Hamilton County?

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wolverine

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It's been awhile since I've been without a scanner. I was in the scanning hobby, all the way back to the 90's, however with these new digital systems and the poor performance of scanners such as the Uniden BCD396XT, the GRE PSR-500, on P25 simulcast systems, one of my favorite hobbies has been ruined.

With scanners that I've owned in the past, all they would do is garble up. I would have to search for a spot the sit the scanner on, that would give me good reception, but even after awhile, it would start garbling up. No matter the monitoring location, or the settings, same results.

My question is, with the new scanners on the market, such as the Uniden BCD325P2, and the Uniden BCD436HP, how do these scanners receive on the Hamilton county systems that are now on MARCS-IP, for monitoring Cincinnati?

I wouldn't mind buying the Uniden BCD325P2, since it isn't that expensive and I don't want to pay anymore money then I have to, just to be disappointed.
 

fyrfyter33

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I have the Pro-651, which is essentially the WS1040 and it does great on the MARCS system in Hamilton County.

I had a Pro-96 on the old system and it did equally well.

Not sure what issues you ran into, but the coverage within Hamilton County is very good, and as both a user on MARCS and a listener, I've never had those issues.

Usually when the audio gets off, it indicates a bigger problem, like a tower site slightly out of sync or something drifting off frequency just enough to cause issues.
 

wolverine

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These issues I experienced on multiple scanner throughout the years. What is this scanner by Unication called the G5 pager. They say that it eliminates the problems that I've experienced in the past, and it can be used to scan P25 talkgroups?
 

radioscan

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If Hamilton County/Cincinnati is the ONLY ones you want to listen to, and you cannot get around the Simulcast Digital Distortion. I suggest looking into getting a Unication G4 or G5 pager. They are not a scanner per se, but quite a few hobbyists in the Cincinnati area have purchased these and are very happy with their performance. If you wish to scan other things, then one of the new scanners is the way to go. I suggest doing a bit of research and reading before making a decision.

You can check out the Unication Forum here: https://forums.radioreference.com/unication-forum/


Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-T807A using Tapatalk
 

mmartinfan

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These issues I experienced on multiple scanner throughout the years. What is this scanner by Unication called the G5 pager. They say that it eliminates the problems that I've experienced in the past, and it can be used to scan P25 talkgroups?

Those have a long way to go before they are "scanners" I would stick with a Uniden x36 or the Whistler equivalent.
 

fyrfyter33

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Those have a long way to go before they are "scanners" I would stick with a Uniden x36 or the Whistler equivalent.



I would agree with this. Unless you have a specific need for a tone alert pager that can monitor P25, this device isn't the correct one.

256 channels is barely enough to cover half the system. I could make it work for County Fire and probably city, but that's pretty much all I'll get.
 

wa8pyr

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I would agree with this. Unless you have a specific need for a tone alert pager that can monitor P25, this device isn't the correct one.

256 channels is barely enough to cover half the system. I could make it work for County Fire and probably city, but that's pretty much all I'll get.

Actually I found the G5 demo model I had to work very well, and the scanning capacity was quite acceptable if I included just the dispatch channels and primary fireground or law tac channels.

However, if you are looking to scan everything, I'd stick with a scanner, or use a scanner in conjunction with the G4/G5. The price point of the G4 or G5 makes them great for scanning the essentials, but full-scale scanning would be a problem.
 

wolverine

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If Hamilton County/Cincinnati is the ONLY ones you want to listen to, and you cannot get around the Simulcast Digital Distortion. I suggest looking into getting a Unication G4 or G5 pager. They are not a scanner per se, but quite a few hobbyists in the Cincinnati area have purchased these and are very happy with their performance. If you wish to scan other things, then one of the new scanners is the way to go. I suggest doing a bit of research and reading before making a decision.

You can check out the Unication Forum here: https://forums.radioreference.com/unication-forum/


Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-T807A using Tapatalk

Actually I found the G5 demo model I had to work very well, and the scanning capacity was quite acceptable if I included just the dispatch channels and primary fireground or law tac channels.

However, if you are looking to scan everything, I'd stick with a scanner, or use a scanner in conjunction with the G4/G5. The price point of the G4 or G5 makes them great for scanning the essentials, but full-scale scanning would be a problem.

Thanks to everyone who has replied. I would say that 90% of my scanning would be Hamilton county. Mostly Cincinnati police and fire talkgroups. I would also scan Hamilton county comm center police and fire talkgroups, but not as much Cincinnati.

I may occasionally scan Butler county, but rarely.

I don't know how many systems you can program on the Unication G4 and G5, I'm going research more tonight, but when it comes to Hamilton county, I always like to program Cincinnati and Hamilton county comm center talkgroups as two separate systems. I only program police and fire department talkgroups, so 256 talkgroups per system would be more than enough for me.
 

MBECKNELL

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i have a g4 that i use to listen to the Marcs ip system in Butler,Warren,Hamilton,Cincinnati it works great for what i need to listen to
 

wolverine

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i have a g4 that i use to listen to the Marcs ip system in Butler,Warren,Hamilton,Cincinnati it works great for what i need to listen to

Good to know!. I read somewhere that you cannot put the Unication G4 and G5 on hold during scan mode, to manually listen to one channel if some thing good is happening. Is this true?
 
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just make 1 channel a single talkgroup i'm going to buy the G5V soon i have been working on a code plug so when i get mine all i have to do is program it.
 

wolverine

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just make 1 channel a single talkgroup i'm going to buy the G5V soon i have been working on a code plug so when i get mine all i have to do is program it.

Ok, I think I might understand this, but just in case, please correct me if I'm wrong since you have some experience with the programming software.

It's my understanding that there are 8 channel positions per Zone (Zone being a trunked system, let's say the MARCS-IP system for the City of Cincinnati).

This would mean that I can program the following talkgroups per the Cincinnati Zone:

Channel 1 District 1 talkgroup

Channel 2 District 2 talkgroup

Channel 3 District 3 talkgroup

Channel 4 District 4 talkgroup

Channel 5 District 5 talkgroup

Channel 6 All County talkgroup

Channel 7 Scan list for the above listed talkgroup channels


I can program the Unication G4 with the above system and channels, while still having other Zones for other systems, should I choose to program them?
 

fyrfyter33

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My guess is, the scan list shouldn't occupy a channel, it should be a separate item altogether, since this should program up more like a radio, minus the transmit part.
 

INDY72

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My guess is, the scan list shouldn't occupy a channel, it should be a separate item altogether, since this should program up more like a radio, minus the transmit part.

Good guess as this is primarily designed as an pager type device, not an scanner or HT.
 

fyrfyter33

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Good guess as this is primarily designed as an pager type device, not an scanner or HT.



It is, but it must include the radio receiver and have most of the brains.

Since it was designed for public safety, this only makes sense, as it would make it similar to the programming for Portables & Mobiles.
 

wa8pyr

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My guess is, the scan list shouldn't occupy a channel, it should be a separate item altogether, since this should program up more like a radio, minus the transmit part.

The scan list has to be slaved to one of the channel positions (you can't just hit a scan button and let 'er rip), so what Wolverine said is a pretty good summation. You've got 8 channels per zone (and if I recall correctly 8 zones), so you could define Zone 1 as CinHamCo, set the first 7 channels in that zone as specific talkgroups, and Channel 8 as your scan list.

Then Zone 2 could be Butler County, Zone 3 could be Clermont County, and so on. . . .
 
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fyrfyter33

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The scan list has to be slaved to one of the channel positions (you can't just hit a scan button and let 'er rip), so what Wolverine said is a pretty good summation. You've got 8 channels per zone (and if I recall correctly 8 zones), so you could define Zone 1 as CinHamCo, set the the first 7 channels in that zone as specific talkgroups, and Channel 8 as your scan list.



Then Zone 2 could be Butler County, Zone 3 could be Clermont County, and so on. . . .



Horrible design. I think I will stick with the portable radio when I want to hear something.

I don't have any interest in a two-tone pager, since the alpha pagers are easier to get the info from.

At least Unication makes a decent alpha pager.
 

wolverine

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Thanks everyone. I'm seriously considering the Unication G4. Before I make my final decision, I would like to hear reports from any users of the Uniden BCD436HP on the MARCS-IP Cincinnati and Hamilton County towers and how does it deal with distortion over the GRE PSR-500 and the Uniden BCD396XT?
 

Matthew

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Wolverine:

I have both the 436 and the 536 and I think they work very well here in Hamilton County. The 536 is in my work vehicle and uses a glass mount antenna and it does a great job. The 436 works very well in and around my house on the east side.

I think the x36HP series out performs the 500 or the 396XT. Though to be fair I was never a fan of how the GRE500 or the GRE800 scanners performed ... I think they were garbage in decode quality.
 

KB8KOJ

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Go with a Unication for the essentials... get some decent SDR dongles and DSD+ for discovery and reference. Call it good. Or maybe keep trying consumer scanners and Yagis and silly antenna tricks.
 
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