BCD536HP vs. SDR - Portland Police & Multnomah County

[johnsland8]

I got my BCD536HP set up to monitor Portland area trunking system. Just for kicks I fired up my SDR to compare results. Alarmingly, my $20 SDR is giving me better reception and 20 times more results than the $400 536. After a little investigation, the control channel that I plugged into my SDR from RR, using UniTrunker, does not appear anywhere in the database I downloaded into the 536 through Sentinel. Any ideas what is happening here?

 

[sparklehorse]

What control channel frequency are you using? Right now the control channel for West Simulcast is 772.60625, East Simulcast is 770.85625. Those are the primary control channels as listed in the RR database, but you should probably have the alternates entered as well just in case they switch. The 436/536 radios can perform quite poorly on the Portland system as it is simulcast. There’s a number of things you can try to improve the reception, but it will almost certainly never be as good as the SDS radios, the Unication pagers, or even $20 SDR if it’s set up properly.
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[jonwienke]

Except for the SDS models, which have SDR-based receivers, all scanners have difficulty decoding simulcast signals. That's why the SDS100 and SDS200 are the only scanners recommended for simulcast areas.

 

[johnsland8]

What control channel frequency are you using?

I'm using 853.76000 in the SDR

 

[johnsland8]

This actually appears to be a Motorola system monitoring Washington and Clackamas County. I forgot I changed this after monitoring radio activity in SDR sharp. I did not get this from RR. All I know is it's non-stop activity all over the Portland-Metro area and even though I have these counties active in the 536, I don't get any of this.

 

[sparklehorse]

Yes, 853.76 is one of the alternate CCs for the Clackamas County simulcast site for their analog 800 moto system. It also carries a lot of Washington County traffic, since the two counties have their systems integrated. If you’re in Multnomah County you should be able to receive the Portland p25 system on either the West or East simulcast sites (or both). If you’re not, then something in your programming isn’t right. Have you updated the RR database in Sentinel recently? If so, have you written the update to the radio? If so you should be able to receive Portland p25, or Clackamas County 800 for that matter, by enabling Zip Code scan. You want to make sure all the service types are enabled that you’re interested in, and you may need to increase your Range. Start with 10 miles and increase if necessary. Once you’re hearing stuff you’re interested in you can go back to Sentinel and create a Favorite List or two to narrow down your scanning cycle to just the things you’re interested in. There’s several good videos on YouTube to help you get the hang of creating a Fav List.
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[johnsland8]

Yes, 853.76 is one of the alternate CCs for the Clackamas County simulcast site for their analog 800 moto system. It also carries a lot of Washington County traffic, since the two counties have their systems integrated. If you’re in Multnomah County you should be able to receive the Portland p25 system on either the West or East simulcast sites (or both). If you’re not, then something in your programming isn’t right. Have you updated the RR database in Sentinel recently? If so, have you written the update to the radio? If so you should be able to receive Portland p25, or Clackamas County 800 for that matter, by enabling Zip Code scan. You want to make sure all the service types are enabled that you’re interested in, and you may need to increase your Range. Start with 10 miles and increase if necessary. Once you’re hearing stuff you’re interested in you can go back to Sentinel and create a Favorite List or two to narrow down your scanning cycle to just the things you’re interested in. There’s several good videos on YouTube to help you get the hang of creating a Fav List.
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Yes, I've updated the database this week and written it to the radio. I've created Favorites Lists and I've tried the Zip Code scan with a 15 mile range. I've tried the full database and just a few sites. I can sit here and watch the scanner blow right by the sites my SDR is reading and not even slow down. It's seeing Clackamas County, Multnomah County, Washington County, Portland dispatches and simulcasts, Clark County, etc. and I'm getting one side of a communication about every 20-30 seconds or so whereas my SDR never stops receiving all of these agencies. If there's 2 seconds without any activity that's a long time on the SDR.
Just for comparison sake, is it possible to simply create a FL with just that one Frequency I've listed and will it return anything? I've tried it but I get the dreaded "nothing to scan" message.

 

[johnsland8]

Just for comparison sake, is it possible to simply create a FL with just that one Frequency I've listed and will it return anything? I've tried it but I get the dreaded "nothing to scan" message.

I actually got this to work OK. I just had to go into the "System" settings and turn on "Search ID". Now, it picks up a lot of what my SDR does except it's still only a fraction of what I get with the SDR and often times the 536 misses the initial call and only gets the reply whereas the SDR will pick up both.

 

[johnsland8]

So after listening to both of these simultaneously for about 20 minutes, here are some quick observations:
Both the SDR and the 536 will miss either the original call or the reply but it happens much more frequently on the 536. Especially if there is a quick "copy" reply by dispatch. The SDR gets almost all of them where the 536 gets very few.
The SDR will sometimes drop out in the middle of the transmission of a weak signal whereas the 536 will complete the transmission, however, the SDR is much easier to understand and hear the weak signal. The 536 has much more static.
Overall, I would say the SDR is picking up about 30-40% more transmissions than the 536. The 536 is often "scanning" while I'm receiving transmissions on the SDR.
Take it for what it's worth, just sharing my experience with this one system...

 

[jonwienke]

Unfortunately that is a very typical example of how non-SDR scanners handle simulcast. The SDS200 will do better than the dongle, but costs more than the 536. The 536 is a great scanner for everything but simulcast.

 

[sparklehorse]

So, are you actually in Vancouver? Are you close to the Columbia or more on the north side of town? Unless you’re close to the river I can easily see it being a struggle to receive the Portland p25 system with a Uniden 536. I have a 536, I live in Portland and I struggle with it. What has helped me get better simulcast p25 results from the 536 is a cell phone yagi antenna like this one:

Terrawave T09100Y11206T Yagi Base Antenna | Scanner Master

Terrawave T09100Y11206T Yagi Base Antenna

www.scannermaster.com

You may well need something like that to get better results, but it‘s still likely to be choppy and drop a transmission on occasion. How does the Clark County p25 system sound? I think you need to start there, start local. Make a Fav list of the Clark County system and run it in ID Scan mode, because it isn’t that busy. Actually it is busy, but all the law enforcement is encrypted, so you won’t hear any of that. You should hear fire, ambulance, maybe busses. Start small and local. Add a system to your Fav list for WSP Vancouver. They are p25 conventional on 154.68 MHz, and fairly active. Add a system for Skamania county. They’re on UHF analog, somewhat active, and you should be able to receive them well without an outdoor antenna. Once you get some successful programming done you’ll be able to build from there. But don’t expect a lot of performance without a good outdoor antenna, and the Portland p25 system is not likely to ever sound ‘good’ on a 536. It’s not the right tool for that job.
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[sparklehorse]

Another thing worth doing (if you haven’t already) is upgrade the 536‘s firmware to the latest version (1.26.00). You can check which firmware version is currently in your radio by going into the Settings menu. Also as far as the Portland system, I would try to figure out which simulcast site works better for you, East or West. They carry mostly the same radio traffic, so you‘ll want to use the one that works better for you at your location. It’s unlikely they will be equally good, so don’t waste time scanning the bad site. Where I live I only monitor the West site. And for the 536 I’ve found I get a little better decode on Portland p25 by setting that site’s Digital Threshold Mode to Manual, and also set Digital Threshold Level to 5. Write down the current settings first, so if those settings don’t help you can easily set them back to what they were.

It‘s also helpful to learn how to assign Quick Keys to things so you can easily turn them on or off at will. I assign QKs to Fav Lists, Systems, Departments AND (for trunked systems) to Sites. This way you can turn West or East simulcast on or off with a couple button presses instead of having to do a deep dive into the menus to Avoid or Stop Avoiding a site. Also you can turn Systems or Departments on or off easily, so you can quickly tailor what you‘re monitoring to better follow a big event like a car chase or a river rescue.
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[johnsland8]

Unfortunately that is a very typical example of how non-SDR scanners handle simulcast. The SDS200 will do better than the dongle, but costs more than the 536. The 536 is a great scanner for everything but simulcast.

I understand the SDS is better for simulcast because it's different technology so don't roast me too hard for my next comments but it's not like simulcast is new or uncommon. On the surface, it's kind of funny to say "you're $400 scanner isn't really good at large metro area scanning but it's pretty good at everything else you don't want to listen to. What you really need is a $700 scanner for that" OR I could just pay $20 for a dongle and use freeware to get pretty good results. I'm sure the SDS200 is better than a dongle for simulcast, but is it $20 vs $700 better? I'm sure that would be much more of a personal opinion than a literal one, but you get my point. I'm not trying to be argumentative or knock the 536, it seems like a nice piece of equipment. But all those "bells & whistles" and fancy features that let you do so much really make it over-complicated to perform the simplest of tasks. The number of steps and menus I had to go through just to input and monitor one single control channel was a lot. I travel a lot for work so I think I'm really going to like it with the GPS for mobile reception.

 

[johnsland8]

Another thing worth doing (if you haven’t already) is upgrade the 536‘s firmware to the latest version (1.26.00). You can check which firmware version is currently in your radio by going into the Settings menu. Also as far as the Portland system, I would try to figure out which simulcast site works better for you, East or West. They carry mostly the same radio traffic, so you‘ll want to use the one that works better for you at your location. It’s unlikely they will be equally good, so don’t waste time scanning the bad site. Where I live I only monitor the West site. And for the 536 I’ve found I get a little better decode on Portland p25 by setting that site’s Digital Threshold Mode to Manual, and also set Digital Threshold Level to 5. Write down the current settings first, so if those settings don’t help you can easily set them back to what they were.

It‘s also helpful to learn how to assign Quick Keys to things so you can easily turn them on or off at will. I assign QKs to Fav Lists, Systems, Departments AND (for trunked systems) to Sites. This way you can turn West or East simulcast on or off with a couple button presses instead of having to do a deep dive into the menus to Avoid or Stop Avoiding a site. Also you can turn Systems or Departments on or off easily, so you can quickly tailor what you‘re monitoring to better follow a big event like a car chase or a river rescue.
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Yes, I did update the firmware to that version. I did that at the same time I did the Database update. Thank you.
I agree about the Quick Keys. I've been trying to learn more about them and it sounds like they will be very useful once I get them set up.
I was just trying to get some real-world results before I spent too much time programming and setting stuff up to make sure I'm satisfied with the investment.
Thank you for all the ideas and input. Getting more familiar with all the features will certainly help.

 

[johnsland8]

So, are you actually in Vancouver? Are you close to the Columbia or more on the north side of town?

How does the Clark County p25 system sound?
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Yes, in Vancouver. On the East side, right on the river, at least close enough to see it from my porch.
Clark County does sound OK but like you pointed out, there's limited traffic.
Thanks for the antenna suggestion. I am using an outdoor antenna. It's a discone on a 20' mast. Not ideal, but works pretty good. I know a lot of people use those Yagi's. I think I may just stick with the SDR for local monitoring, I'm not unhappy with the results. And I'll use the 536 for mobile scanning. I do travel quite a bit and I think it will be good for that?
Thanks again for all the ideas.

 

[johnsland8]

sparklehorse -
It looks like you've had experience with quite a few different scanners, and you're local, so let me ask you this: Is there a scanner that's NOT a $700 scanner that will do good with simulcast? If I wanted a base station type scanner to sit on the desk in my office and just monitor the Portland-Metro area agencies and simulcasts, and I don't care about or want all those additional features and options like the 536 has, is there anything out there that would be better for that single application? From my research, it doesn't sound like any non-SDR based scanner does particularly well with simulcast, but anything better (and preferably cheaper) than the 536?
Thank you!

 

[sparklehorse]

The 436/536 were the very best consumer grade scanners available for P25 simulcast up until Uniden released the SDS units last year. Some will argue the Whistler offerings were better, but that wasn’t my experience. In any case, with the 436/536 Uniden was trying to solve a modern radio problem with old radio technology. They never quite made it work. SDR is the solution to simulcast, and SDR has actually been around for quite awhile. It’s not clear why it took so long for Uniden to incorporate SDR technology into a scanner, but it seemingly took forever. The scanner community had been clamoring for a simulcast solution for years, but they finally did deliver a truly good solution with the SDS units. So yes, a $20 dongle vs. a $700 scanner is a personal thing. But an SDR dongle plugged into a laptop is not very portable, nor in my opinion is it much fun. Your mileage may vary.

I agree the 536 is overly complicated. There is a lot to fiddle with under the hood. It’s partly because a lot is asked of it. There are so many transmission modes in use now: p25, DMR, NXDN, Pro-Voice, analog FM, analog AM. Many different PL codes now like CTCSS, DCS, RAN, Color Code, NAC. And many, many, many system types to boot. The 536 is complicated because modern public safety radio is complicated. Once you get the hang of it though, it all makes sense.
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[sparklehorse]

sparklehorse -
It looks like you've had experience with quite a few different scanners, and you're local, so let me ask you this: Is there a scanner that's NOT a $700 scanner that will do good with simulcast? If I wanted a base station type scanner to sit on the desk in my office and just monitor the Portland-Metro area agencies and simulcasts, and I don't care about or want all those additional features and options like the 536 has, is there anything out there that would be better for that single application? From my research, it doesn't sound like any non-SDR based scanner does particularly well with simulcast, but anything better (and preferably cheaper) than the 536?
Thank you!

Honestly, the only thing is a G4 or G5 pager from Unication. Looks like they go for around $550 to $650 now. You might find a used one on eBay. These are not scanners but professional grade pagers that also can track p25 trunked systems. They’re built very well, incorporate SDR technology, and are somewhat simpler to program than the 536. They are one-trick-ponies though. They only track one system at a time, but you can have quite a lot of talkgroups in a scan list. They lack some basic functions of a scanner, like no delay following a transmission, and no talk group hold. Some of this you can work around with creative programming. They‘re small radios, with a small speaker, so the sound quality is not as good as an SDS200, but they are bang-on great at decoding simulcast p25, even if you are quite a distance from the transmitter site.
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[sparklehorse]

Thanks for the antenna suggestion. I am using an outdoor antenna. It's a discone on a 20' mast. Not ideal, but works pretty good. I know a lot of people use those Yagi's. I think I may just stick with the SDR for local monitoring, I'm not unhappy with the results. And I'll use the 536 for mobile scanning. I do travel quite a bit and I think it will be good for that?

The trouble with most discones is their radiation pattern begins to point above the horizon when you get into the higher frequencies like 700/800 MHz. So technically they do cover a broad range of frequencies, but they’re not that great for 700/800 p25 systems like Portland’s. Where the yagi shines is it is not only tuned for the band you’re trying to monitor, but its design is also highly directional. This not only gives you a better signal, but can also help isolate your reception to just one radio tower. The reason simulcast is difficult for the 536 is you have streams of digital data arriving at the radio on the same frequency, but at slightly different times. One tower might be 5 miles from you, another might be 10. You might think that at the speed of light the timing difference would be negligible, but it’s just enough to jumble the stream of 1’s and 0’s a little bit, which can confuse the 536. SDR‘s are able to sort that data out correctly. This is the crux of the simulcast problem. So with a yagi you can often maximize your reception from one tower while minimizing reception from the others. It takes some experimentation with direction though, and the direction that turns out to work best may not be anywhere close to what you‘d expect.

The 536 is pretty good for travel because a lot public safety in Oregon and Washington is still analog, especially in rural areas. And after all, it’s the second best thing going for p25 simulcast. I use a mag mount antenna when I travel, and I set up a Fav List ahead of time so I’m only GPS scanning the things I want to scan, and also so I can verify and or edit the location data that comes from the Radioreference database as that data be quite inaccurate.
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[johnsland8]

The 536 is complicated because modern public safety radio is complicated.
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Makes perfect sense.