Campbell Tower

[Nick0207]

Hello All,

Is anyone else having trouble picking up the Campbell tower in Mahoning County? I have OSP District 4 programmed, but for some reason my scanner wont pick up the control tower. I can hear Post 50 on surrounding towers (Lisbon, East Palestine, Salem) but they used to be heard almost exclusively on the Campbell tower before the rebanding process began. Any insight would help out greatly!

 

[SCPD]

Sorry, I thought by your location of Columbiana in the other post that was the county you were in. If you have the rebanded stuff correctly programmed and can't hear the control channel, you probably should try antenna a different location or something. I assume it worked ok before rebanding?

 

[yfdgricker]

Yeah I'm not getting a control channel on the Campbell frequencies either but I get the Lisbon one, no problem. I'm at the Boardman/Youngstown city limits.

 

[Nick0207]

What's up with that? How can I fix it?

 

[W8RMH]

It sounds like the frequency information for the Campbell site is incorrect.

 

[Nick0207]

So how can this be corrected? One of the site administrators told me I had not programmed my scanner correctly. But I use freescan to program my scanner

 

[mtindor]

If you're positive that you are within range of Campbell (meaning, you are sure you would get a strong signal from Campbell), then program each of the following in, one at a time, and let me know which one you hear constant control channel data on (listen for at least 30 seconds a piece):

851.71250 852.17500 852.58750 852.90000 853.27500

Whichever one you hear the constant control channel data on (again, at least 30 seconds), is going to be the active control channel for Campbell.

Please report back your findings so that (a) we can update the DB and (b) it can benefit all of us.

The information in the DB was absolutely correct at the time I updated it after rebanding -- I know this because I monitored it directly. But they could have changed things around.

Mike

 

[Nick0207]

Mike... Have you had any problems monitoring it?

 

[mtindor]

Mike... Have you had any problems monitoring it?

Nick, I don't monitor it. As a general rule it is way too far north for me to reliably monitor from Jefferson Co. However, during the rebanding process I had an 800 mhz yagi up 40' in the air pointed north and was able to pick it up fine during the rebanding process.

What happened since the rebanding process, I cannot say. And, I didn't actual sit around monitoring traffic on it during the rebanding process. I was monitoring the system frequencies for changes that would indicate that rebanding had been complete.

So basically it is up to you guys to figure out what frequency is the active control channel, if one of the ones in the DB isn't the active control channel.

Mike

 

[Nick0207]

Listened to each frequency individually, and picked up the buzzsaw sound on 851.7125, 852.175, and 853.2750. As far as traffic was concerned, there was none except for the saw sound. I programmed OSP District 4 talkgroups and no luck. As I scrolled, the scanner read OSP Dist. 4, the tower listed Campbell with 5 bars, and "Finding Ctrl Chan." I am within the limits of picking up this tower, it is less than 15 miles away.

 

[mtindor]

Listened to each frequency individually, and picked up the buzzsaw sound on 851.7125, 852.175, and 853.2750. As far as traffic was concerned, there was none except for the saw sound. I programmed OSP District 4 talkgroups and no luck. As I scrolled, the scanner read OSP Dist. 4, the tower listed Campbell with 5 bars, and "Finding Ctrl Chan." I am within the limits of picking up this tower, it is less than 15 miles away.

A Motorola Type II control channel doesn't sound anything like a saw if you ask me. Now, an OpenSky (PAStarnet) control channel certainly can be considered by some to sound like a saw. And if you are hearing "saw" traffic on multiple frequencies, and the sound is constant, I'd believe you are probably hearing PAStarNet traffic.

i'll try to put my yagi up later so that I can tell you guys once and for all what hte correct control channel is. I suspect it really is one of the two (red or blue) in the DB. I suspect the DB info is correct and that you guys have something else going on causing you not to be able to pick up Campbell. But I'll try to confirm that tonight.

Mike

 

[mtindor]

The active control channel is absolutely 853.275 (which is what is listed in the DB) at this time. If you aren't able to pick up the control channel on 853.275, there is something amiss in your scanner config, or you aren't close enough to reliably copy the Campbell control channel.

Mike

 

[yfdgricker]

I'm hitting a control channel on 853.0500 and 852.075. I get nothing on 853.275 when I download all the info into ProScan and dump it to my radio. HOWEVER, if I do a search say between 853.0 and 854.0, it stops and broadcasts the control channel noise. So there is a Control channel there but my scanners won't hit it in scan mode.