Colton Police Department

[richardbarrera]

Hi guys, I have a problem. Just in the past day I have not been able to pick up ANY transmissions when scanning Colton Police Department, it is dead silent. I just wanted to see if I was the only one having this problem and if it might be a problem with my scanner. I am using a Uniden BC246T. I erased everything, then uploaded everything back onto scanner twice already just to make sure everything is correct and I still get nothing. If anyone can shine some light on my problem I would really appreciate it.

 

[zz0468]

Without giving us details as to exactly what you have programmed, we can't help you. I can assure you, Colton PD is working just fine.

 

[richardbarrera]

Without giving us details as to exactly what you have programmed, we can't help you. I can assure you, Colton PD is working just fine.

I had used the database info from San Bernardino, County of (Public Safety) 08 to program the Colton PD talkgroup. I solved the problem, in the database it only gives you these frequencies for San Bernardino County system 8; 866.18750 - 866.68750c-867.11250 - 867.33750c - 867.83750c - 868.11250 - 868.68750c. I had only used these 7 until about two days ago when I started experiencing problems and was not picking up any Colton PD transmissions. I did some searching and found these other 4 frequencies; 857.3625 - 859.3875 - 859.8125 - 860.8375 and once I added these I begin to receive Colton Police radio traffic again.

 

[zz0468]

The 8 system was expanded to 12 channels some time ago.

 

[jrholm]

Funny thing though is those four additional frequencies are only being used by Colton PD. I noticed my Pro-106 has been locking on like Colton was talking but it would not switch to a voice channel. This is while listening at my house in Big Bear. But when I go down into the San Berdo valley area my Pro-106 picks up the voice channels for Colton PD. It appears that Colton PD is still controlled by System 8 but uses these voice channels exclusively and they are not repeated through out the system.

Does that make sense to anybody? Has anybody else seen anything like this before?

 

[John47]

San Bernardino PD is an offset type system, they do not send any radio signals very far, there signals can only be heard from as far as Fontana only, There numbers do not have the .5 at the end of the freq numbers, the ones with Colton PD does, they could of somehow programmed the communication system to go only so far?. I do wish that SBPD would allow there signal to go far, I can rec all of SBSO and the other cites within that same system as far as Claremont, just depends on the City that has that group.

 

[zz0468]

Does that make sense to anybody? Has anybody else seen anything like this before?

It makes sense when you know the back story...

It's not unheard of to selectively expand coverage or capacity of a system to solve a particular problem. If a fix needs to be implemented in one relatively small area of a system, it makes no sense to spend a large amount of money to apply the fix to areas that simply don't need it.

 

[zz0468]

San Bernardino PD is an offset type system, they do not send any radio signals very far, there signals can only be heard from as far as Fontana only, There numbers do not have the .5 at the end of the freq numbers, the ones with Colton PD does, they could of somehow programmed the communication system to go only so far?. I do wish that SBPD would allow there signal to go far, I can rec all of SBSO and the other cites within that same system as far as Claremont, just depends on the City that has that group.

A system isn't "programmed" to allow it to go only so far. The wide coverage of the 6 system comes as a result of lots of transmitter sites, each one making it's own contribution to the coverage 'footprint'. It's system design that determines how far it can talk.

SBPD operates on a separate system that doesn't NEED to cover that far west - so it doesn't.

The offset frequencies have nothing directly to do with how far it can be heard. That simply means that those were the frequencies they could get licensed at that particular location at that particular time. It IS conceivable (likely, even) that they could NOT license those frequencies elsewhere, which would contribute to them not being heard where you are. And if they had a need, that problem would have been solved years ago.

 

[jrholm]

It makes sense when you know the back story...

It's not unheard of to selectively expand coverage or capacity of a system to solve a particular problem. If a fix needs to be implemented in one relatively small area of a system, it makes no sense to spend a large amount of money to apply the fix to areas that simply don't need it.

Makes sense. Kind of interesting is that it appeared to happen about the same time DesCom went out of business therefore bringing more radio traffic onto system 8 for county fire.

I still don't know why Colton is even on system 8 (mountains), but then I didn't have anything to do with the design either so............

 

[zz0468]

Makes sense. Kind of interesting is that it appeared to happen about the same time DesCom went out of business therefore bringing more radio traffic onto system 8 for county fire.

Funny how things work out, isn't it.

I still don't know why Colton is even on system 8 (mountains), but then I didn't have anything to do with the design either so............

System 6 has coverage holes in parts of Colton, so system 8 works better for them.