Chester & Montgomery County

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Jeff302

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I live in North Wilmington. I have a Uniden SDS-200 and a BCD 536 HP with a Diamond Discone antenna fed with LMR-400 coax and use a MCA204 Multicoupler. I pick up digital systems up and down the Delaware River from Mercer County to Delaware. I cannot pick up Chester or Montgomery County.
The P25 systems for these two counties are downloaded into my radios via both ProScan and Sentinel. I can only hear the VHF patches from both. What do I have programmed incorrectly? If an SDS-100 can pick up Chester County in HRO's parking lot, I should be able to hear both these systems.

Jeff
 

policefreak

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I can tell you Montgomery county is hard to pick up in your direction. Add to it the fact the 536 and SDS200 are not the best at handling the Smartzone systems (btw how well does your SDS200 do on Delaware?) and you're likely just too far. You SHOULD be hearing Chester County. That has very strong propagation to the south, mainly the WEST site (those are the 700mhz freqs). Do you have a cell tower within a few hundred yards of your location?
 

maus92

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I live in North Wilmington. I have a Uniden SDS-200 and a BCD 536 HP with a Diamond Discone antenna fed with LMR-400 coax and use a MCA204 Multicoupler. I pick up digital systems up and down the Delaware River from Mercer County to Delaware. I cannot pick up Chester or Montgomery County.
The P25 systems for these two counties are downloaded into my radios via both ProScan and Sentinel. I can only hear the VHF patches from both. What do I have programmed incorrectly? If an SDS-100 can pick up Chester County in HRO's parking lot, I should be able to hear both these systems.

Jeff
Any way you can attach your .hpe file? Are you using Favorites Lists or Location Control? I'd double check range settings. Are you using antennuation? Wrt Chester County, are all system frequencies entered? (Harris systems can use any as a cch.) . I was up in the area a few weeks ago, and noticed a lot of noise on the Wayne site while actually in Wayne. Otherwise, I was able to receive Chester sites well into Maryland. The flatland and water to the east help with receiving the NJ systems.
 

Jeff302

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I am using a favorites list. Range is set for 40 miles. Attenuation is OFF. This website doesn't let me update my *.hpd file. I converted it to a txt. Would that work? I can pick up the two VHF patches that Chesterco uses.

Many thanks.

Jeff
 

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Jeff302

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I can tell you Montgomery county is hard to pick up in your direction. Add to it the fact the 536 and SDS200 are not the best at handling the Smartzone systems (btw how well does your SDS200 do on Delaware?) and you're likely just too far. You SHOULD be hearing Chester County. That has very strong propagation to the south, mainly the WEST site (those are the 700mhz freqs). Do you have a cell tower within a few hundred yards of your location?
 

Jeff302

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The SDS 200 works exceedingly well with the Delaware State systems. I generally only listen to EMS and Fire. Philly Fire comes in too well. Burlington, Camden, Gloucester systems all are readable. I can even pick up Atlantic County VHF. I really like this scanner. My first base radio was a BC IV. I will say that my 536 is set up for Delaware Fire systems only. My PSR 600 is set up for VHF rail and marine.
 

Jeff302

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Any way you can attach your .hpe file? Are you using Favorites Lists or Location Control? I'd double check range settings. Are you using antennuation? Wrt Chester County, are all system frequencies entered? (Harris systems can use any as a cch.) . I was up in the area a few weeks ago, and noticed a lot of noise on the Wayne site while actually in Wayne. Otherwise, I was able to receive Chester sites well into Maryland. The flatland and water to the east help with receiving the NJ systems.
 

Jeff302

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I wasn't paying attention. I can't attach my .hpe file as well. Can I send it to you via email?
 

maus92

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I wasn't paying attention. I can't attach my .hpe file as well. Can I send it to you via email?
Check your pm. Also, try posting it here, but just change the extension from .hpe to .txt - I want to be able to load it directly into Sentinel after change the .txt back to .hpe.
 

Jeff302

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I am at 100 feet above sea level and have a clear view up the river. I can see due east to the Commodore Barry Bridge from the house and pick up VHF air traffic with no issues. I am beginning to believe that the problem between me and Chesterco are some hills.
 

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maus92

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Terrain does play a role, as well as the orientation of the system's transmit antennas.
 

maus92

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I checked you .hpe file. It looks OK, but I would turn Priority ID scan =Off, and ID Search=On, and test that config. Have you taken your radio on the road to test it out?

I live at roughly at the center of my county, and I cannot reliably receive neighboring county's 700/800 systems (nor BWI airport,) and it is because of terrain.
 

policefreak

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The SDS 200 works exceedingly well with the Delaware State systems. I generally only listen to EMS and Fire. Philly Fire comes in too well. Burlington, Camden, Gloucester systems all are readable. I can even pick up Atlantic County VHF. I really like this scanner. My first base radio was a BC IV. I will say that my 536 is set up for Delaware Fire systems only. My PSR 600 is set up for VHF rail and marine.
That's quite impressive that you can hear Burlington County NJ from Delaware. I can walk over into Burlington County and my SDS100 or any other scanner has a very hard time properly receiving it. It seems you have really good line of sight to the E, NE and SE and maybe not so much due North or NW. It's interesting though because as we have noted, Chester County has a very strong propagation to the south (towards Wilmington). Let us know if the changes maus92 mentioned change anything.
 

thunderr10

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North Wilmington seems to be close to the farthest the signal will go (looking at the site map for Chester County). I live just across the line and can receive Delaware's system very well, but I'm just inside the range for Delaware's system. I get all this with a ducky antenna. Now when Lancaster County went P25, I lost them, even with my attic antenna. I bought a hi gain directional antenna and amplifier, and pointed it at their closest site and now I can hear them again. As a side note I can get NJICS now.
 

policefreak

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North Wilmington seems to be close to the farthest the signal will go (looking at the site map for Chester County). I live just across the line and can receive Delaware's system very well, but I'm just inside the range for Delaware's system. I get all this with a ducky antenna. Now when Lancaster County went P25, I lost them, even with my attic antenna. I bought a hi gain directional antenna and amplifier, and pointed it at their closest site and now I can hear them again. As a side note I can get NJICS now.
Are you just east of I-95?
 

maus92

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North Wilmington seems to be close to the farthest the signal will go (looking at the site map for Chester County). I live just across the line and can receive Delaware's system very well, but I'm just inside the range for Delaware's system. I get all this with a ducky antenna. Now when Lancaster County went P25, I lost them, even with my attic antenna. I bought a hi gain directional antenna and amplifier, and pointed it at their closest site and now I can hear them again. As a side note I can get NJICS now.
Delaware's system booms, at least in southern Delaware into Maryland. Very powerful. It's a fairly old design, with high tower sites, lots of gain on its antennas. It had issues with coverage in some areas though, and they added IRs - not sure if they are still IRs, or if they've been converted to full-on standalone sites.
 

maus92

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West of 95, New Garden Township area.
There is a site in Toughkenamon, though interestingly fairly low power (I'm used to seeing 100w licensing on the 700/800 systems in my area.) . Perhaps they had to do some signal footprint shaping with lower power and antenna orientation to keep from interfering with systems in Jersey and Delaware. IDK, utter speculation on my part.
 
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