Does anyone monitor Lewisville or Coppell PD ? Are the PDs encrypted ? What about the Northeast Tarrant County system (Grapevine, Bedford, Euless, etc) ? Are any of the agencies on that system using encryption ? I have a Home Patrol that is updated with the 2.01 version firmware.
Depending on exactly where you are in Richardson, signal strength might be a problem, especially if you are not on a hill, and are using the stock antenna. The NE Tarrant system (Grapevine, Bedford, etc.) is a good 20 miles from you, and Lewisville's closest tower is probably around 15. As Bill has already said, neither system uses encryption extensively. Besides the federal agencies and DFW Airport, the only other major user with full time encryption is McKinney. A few systems use it sparingly in certain tactical or investigative situations, but not on normal patrol and operations talkgroups or channels (for the ones that are not trunked).
If you,ve recently acquired the Home Patrol, make sure the database is updated in the scanner, so that you have the rebanded data for NE Tarrant. You might also consider a different antenna, one better suited for 800Mhz, such as
this one from Radio Shack. That's what I'm using on my HP-1. I also bought an SMA to BNC adapter, as well as a 90 degree BNC elbow
adapter so that the antenna is vertical. Makes a big difference on the more distant trunked systems.