Cedar Grove Police & Fire Help w/New 536hp Scanner

[F-J-B]

Hello Radio Geniuses:

I just replaced my old scanner (996xt) with a 536hp and am having trouble understanding a few issues.
I know very little about the new scanner and am completely clueless when it comes to the NJ ICS system.

I updated the firmware using Sentinel and purchased Pro-Scan for the PC controllability and future streaming to Broadcastify. I wasn’t aware that it could also program the scanner, so I also purchased the Butel software for programming from the Radio Reference database(s).

I primarily want to listen to Cedar Grove Police/Fire/EMS and North Caldwell Police/Fire when I’m at work in Denville.
I added the NJ ICS “System” and added several “Sites” that seemed to be close to Denville.
(Morris County Simulcast / West Orange Simulcast / High Point)


I then added all of “Essex County” as the “Department” instead of just adding the CG and NC talkgroups and then enabled “permanently avoid” for everything other than the CG and NC talkgroups. (leaving the other Essex entries in the scanner, but “avoided“ so I can go back later and monitor them if desired).

Everything seemed to go smoothly up until attempted to listen to those two towns.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The issues I am having difficulty with understanding:

1. Are all of the talk groups carried on all of the “sites” or are they only carried regionally?

2. What would be the best “site“ for me to use? Or should I leave all of the sites enabled? Does the scanner look for the strongest “site” signal?

3. From my location, once I figure out which site is closest and clearest, can I monitor unencrypted talk groups on the system from around the state?

Example: Can I listen to a distant shore town while the scanner is physically located in Denville? Can I listen to Cedar Grove and North Caldwell if the scanner is physically located at our summer home down in Lavalette?
Did that make sense?

4. Is there an easy way to identify the best “site” to my current location? (signal strength, etc.)

5. If I have hundreds/thousands of “departments“ entered into my primary favorites list but most (95%) are “permanently avoided“, does it slow down the scanning process?

6. The CG fire department is apparently still being paged out on their old UHF (T-Band) frequency. Is this just a temporary way of duplicating the QC2 paging for redundancy or back up? Are they being toned out on the TRS radio system?

7. I was able to monitor a few random transmissions on the ICS system while I was tinkering with it and the audio sounded very poor to me compared to analog etc. I know it sounds like I’m being very fussy and I guess I am. 🤔
How well does the 536hp decode P25 phase 1 or 2 compared to the SDS200 and/or an actual Motorola APX series portable radio?

If I purchase an APX8000, can I MONITOR (RX only) the ICS system? Or does it require system keys or anything similar? I would definitely consider purchasing a single radio to replace my 4 older XTS portabłes (VHF / UHF 1+2 / 800).
I was much more active on the ham bands when working out in Colorado, but rarely use them as of late now that I’m back in Jersey, so wouldn’t mind a single radio replacement for the 4 old beasts.


Thank you very much and 73.

 

[F-J-B]

I forgot to mention that I spent close to a week trying to figure this before giving up and posting my questions.

I greatly appreciate any help that you can offer!

 

[Markscan]

Cedar Grove is only carried on the West Orange and Passaic sites. You will not get them on any other site unless one of their units affiliates with it, and that’s unlikely. CGFD pages out on both UHF and NJICS. North Caldwell and Essex Fells police share a talkgroup, and are encrypted so no luck there. NCFD is on West Orange and Passaic sites. If you’re out of range of West Orange and Passaic sites you will not hear CG or NC.
As far as scanners go, the SDS200 is the best for NJICS but the 536 will work, as they say your mileage may vary. An APX8000 requires system keys and I wouldn’t go down that route. A Unication pager works remarkably well on NJICS .
Hope this helps.

 

[rpurchases10]

Thank you very much!

One other question, if I may:

Do the Unication pagers have the capability of “scanning“ multiple talk groups? Thanks.

 

[rpurchases10]

Sorry, but I just realized something.
I purchased an SDS100 handheld scanner a few years ago but never set it up or used it.
It’s at my shore house, so before driving I thought I’d ask if it’s better than the 536hp for scanning and audio?

Thanks again

 

[Markscan]

The SDS will perform better than the 536. Unication can scan multiple talk groups but does have limitations such as no delay after a transmission and no in field programming.

 

[mshumeyk]

I purchased an SDS100 handheld scanner a few years ago but never set it up or used it.
It’s at my shore house, so before driving I thought I’d ask if it’s better than the 536hp for scanning and audio?

The 536hp analog audio will be superior to that of the small speaker on the SDS100. The SDS 100 really excels in performance on P25 Phase 2 simulcast systems like the NJICS. Don't get me wrong, in the right location the 536hp will do just fine, but if you are in an area where you can receive signals from more than one tower on the simulcast system you may have garbled audio, missed transmissions, and in the worst case, inability to lock onto a control channel.

As stated above, the communications of a particular agency are usually carried on only one or two sites. Coverage of statewide agencies like the NJSP tend to be carried on more sites, but not necessarily consistently. Here at the shore I sometimes hear the NJ Turnpike South Patrols and NJSP in the Camden area but usually I do not. I was just in Hanover Twp over the weekend and could receive the Passaic and Essex Co sites equally well.

The more sites on the NJICS you program as active, the longer a scan will take, especially if you have enabled sites that are out of range. The scanner searches for a control channel on each site with each scan.

Having a large number of talkgroups enabled does not in itself slow the scanning process, because the radio does not scan talkgroups like it does conventional channels. It receives data from the control channel and switches to the active frequency of a talkgroup as directed by data received on the control channel.

There are different ways of limiting the active talkgroups so you only scan what you want to. Avoiding everything you don't want to hear is one. Another way is to split a "department" like Essex County, into several smaller departments, and assign each department a different quick key. You can do it with Sentinel, but since you already have Proscan, I would suggest using Proscan as I found it easier to use for this purpose. Using the quick key system you can easily turn various groups of talkgroups on and off.

You can also create several NJICS favorite lists, so you do not have to enable and disable or avoid departments when you go to different areas of NJ. For example, you could have one for home and one for your shore house. Also, using Proscan you can create an NJICS favorite list limited to just what you want to hear by downloading only what you want from Radioreference within the Proscan app.

Hopefully this helps. I am no expert but having moved to NJ within the past year after living 35 years in an area where all comms were conventional analog I did have quite a bit to learn about the NJICS.

One more thing. If you are curious about what comms are carried on each site, try out the logging on Proscan. You can easily view the hit count of talkgroups on the log. Good luck!