DTRS Question

[cstockmyer]

For thoes of you that are listening to this rainbow family thing, do you all have a huge big antenna, or with Digital radio can you hear it down here in Denver with a normal antenna?

 

[Thayne]

You can hear it if any "Real" radios that are listening to any talkgroups being used up there are in the metro area; or if they may have a patch in place for some reason. Otherwise, those talk groups would not show up in the metro area. I havn't been following it so I don't know what groups they are using.

 

[cstockmyer]

So with a digital scanner, you can hear it where ever you are in the state? As long as you have the site programed in? It's not like UHF/VHF in the way of line of sight or just being within X amount of miles of the repeater?

 

[jimmnn]

For thoes of you that are listening to this rainbow family thing, do you all have a huge big antenna, or with Digital radio can you hear it down here in Denver with a normal antenna?

Nope no talk groups have been available in the metro area, Mountain NewsNet has dispatchers in NW Colorado that have been monitoring it directly and I will be there on Sunday for a week and plan to try to set up a feed so other's can enjoy the communications as well.

DTRS allows statewide coverage but that's only if a radio is local to you and tuned to the talk groups being used so for example a trooper based in the Durango area is visiting HQ in Golden for training and leaves his radio on a SW Colo talk group then you can hear traffic from there but only as long as he's in town.

Hope that makes sense.

Jim<

 

[cstockmyer]

Nope no talk groups have been available in the metro area, Mountain NewsNet has dispatchers in NW Colorado that have been monitoring it directly and I will be there on Sunday for a week and plan to try to set up a feed so other's can enjoy the communications as well.

DTRS allows statewide coverage but that's only if a radio is local to you and tuned to the talk groups being used so for example a trooper based in the Durango area is visiting HQ in Golden for training and leaves his radio on a SW Colo talk group then you can hear traffic from there but only as long as he's in town.

Hope that makes sense.

Jim<

So when he is in Golden he can hear his own dispatch? Or he can only hear the dispatch he is closest to?

 

[jimmnn]

So when he is in Golden he can hear his own dispatch? Or he can only hear the dispatch he is closest to?

He can hear his own dispatch in that case Montrose, or if he changed channels to a Golden area troop he could hear the local dispatch.

Jim<

 

[cstockmyer]

Wow I had no idea. Thanks Jim

 

[Thayne]

Another way to explain it is that any radio that is affiliated with the state system can talk clear across the state to anyone else on the same talkgroup; but they are not talking directly radio to radio on 800, because the communication is routed thru a network that could be Fiber, Microwave, phone lines, etc. then to the best tower site on each end.

Cellphones use the same types of network infrastructures too.

 

[cstockmyer]

So when I get a digital scanner-Here comes Erik!- I can listen to systems no matter how far they are from me? Do I have that right?

 

[mpg0515]

So when I get a digital scanner-Here comes Erik!- I can listen to systems no matter how far they are from me? Do I have that right?

no... if the CSP trooper is from Durango and is in Denver at a conference or something, and he is still on his home TG. Then you would be able to listen to 5C19 etc on the 5C TG from Montrose in Denver

BTW, I have been getting some interesting TG's off of the Horestooth tower the last couple of days. I would assume some CSP units heading to Steamboat to help out with the "hippies." I heard 2C and 1A? for a while last night

 

[jimmnn]

So when I get a digital scanner-Here comes Erik!- I can listen to systems no matter how far they are from me? Do I have that right?

Nope, can't be that easy. You can listen to your local agencies that are affliating with your local control channels.

Jim<

 

[cstockmyer]

Nope, can't be that easy. You can listen to your local agencies that are affliating with your local control channels.

Jim<

Ok that makes a ton more since. In order to listen to the system, you have to be able to hit their control channel. How far away have people here been able to get control channels in?

 

[jimmnn]

Ok that makes a ton more since. In order to listen to the system, you have to be able to hit their control channel. How far away have people here been able to get control channels in?

Not really the units you want to listen too need to be affliated with the control channels which you can receive, not the other way around. I rountinely monitor all CC's that cover the metro area from Franktown to Riley Peak, Squaw Mtn to Deer Trail and Greeley south to Loveland and Ft Collins and pretty much all in-between.

Jim<

 

[cstockmyer]

Yikes, and how many scanners do you have going at one time? Just out of curiosity.

 

[jimmnn]

Yikes, and how many scanners do you have going at one time? Just out of curiosity.

Four to six depending on the situation and time of day, but you can do multi-control channels with a single digital scanner.

Jim<

 

[lockoutspecialist]

Well thanks for the info guys. In my 800mhz thread I did not explain my problem which is on DTRS I have all TGS for CSP in, but not hearing it all. The metro EDACS is out of my range. Ill just stick to this area. Dont have $ for more digital scanners or big antennas.

 

[skipshark773]

It is also possible to have different towers programed into the zones of an XTS portable so that they can be manually selected. For example, the portable I have at work has Channel 15 as the PVH site and Channel 16 as the Horsetooth site (which leads me to believe that the tower the radio affiliates with can be mode slaved). Being a field/end user, I'm not all up on the technical auspicies of the radio, but I understood that they are programmed with (somebody stop me if I'm wrong) 30 or so different CC's/sites they can affiliate with allowing them to be used freely across a wide area, much like a cellular telephone. If moved anywhere outside of the range of the programmed tower list the radio will display "OUT OF RANGE" (I've seen this message on the display once while in a basement) untill it is able to pick up a signal from one of the towers. As I understood it, coverage outside the programmed tower list is accomplished by simulcasted transmissions on neighboring towers. For example, a message transmitted on the PVH tower would be echoed on the Horsetooth tower. This way if I transmitted a message to the PVH tower and somebody else was using the same talkgroup but affiliated with the Horsetooth tower, they wouldnt miss my traffic. Anyways, dont quote me on any of this, this is just how I understood that it worked.

 

[lockoutspecialist]

I don't understand the tech either. But I do have about 35 CCs programed into the scanner For surrounding areas of FTC Loveland Greeley . it is the area Im interested in. Just put all CSP tgs in to see if I Could recieve anything.

 

[skipshark773]

that's the best way to do it. occasionally a stray TG will pop up on one of your CC's. Earlier today I logged a western slope radio tech TG ID off the lookout tower (probably related to the rainbow family tower installation dealie). You can get a pretty good 3db gain 800MHz antenna from scanner master which will really pull in the signals for about $15 or so.

[edit]: Oops. Looks like I mis-spoke. Its $30, but in my opinion it was worth the money. http://www.scannermaster.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=14-540714

 

[mpg0515]

I don't understand the tech either. But I do have about 35 CCs programed into the scanner For surrounding areas of FTC Loveland Greeley . it is the area Im interested in. Just put all CSP tgs in to see if I Could recieve anything.

If you wan't to listen to more South CSP troops, program in Mount Thorodin (868.975) that should cover most of those troops well i.e. 6C,1A,1C,1D etc. This site is pretty darn high, another option would be Squaw Mountain (11,440ft) w/ freq of 868.850. These both cover the Front Range well with no special/high gain antennas needed.