Help! - Wicomico County

[milligandw]

I'm fairly new to the TRS systems and I can't pick up Wicomico Sheriff, Fire or EMS. I have programmed all of the 800 channels in as well as numerous talkgroup IDs.

These are my trunk system settings on my BC296D:

System Select: Motorola Type2/APCO 25 800Mhz
Acivity ID: Off
I-Call: Off
Trunck Bank On/Off: On
CC Only Mode: Off
Status Bit: S-Bit ON
End of Tone: Detect

I'm I missing something?

David

PS - I live in Cambridge and am using a UHF/VHF mounted in my attic.

 

[emtLarmy15]

Might not be close enough... I know that I can not usually pick up the system here in Pocomoke. Try getting the antenna outside, and you might be able to pick it up... Beyond that, can't help ya much. The only thing I listen to from Wicomico is Silmulcast on Conventional Freqs.

Chris

 

[doctordave]

Unless you are using cable designed for low-loss on 800-900 MHZ, that is a huge part of the problem.....which specific antenna are you utilizing? The UES system (including QA/Talbot, for example) is a bit hard to hear from just inside DE....becomes necessary to have a great cable/antenna combo, as well.....otherwise you hear nothing. Your settings look correct.

 

[milligandw]

Wicomico County

I am using 50 ft of Radio Shack's RG-58 (52 ohms) - Cat No. 278-971

As for the antenna, it's also a RS product: VHF-Hi/UHF Outdoor Scanner Antenna - Cat No. 20-176

Should consider replacing this stuff with something better? If so, what would you recommend?

TIA, David

PS - I am currently picking up the UES system loud and clear...

 

[TinEar]

Your coax cable would be a good and easy way to start. Fifty feet of RG58 has 7.25db loss at those frequencies. Something like LMR400 coax has 2.05db loss over 50 feet. My favorite place for coax is The RF Connection. They'll make it up with any kind of connectors you specify and ship it to your door. They can be found at:
http://users.erols.com/rfc/index1.htm

 

[milligandw]

Wicomico County

Thanks TinEar!

I'll place an order for it immediately.

I'll let you know what the results are after it's been installed.


David

 

[milligandw]

Thanks TinEar!

I've installed 25' of LMR400 to connect my attic antenna to a female-to-female wall plate and 10' of LMR 200 to connect the wall plate to my base unit. I also replaced the Radio Shack antenna with a Diamond Discone D-130J.

Results: Wicomico now comes in fairly well, as does Annapolis. Calvert and Charles Counties come in very well. On occasion, I can even pick up Salisbury's trunk freqs.

Thanks again for the advice. There's nothing better than a great forum!

David

Another Question: Somerset, Worcester, and Ocean City are EDACS WIDE systems, correct? Other than making sure that the trunk freqs are entered in the correct order, is there anything else unique about EDACS WIDE systems that I should be aware of?

 

[TinEar]

Excellent news David. Glad to hear that little piece of advice turned out to be part of the answer. I also have a Diamond Discone I've been wanting to try out but mine is resting in the basement. I've been trying to find someone to put it atop a 50 foot oak out in the yard. I know I'm not going up there and every time I set up something with a tree trimmer, they never show up. One of these days...

 

[milligandw]

Wicomico County

TinEar:

Good help is getting harder to find...

As for the EDACS WIDE sys programming Is there anything else I should be aware of other than enter the trunk freqs in the correct order?

David

 

[emtLarmy15]

David,
That's about all you need for the EDACS systems... but I am going to seriously doubt you will pick up the Ocean City System, cause I can't even do it from South Worcester County... and the Worcester System will be a stretch since most of our Towers have directional antenna's that are pointed away from you. If you aren't picking up the systems, and think it may be a programming error, put all freq's for the systems into your scanner as conventional freq's, and see if you can find the control channel. If you can't hear the CC, you won't hear the system. But don't lose hope, cause with the right weather conditions, you can hear it. I talked from Downtown Baltimore City one morning to my dispatcher in Pocomoke City, on the Worcester System using a Jaguar Portable in a enhanced charger (converta-com)...only thing the enhanced charger does is provides a hand mic, external speaker, and external antenna... so I was basically just using a portable to talk from Penn Street to Pocomoke... I was THOURGHLY impressed, even though I know it was only because of the odd weather conditions that day...which was October 2, 2004 at about 8am...

Chris

 

[milligandw]

Chris,

Interest tale regarding how the weather effects the transmission of signals.

My suspicions have been confirmed regarding the difficulty in receiving Ocean City and/or Worcester. Now, at the risk of sounding too ignorant, what should I be listening for when trying to detect a control channel? A tone of sound type or actual communications?

David

 

[troymail]

Look through this list:

Motorola Networked Trunking Control Channel
http://www.kb9ukd.com/digital/motorola_net.wav

ASTRO APCO -25
http://www.kb9ukd.com/digital/astro96k.wav

EDACS 9600 baud Control Channel
http://www.kb9ukd.com/digital/edacs96.wav

EDACS 4800 baud Control Channel
http://www.kb9ukd.com/digital/edacs48.wav

 

[scannerman700]

My Mother lives near Salisbury Airport and The Scanner I put in her house
is a Radio Shack Pro-2052, It just has 2 types of places where you can put an antenna one on top of scanner near speaker and a plug in for the rear...So I put one antenna on top and a Directional Antenna in rear... The Scanner always picks up OC's Radio System....BSAFE-Jay

 

[emtLarmy15]

Are you picking up the OC system, or are you picking up the dispatch freq's which are VHF high? I know that the OC EMS units used to have a REAL hard time talking to communications sometimes when they went to PRMC after they moved the OC tower to 65th street, and before the worcester system was up... now that the worcester system is up, they switch to the worcester ramp in the radio, and talk to communications on the wide area talkgroups such as OC 1, 2 or 4

 

[tolley]

David, up here in Hurlock I can occasionally pick up the Worcester system when the weather is right. Wicomico, AA County, Calvert, St. Mary's 800 systems come in pretty well since there is a lot of open area in this part of the county. I have real good luck on VHF with my attic mounted VHF antenna. I can pick up Kent County, MD as well as the ESVA fire/ems channels. Over across the pond I can pick up AA County Fire Dispatch like it was right next to me as well as Baltimore City fire simulcast on 154.145.

 

[scannerman700]

Are you picking up the OC system, or are you picking up the dispatch freq's which are VHF high? I know that the OC EMS units used to have a REAL hard time talking to communications sometimes when they went to PRMC after they moved the OC tower to 65th street, and before the worcester system was up... now that the worcester system is up, they switch to the worcester ramp in the radio, and talk to communications on the wide area talkgroups such as OC 1, 2 or 4

Chris, When OCEMS is enroute to PRMC,what worcester county frequency does OCEMS talk on? Is it the new 100MHZ frequency
Worcester Fire Dispatch has? Thanks in advance-Jay
On second note:: Do you know anything about OC's fire minitors?