Can Barely Hear California Highway Patrol (Low Band)

[norcalscan]

Lets add some confusion! So I did my shootout between the WS1098 and BCT-15X last weekend going down I5 through Valley Division Brown3 territory. The 1098 was dead silent on Brown 3. Not a single transmission for 1.5 hours of travel. The BCT-15X was singing a song the whole time; passing Brown3 traffic every 30 seconds it seemed the entire 1.5 hours. Multiple pull overs to swap antennas and isolate any other troubleshooting, zero change. At one point both radios were manually stopped on the channel. Squelch was triple checked. Programming was solid confirmed correct, and even later loaded it from the Object Library to see if something weird came over my manual programming. The 1098 was absolutely dead and deaf then.

But the 1098 sang a great song on CHP Golden Gate. Solano, CoCo County, Oakland, San Francisco, and even distant offices I didn't want to hear (San Jose, Hayward etc.) It also does pretty good in my home turf of Northern Division Red (Redding/Red Bluff). So I have no idea what gives, other than maybe a few "black hole birdies" hiding around in the radio.

@PCTEK no CHP did not vacate loband to 700Mhz. They are still on low band. The database is solid and correct for CHP.

 

[6079smithw]

Mutara Nebula. That has to be it.

 

[gmclam]

norcalscan, sounds to me like an intermittent connection to a scanner. The connector ends of cables in my mobile antenna cables wear out after a few years and need to be replaced. What I do when I feel a scanner is deaf is check NOAA or a known channel, then resume scanning.

 

[krazybob]

Not long ago a usually here pointed out to me that he was using a fiberglass 40 MHz antenna for CB. I believe the antenna name began with an H but I could be mistaken. I'm looking to locate this antenna. There are ground planes available on eBay but they're not necessarily usable here in the mountains. We just got slammed with one hell of a snowstorm and it put my s ST - 2 out of commission. I have a coaxial sleeve half wave dipole up but I can't move it closer to where I need a second CHP antenna and that's why I'm looking for a commercially made one. I don't have the time or desire to locate the parts. As I recall it was a 40 or 42 MHz base station antenna and was all fiberglass similar to CB radio base antennas when the FCC Crackdown on metal ones due to people coming into contact with electrical lines.

 

[Sshalita]

Looking out at Highway 101/92 in San Mateo, I see two CHP SUV's and 1 motorcycle unit with their lights on and several civilian cars pulled over. I switched on my scanner (Uniden 536HP) and I can hear their traffic to and from the Golden Gate center on.... the Extender 700MHz channels. I am hearing the "Black", "Turquoise", "Amber" and 1 other stations all using what RR lists as "700MHz Extender" channels. One is using the "VRS" channel. Perhaps CHP has moved off of low band (at least in my area San Mateo 101/92). Seems RR may need to update the data base??

I can again confirm that the Redwood City CHP has been working with no problems. Check your programming and antenna. I can tell you that I spent a long time testing and evaluating to find an appropriate antenna that would work reliably and consistently for CHP frequencies. Before I had that antenna I had a very difficult time receiving CHP. But once I had found a good antenna it is very clear. My challenge was it needed to be very low profile or stealth.

.

 

[norcalscan]

norcalscan, sounds to me like an intermittent connection to a scanner. The connector ends of cables in my mobile antenna cables wear out after a few years and need to be replaced. What I do when I feel a scanner is deaf is check NOAA or a known channel, then resume scanning.

Yeah I haven't 100% ruled it out, but I'm 95% sure it's not a physical antenna issue. It's a drilled NMO with good center pin contact and no symptoms of intermittent RX when driving over rough land. I check NOAA on other radios but never have with this one. Will have to try, thanks.

However I run it next to a Kenwood 5710 with NMO 1/4wave 24mhz cut at 157 to help it in the 2m band, and it gets VHF waaaay beyond the Whistler, side by side with USFS etc. Apples and oranges of course, but I might swap those antennas out and try. This has turned into more of a Whistler rant than CHP so I'll cut it short, but @PCTEK should definitely triple check programming and antenna, and see if he hears any other CHP. I heard Redwood office multiple times on the bay bridge and east bay hills two weeks ago on my "CHP-deaf" Whistler.

 

[gvranchos]

Well something is going on here in sierra's truckee and south lake tahoe offices (45.6000 Mhz) are now dispatched by chico and i dont hear brockway summit (repeater) anymore but leviathan pk was loud and clear dispatch side only.
There is a uhf repeater (460.4500 Mhz) on leviathan for chp and another one in tahoe basin that simulcasted lowband im not sure of the status of either at this time the leviathan repeater would cw id but never any activity on it.

 

[gvranchos]

I80 over Donner was a mess for the past few days because of the weather and CHP Tahoe Grey2 was going full blast. I went to Truckee last Monday with the exact same vehicle and setup I used last summer when reception was zilch and this time it was 99% DFQ. Even copied Green from Auburn at times, and I was never farther west than Exit 180/Donner Lake.
Beats the Hail outta me...

Im in nevada and i could hear brockway summit loud and clear but lately im only hearing leviathan pk and nothing else on grey 2.

 

[markclark]

For some reason CHP recently reduced the powerout put of most of those transmitters to about 95 watts from about 213 watts and some of the sites now have even lower power. I have no idea why that was done, but it does explain your reception loss.

 

[ChrisE_STB]

For some reason CHP recently reduced the powerout put of most of those transmitters to about 95 watts from about 213 watts and some of the sites now have even lower power. I have no idea why that was done, but it does explain your reception loss.

Where do you get this information from? CHP Transmitters are 100 Watts nothing more. Have not been more then 100 Watts since the 80s.

 

[KevinC]

Where do you get this information from? CHP Transmitters are 100 Watts nothing more. Have not been more then 100 Watts since the 80s.

He may be referring to the ERP and not the transmitters themselves.

 

[markclark]

I got the information from the FCC database. Many transmitters were one rated at about 213 watts ERP which is what counts and have been lowered to 95 watts. Some transmitters are even lower power ERP now. A few transmitters have higher ERP, but those are not often used.

There is a noticeable difference in power levels in Reno also. I also use commercial radios, both base and mobile, with dedicated low band antennas. I frequently travel to Lake Tahoe and Truckee the radio system is now a mess after these tweaks; the offciers and RTO's are commenting about their "great radio system" as they call it because the vote-steer system doent's work well.

 

[ChrisE_STB]

I got the information from the FCC database. Many transmitters were one rated at about 213 watts ERP which is what counts and have been lowered to 95 watts. Some transmitters are even lower power ERP now. A few transmitters have higher ERP, but those are not often used.

There is a noticeable difference in power levels in Reno also. I also use commercial radios, both base and mobile, with dedicated low band antennas. I frequently travel to Lake Tahoe and Truckee the radio system is now a mess after these tweaks; the offciers and RTO's are commenting about their "great radio system" as they call it because the vote-steer system doent's work well.

They design there system around a 100w Radio. With 100w erp...just because the license says they can do 212, it doesn’t mean that they did. Systems are supposed to have unity talk in talk out coverage. They don’t want the mountain tops to outrun there mobiles.

 

[markclark]

Chis: The power has been noticeably reduced.

 

[uman18]

I had the same issues. They added a new frequency in Ventura County for the east side and it was never the same. I recently installed a long 47-50mhz antenna and now receive all kinds of stations. The only draw back is that I can't park in my parking garage.