Augusta-Richmond

[nbarco]

I have a PSR-800 with both an external mobile mount quad-band antenna and the 800mhz radio shack antenna. I live in Grovetown and the reception with both is static ful. As I drive towards Augusta it seems to worsen before it improves and then it has areas even within Augusta where it is unreadable. I have all the cc in the area programmed and it bounces across AUG, NAUG, BLYTHE, and McBEAN. Should I only monitor AUGUSTA's? What if I am in the north or south of the county? Are they simulcast across the sites? Or, key up based on proxity?
Thanks

 

[SCPD]

I have all four of those programmed into my GRE PSR500. Maybe some settings in your scanner need checking? Don't know anything about your particular radio so I can't offer any suggestions.The Augusta site is located on Barton Chapel Road and you should have no problem picking up that site. North Augusta should be easy as well, I can receive both of those sites with a 800mhz rubber duck antenna at greater distances than what you're attempting.

 

[nbarco]

Does your scanner discriminate for strongest site? How is your reception in the i20/520 interchange? I go to full static and signal loss.

 

[SCPD]

I get great reception from the I20/520 area. The Barton Chapel and N. Augusta should almost be line of site from that area. All I did was import everything from this site using Starrsoft Win500.... much easier. All the sites are scanned at the same time BTW. Sounds like your scanner isn't programmed correctly or maybe it's defective???? Triple check everything, as far as programming goes, check your antenna(s) and all connection points. Take your time doing trouble shooting and that will help narrow down your problem.

 

[brian]

What sounds like poor reception may be front-end receiver overload from other nearby radio systems. Nextel sites seem to be particularly bad in my experience. I have numerous locations along my daily commute where the signal on our 800MHz trunked system fades to nothing over a fairly short distance, and then recovers a short time later. Sometimes the attenuator setting helps, sometimes not, and you have to be quick with it and not forget that the ATT is on.

And while the PSR-800 radio "supports" multi-site systems, it does so in a way that is unreliable. I would recommend separating your 4 sites in 4 separate systems (using the Duplicate Systems button) and putting each system's talkgroups in separate scan lists. This will allow you force selection of the site with the best signal, which may not necessarily be the closest site. Additionally, you may find that not all talkgroups are carried on all sites, and selecting a particular site's scan lists ensure that you hear what you're wanting to hear.

 

[nbarco]

Brian,

Your explanation is right on. The ATT button works some of the times, especially in the I20/520 interchange area. I have all the sites programmed into the same scan list. I am predominantly interested in dispatch talk groups. So if I put the 2 talk groups into separate scan lists on the different sites, I should be able to switch among sites depending where I am geographically, right?

 

[brian]

The key is to separate the sites among different trunked systems. So, selecting the trunked systems tab in the EZ Scan Digital software, select your Palmetto 800 trunked system, and then click on the duplicate system tab. You'll then have 2 different versions of the same system. If you're monitoring 4 different sites, duplicate it 3 times. Then delete sites from each trunked system, leaving a different site in each system.

Then, you can decide whether to group the talkgroups from each system into the same scanlist, or separate them into separate scan lists. Separate scan lists allow you to select which site you monitor at any given time. Grouping them in the same scan list will force the scannenr to sample each trunked system (hence each site) on each scan pass. This eats up scan time, but if you're short on scan lists (200?) it might be the right choice.

Hope that helps.