Any Strategies for Dealing with Simulcast

[B-One]

My Homepatrol is great in the rural areas, but when I travel to the metro it absolutely stinks. I get absolutely zero reception in Anoka County, whether stationary or mobile. I have tried to monitor with the stock antenna inside the vehicle as well as a mag mount tri band OPEK outside.

What can a fellow do to monitor the areas covered by a simulcast site? Am I stuck listening to the mobile app on my phone?

Thanks all!

 

[n5ims]

My Homepatrol is great in the rural areas, but when I travel to the metro it absolutely stinks. I get absolutely zero reception in Anoka County, whether stationary or mobile. I have tried to monitor with the stock antenna inside the vehicle as well as a mag mount tri band OPEK outside.

What can a fellow do to monitor the areas covered by a simulcast site? Am I stuck listening to the mobile app on my phone?

Thanks all!

Limit your signal strength to the minimum necessary to pick up the signals. Although it may appear that the problem is too little signal strength, it's nearly always too much signal strength from too many towers. Often I fix things when mobile by using the antenna inside on the radio and grabbing it near the base to further reduce the signal strength. Once things start to sound noisy again, I let go and things are better again.

 

[B-One]

Maybe this is a use for the attenuation feature?

 

[n5ims]

Maybe this is a use for the attenuation feature?

Correct, that's probably the first thing to try.

 

[ofd8001]

If setting the attenuator to "On" doesn't work and you have an extra piece of antenna coax (a couple of feet long) laying around with the correct end for the scanner, you might try this. Strip the coax down so that about 6" of the center conductor is exposed. Then try trimming in about 1/2" increments from the center counductor to see if you get a "sweet spot" in length.

(Some folks have reported success with bending a paper-clip and sticking it into the scanner's antenna connector with success at dealing with simulcast issues).

Nothing guaranteed - just something to try.

 

[hibtacer]

I wonder if one of those stubby antennas used for NASCAR scanning at a race track would be would work too!

 

[phillydjdan]

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I use one of those stubby antennas here in Philly with moderate success. Our system is especially difficult to monitor inside the city limits.

 

[wtp]

sma or bnc

i have used a paperclip on bnc but have not on sma, or my clips are too big.

 

[SCPD]

Anoka simulcast is a real bugger to listen to. I am in the southern part of the county and have serious simulcast distortion issues. Forget any scanner, none work very good at all. My Moto radios even have trouble monitoring the system.