finding police freq.

[pickledmidget]

hello, i am new here. i just bought a Uniden BCD996P2 scanner. i have had scanners in the past but not for probably 20 years. a lot has changed!

i bought ARC-XT, set it up. i have the firmware updated on my scanner. have a radio reference account and paid for the upgrade.

i signed into radio reference though ARC-XT, went to Michigan, went to my county. I'm not sure where to find the police for my city or the cities around me. im looking though everything, there is a lot of stuff!, but I'm not seeing police specifically.

does this make sense? again, maybe this scanner is above my head in terms of what i should have got but i did some research and i would like to dive into this thing.

i am looking for the police in Michigan, Macomb County. i know there are a lot of cities under there but again, i don't see where it says police specifically.

thank you for any help.

 

[pickledmidget]

so i put in Oakland county, Macomb county airports and a few more from radio reference import feature. but no chatter on radio. i hear a little amateur radio chatter hear and there but nothing else. i messed with SQ.

not sure what im doing wrong.

 

[jonwienke]

Public safety stuff is mostly on the MPSCS statewide system, which is both simulcast (which the 996 struggles with) and is too large to be programmed into the 996 in its entirety.

You'll have to manually pick out the departments and talkgroups for your county, as well as the sites (actually simulcast cells) within reception range. But even if you do everything right, you may get garbled reception.

 

[pickledmidget]

so i have a question. again, i am new to all this. i used to have a crystal scanner back in the day!

so i had a scanner app on my cell phone.. listened to Detroit dispatch. and it was for all the precincts. im not sure where to find these on radio reference.

so i had the phone going last night listening to the Detroit dispatch channel. its detroit! so all kinds of chatter. yet i had my scanner on right next to me and nothing from all of the wayne county (detroit area) stuff i imported from RR. i though for sure i would here the same channels on my scanner.

im not sure excatly what im doing wrong. or maybe im looking in the wrong places. there is so much to look at on RR.

as for the simulcast. what is different from that to freq?

 

[krokus]

hello, i am new here. i just bought a Uniden BCD996P2 scanner. i have had scanners in the past but not for probably 20 years. a lot has changed!

i bought ARC-XT, set it up. i have the firmware updated on my scanner. have a radio reference account and paid for the upgrade.

i signed into radio reference though ARC-XT, went to Michigan, went to my county. I'm not sure where to find the police for my city or the cities around me. im looking though everything, there is a lot of stuff!, but I'm not seeing police specifically.

does this make sense? again, maybe this scanner is above my head in terms of what i should have got but i did some research and i would like to dive into this thing.

i am looking for the police in Michigan, Macomb County. i know there are a lot of cities under there but again, i don't see where it says police specifically.

thank you for any help.

Macomb County is almost all on Michigan Public Safety Communications System, which is typically identified by the acronym MPSCS. To program what you are looking for, you need to select the system from the trunked system option, then the county, then the talkgroups for the agnecies you want to hear.

 

[pickledmidget]

ok, i did some of that last night. kinda figured it out.

im still struggling with the detroit dispatch freq/talk groups. i hear them on a scanner phone app but not my scanner. the phone app shows its for all precincts. trying to get those in there. i enjoy listening to those. and general police chatter for troy, clawson, sterling heights, warren.

 

[WA0CBW]

Try putting the scanner in "ID search" mode to hear non-programed talk groups.
bb

 

[krokus]

ok, i did some of that last night. kinda figured it out.

im still struggling with the detroit dispatch freq/talk groups. i hear them on a scanner phone app but not my scanner. the phone app shows its for all precincts. trying to get those in there. i enjoy listening to those. and general police chatter for troy, clawson, sterling heights, warren.

Detroit's radio traffic is only on their own towers, with very rare exception. You will need to program their sites, as their radio traffic will not (likely) be carried on the Macomb towers. (They operate on a spur of MPSCS, to prevent Detroit's traffic from clogging other towers.)

 

[N9JCQ]

FYI someone is feeding DPD to the phone app using a scanner like yours.

 

[Forts]

If your scanner isn't receiving the Detroit City MPSCS site (for example, you might be on the Macomb tower) then for the most part you won't hear DPD. They are mostly exclusive to that site. The odd time they'll roam over to another site (I see DPD 07 on Macomb fairly often) but not much.

 

[pickledmidget]

im taking this all in. still learning. having fun trying to figure it out though! lol

i do thank everyone for the info and knowledge!

 

[west-pac]

im taking this all in. still learning. having fun trying to figure it out though! lol

i do thank everyone for the info and knowledge!

Just FYI, there could be a 1-2 minute delay between the time you hear radio traffic on your scanner, and hear that same radio traffic on your phone.