Filter settings help

[Lawed]

Hello All, It's the beginning of a new week so I felt this would be a good time for my weekly stupid question. I will try and explain my issue as best as possible, and hopefully this isn't a ridiculously stupid question. I have recently added a 2nd scanner to roof top discone antenna, when I originally connected my SDS 200 and my BCT15X to my roof top discone antenna I used a passive multicoupler after a few days it became apparent I had some -RF as I was not receiving one of my talk groups as regularly as before, so trying to find a proper fix it was recommended to me that I had RF loss due to splitting the signal so I purchased a Stridesberg Active multicoupler a MCA 204 model its a 4 port Multicoupler which I'm only using 2 of the 4 ports. Most of my talk groups came in crystal clear and some came in intermittently. The talk group that's affected the most is the SCRCS(Solano County Regional Communications System) which is about 30 odd miles from my house, Solano county is on 2 different P25 systems , 1 system covers the South county this is the (EBRCSA), the SCRCS that I'm having issues with covers the North, I used to have no issue receiving this talk group, now with my putting 2 radios on 1 antenna has changed some things also we have been have very cold wet weather for our part of the Bay Area which might be affecting my receiving this talk group. I put the talk group on HOLD and the group came in really well 2-4 bars. Reading more it said I wasn't receiving this talk group while scanning is due to the Control channel not having enough time to send it's signal to the radio and do it's thing to be able to hear it, it was also said I should increase the site time from 2 to 3 seconds to give the control channel more time , it also said that I should turn the filter off. I did all this and didn't receive the talk group even on hold. I changed the filter setting to AUTO and I was able to receive the TG again, reading more it recommended that I set the filter to Wide Invert ? Now I'm totally confused. Does anyone have a suggestion of what filter setting would be best for my situation , or a suggestion of another way to correct my issue. Your help is greatly appreciated. Thank You E.L.

 

[jtwalker]

Try each filter setting (except AUTO) and listen. When you find a value that works, set the site(s) for that system to the value you find that works the best. Return global value to whatever you had before (normal, off, whatever). Avoid using auto.

Filters are location specific so no one will have meaningful specific suggestions for you.

 

[Lawed]

Try each filter setting (except AUTO) and listen. When you find a value that works, set the site(s) for that system to the value you find that works the best. Return global value to whatever you had before (normal, off, whatever). Avoid using auto.

Filters are location specific so no one will have meaningful specific suggestions for you.

That's great thank you I will try that Immediately.

 

[ka3jjz]

We have a PDF writeup plus links to various discussions on the topic of filters linked in our wiki....viz

SDS100 and SDS200 FAQ Page - The RadioReference Wiki

wiki.radioreference.com

Mike

 

[hiegtx]

Hello All, It's the beginning of a new week so I felt this would be a good time for my weekly stupid question. I will try and explain my issue as best as possible, and hopefully this isn't a ridiculously stupid question. I have recently added a 2nd scanner to roof top discone antenna, when I originally connected my SDS 200 and my BCT15X to my roof top discone antenna I used a passive multicoupler after a few days it became apparent I had some -RF as I was not receiving one of my talk groups as regularly as before, so trying to find a proper fix it was recommended to me that I had RF loss due to splitting the signal so I purchased a Stridesberg Active multicoupler a MCA 204 model its a 4 port Multicoupler which I'm only using 2 of the 4 ports. Most of my talk groups came in crystal clear and some came in intermittently. The talk group that's affected the most is the SCRCS(Solano County Regional Communications System) which is about 30 odd miles from my house, Solano county is on 2 different P25 systems , 1 system covers the South county this is the (EBRCSA), the SCRCS that I'm having issues with covers the North, I used to have no issue receiving this talk group, now with my putting 2 radios on 1 antenna has changed some things also we have been have very cold wet weather for our part of the Bay Area which might be affecting my receiving this talk group. I put the talk group on HOLD and the group came in really well 2-4 bars. Reading more it said I wasn't receiving this talk group while scanning is due to the Control channel not having enough time to send it's signal to the radio and do it's thing to be able to hear it, it was also said I should increase the site time from 2 to 3 seconds to give the control channel more time , it also said that I should turn the filter off. I did all this and didn't receive the talk group even on hold. I changed the filter setting to AUTO and I was able to receive the TG again, reading more it recommended that I set the filter to Wide Invert ? Now I'm totally confused. Does anyone have a suggestion of what filter setting would be best for my situation , or a suggestion of another way to correct my issue. Your help is greatly appreciated. Thank You E.L.

Unfortunately, with the filter setting placed at Auto, the scanner will try every possible filter combination every time that system is scanned. That definitely slows down your scanning speed. As has been kicked around here in the forums, in a number of threads, it would be better if the scanner would 'remember' which setting worked best, and retain that setting, Ideally, when you used Sentinel to 'read from the scanner', that captured setting would be imported back into Sentinel for use when you loaded Favorites to the scanner. It would also help of you could set the scanner's display to include the filter setting, and see which setting was picked. But currently, not only does the scanner not save the best setting, if you set the filter setting to appear on the display, it just shows "auto", not what setting it found and was used.

There is a link to a filter setting *.pdf file on the wiki FAQ page for the SDS100 & SDS200. (I see Mike just mentioned that link.)

As jt has already noted, don't use auto. Just try the various settings to find which works best at your location.

 

[Lawed]

Unfortunately, with the filter setting placed at Auto, the scanner will try every possible filter combination every time that system is scanned. That definitely slows down your scanning speed. As has been kicked around here in the forums, in a number of threads, it would be better if the scanner would 'remember' which setting worked best, and retain that setting, Ideally, when you used Sentinel to 'read from the scanner', that captured setting would be imported back into Sentinel for use when you loaded Favorites to the scanner. It would also help of you could set the scanner's display to include the filter setting, and see which setting was picked. But currently, not only does the scanner not save the best setting, if you set the filter setting to appear on the display, it just shows "auto", not what setting it found and was used.

There is a link to a filter setting *.pdf file on the wiki FAQ page for the SDS100 & SDS200. (I see Mike just mentioned that link.)

As jt has already noted, don't use auto. Just try the various settings to find which works best at your location.

Thank You working on this now.

 

[Lawed]

We have a PDF writeup plus links to various discussions on the topic of filters linked in our wiki....viz

SDS100 and SDS200 FAQ Page - The RadioReference Wiki

wiki.radioreference.com

Mike

Thank You this PDF helped a lot and explained something I didn't know ! E.L.

 

[tvengr]

I have had many good results using the Wide Invert filter with 700 MHz sites.