Dare County Public Safety

[rickyflemz]

I've noticed that when in Dare County I do not hear any of their public safety channels. Occasionally I'll hear the airport but no law or emergency services. I've checked the database and they have their information in there but it doesn't come through. Anyone know why? or what frequencies they use?

 

[murrayustud]

are you using the Dare County p25 system? Dare County Public Safety Trunking System, Manteo, North Carolina

You won't get anything on Viper except Fish & Wildlife & SHP.

 

[rickyflemz]

I've opened the full database and heard nothing. Other locals such as Tyrrell, Hyde, and Washington are all using North Carolina Viper.

 

[murrayustud]

Dare county is not on viper they have their own system.

 

[rickyflemz]

The full database covers more than just the VIPER channels. Are the talk groups that they use not on radioreference? How can I get them?

 

[murrayustud]

The full database covers more than just the VIPER channels. Are the talk groups that they use not on radioreference? How can I get them?

Dare County Public Safety Trunking System, Manteo, North Carolina

Dare County Public Safety Trunking System Profile

www.radioreference.com

 

[richardbritt]

Plus all the Dare and town law enforcement talkgroups are encrypted. You should hear fire department on the Dare Public Safely system. Not much happening usually this time of year. It's a simulcast system but all the towers are spaced out quite far from each other. My bcd436hp has no issues from that.

 

[richardbritt]

Oh, just had an idea, did you use any of the the zip codes for Dare County to let the scanner know where you are at the time? Or have the scanner determine its own location?

 

[jsncrso]

I can assure you Dare's P25 system is working, the feed I run uses that system. The replies above are all correct

Are you getting full reception bars on your scanner? If not, you aren't picking up the signal. Also make sure your squelch is set correctly since that system seems to be sensitive to that (Mine is set to 4 which is fairly low). Also, unless you have an SDS scanner or a high gain yagi antenna, this system is extremely hard to monitor with a traditional P25 scanner and omni antenna due to all of the severe multipath distortion (it's so bad they had to install a separate multicast site in Buxton).

Also keep in mind they are transitioning to P25 Phase-II sometime in the near future so you will need a scanner capable of that

 

[richardbritt]

Actually the Dare system doesn't sound bad on a Ws1040 or a bcd436hp, not in Kitty Hawk or KDH anyway. My family owns a beach cottage and I go there now and then and the system sounds good. I am sure where the towers overlap there might be distortion due to signal capture in the scanner front end. My pro_2096 scanners do get a lot of distortion though. Soon to be replaced before Viper gets switched over

 

[jsncrso]

I have two BCD996XT scanners and neither of them can pick up more than 10% of transmissions with an omni antenna in Wanchese. With a Yagi, I can receive ok, but then the decoder drifts off to the point voice is completely lost on about 33% of transmissions. Whistler scanners have always done better with multipath distortion vs Uniden units, although it's much better with the new Home Patrol units like you mentioned (both of my SDS scanners have zero issues even with a high gain omni antenna). Being in Kitty Hawk, there's only one tower up that way so multipath is diminished significantly compared to the rest of the county.

 

[OnYourSix]

I've noticed that when in Dare County I do not hear any of their public safety channels. Occasionally I'll hear the airport but no law or emergency services. I've checked the database and they have their information in there but it doesn't come through. Anyone know why? or what frequencies they use?

@rickyflemz what are you using to receive these systems? I was there last year using a Unification G5 and I heard fire alerts and fire tactical channels without an issue.