, or the Whister (If it ever gets released...sigh). Gotts pay some other bills first

I get by with the 668, but I am ready for something new and just be done with the whole simulcast issues. I have a APX on the system, but a scanner would be more versatile for me.

 

[mspazz]

From just quick googling, it appears that the Unication G5 would work perfect for me, however I see that you can only scan 1 band (7/800 or VHF not both) at the same time. I'm probably going to have to figure out how to run two scanners on one feed. Good thing I have two years to prepare for this lol.

 

[bharvey2]

My county has been using 700Mhz P25 ph 1 for some time now. I have a Pro668 and I also I use SDR dongles. I've found that the best solution to the simulcast issue is using a high gain yagi pointing at one site. I have one at work and one at home. When I first started looking for ways to deal with the simulcast issue, I built a fairly narrow corner reflector. It worked okay as well thought the yagis are better.