I have a pro 106 and a 800 rubber antenna- my scanner is programmed and I live 7 miles from closest tower. my county and the one next run off simulcast on 10 or so different towers and share (Winnebago and Outagamie county Wisconsin) and I get signal sometimes but other time no , I can move it around and get signal for awhile but get sick of moving it so my question is if I get a yagi antenna and point it toward the tower that is closest to me will I get both counties off of that tower since they share? I have a discone from rs out my second story on a deck but that's worse than my rubber duck. so just wondering if yagi is the way to go ?
help with simulcast
- Thread starter Mj2058505
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That's the way it should work....I have a small home made beam in the attic for 800mgz with a 35' of 9913 coax very low loss and it picks up one tower perfect 25 miles away here in IL on the Starcom Digital System....Its really trial and error with digital....The coax is very important, if its cheap u can defeat the beam purpose.....
caldwest
Member
I was having problems with my local P25 simulcast system when it rained or when it was cloudy. I live almost in the center of six towers and thought I had good reception other than for the weather issue. A week or so ago I decided to try a directional antenna (Yagi Browning BR-6383 antenna and Belden 9913F7 cable from the Antenna Farm) to overcome the weather issue.
I have the antenna mounted on a shelf in my office where my BCD996XT is located. I am amazed by the increase in quality of the transmissions. Also, I see now that I was obviously missing transmissions before I plugged in the Yagi. There was heavy rain this morning and the transmissions were clear. I am getting consistent full five bars on signal strength and consistent P25/DAT/LNK.
A Yagi worked for me, maybe it will for you. I sought a lot of advice before I placed my order and the prevailing thought was . . ."you just don't know until you try it."
Sam
I have the antenna mounted on a shelf in my office where my BCD996XT is located. I am amazed by the increase in quality of the transmissions. Also, I see now that I was obviously missing transmissions before I plugged in the Yagi. There was heavy rain this morning and the transmissions were clear. I am getting consistent full five bars on signal strength and consistent P25/DAT/LNK.
A Yagi worked for me, maybe it will for you. I sought a lot of advice before I placed my order and the prevailing thought was . . ."you just don't know until you try it."
Sam
caldwest I am in a similar situation as you I am surrounded by towers in every direction with 7 miles being the nearest tower and about 20 being the furthest in any direction -I just ordered a yagi antenna that says 806-960 is its best frequency pick up - my local system is in the 855-860 range so I am right in the middle of the antennas best range - I also just got some 400 cable so I should be good and I only run 10 feet out on to my 2nd floor deck anyways-also my geographic area is basically flat anyways - so with that all being said I will just hook It uo and point it at tower 7 miles from me and hope that it works- I am pretty confident it will. thanks for help and I will post on here next week when I get stuff from ups and set it up and let everyone know how it works- also just a fyi for people looking into a portable antenna the radio shack 800 works way better for trunking then the diamond that people told me to buy. and I am not a radio shack fan as none of the stores have anyone who knows anything about any type of electronic working there lol
now what?
ok I got my new yagi antenna and and getting great signal but the problem is my signal is great when it is 857.46250 reguardless of what talk group is on it but on the other channels it sucks at best - even when it is 859.98750 and I belive that is the control channel - I think I am missing a lot of transmissions over a lot of channels cause i almost only hear anything on the 857.46250 - shouldn't I be hearing stuff on all kinds of frequencys in the list? I thought I could just point it at the closest tower and let it scan thru the talkgroups and everything would come in good? its only 7 miles away- and I cant get nothing in good from Outagamie county that shares simulcast with Winnebago . I am starting to get frustrated as I have no idea what else could be wrong ? one frequency comes in crystal clear out of the bunch and I know that Menasha Neenah and town don't go 30 min without radio traffic or county sherrif ??????????
Winnebago/Outagamie county shared simulcast
arc 500
pro 106 lmr 400 10'run only to yagi tuned for 806-960 MHz and ony listen to trunked 850s MHz - 2nd story pointed at tower 7 miles away and another about 17 in same direction
live in Menasha need help
ok I got my new yagi antenna and and getting great signal but the problem is my signal is great when it is 857.46250 reguardless of what talk group is on it but on the other channels it sucks at best - even when it is 859.98750 and I belive that is the control channel - I think I am missing a lot of transmissions over a lot of channels cause i almost only hear anything on the 857.46250 - shouldn't I be hearing stuff on all kinds of frequencys in the list? I thought I could just point it at the closest tower and let it scan thru the talkgroups and everything would come in good? its only 7 miles away- and I cant get nothing in good from Outagamie county that shares simulcast with Winnebago . I am starting to get frustrated as I have no idea what else could be wrong ? one frequency comes in crystal clear out of the bunch and I know that Menasha Neenah and town don't go 30 min without radio traffic or county sherrif ??????????
Winnebago/Outagamie county shared simulcast
arc 500
pro 106 lmr 400 10'run only to yagi tuned for 806-960 MHz and ony listen to trunked 850s MHz - 2nd story pointed at tower 7 miles away and another about 17 in same direction
live in Menasha need help
n5ims
Member
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Try a different tower. With a simulcast system the important thing is to isolate a SINGLE tower, even if to do so forces you to use one that's a bit further out. For example, if your closest tower is directly east of you (say 3 miles away) and there's another tower directly east (say 12 miles away), your yagi will need to use another tower since facing east will bring you both signals. Moving to the tower that's south of you (say 5 miles away that has no other towers within 30 degrees of it in any direction) you'll have better luck.
If your getting simulcast clash because your in a overlap zone, then try reducing your antenna system so you can only hear one site. Simulcast systems are designed to work well in the area of intended coverage only. Outside of that area and you hear multipath noise. Even in the area of intended coverage, you can still have overlap that can be a little out of phase. A good RF engineer would have known this from the start and educated the users about it, and to expect it in a certain area.
Just try reducing your antenna system try the stock antenna and play with attenuation and experiment a bit. You need to try a few things yourself and experiment.
All system channels should be at about the same RSSI. It's proper procedure to have all trunked channels at the same power output and combined into the same transmit antenna. There is always the possibility there is a issue with one site. Maybe a flaky antenna or a connector. In a simulcast system a bad transmit antenna is not good at all. It will make things sound awful, just the same as audio or PL being out of phase in a analog system .
Just try reducing your antenna system try the stock antenna and play with attenuation and experiment a bit. You need to try a few things yourself and experiment.
All system channels should be at about the same RSSI. It's proper procedure to have all trunked channels at the same power output and combined into the same transmit antenna. There is always the possibility there is a issue with one site. Maybe a flaky antenna or a connector. In a simulcast system a bad transmit antenna is not good at all. It will make things sound awful, just the same as audio or PL being out of phase in a analog system .
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