Help with "tuner unavailable"

[bobruzzo]

I am using an RTL-SDR dongle and just monitoring one zone out of my states (RI) 4 zone P25 simulcast system. Its THIS SYSTEM: Rhode Island Statewide Communications Network (RISCON) Site: Metro Simulcast Apparently my dongle isn't wide banded enough to receive ALL of the 12 800 mhz frequencies in this zone. The "tuner unavailable" pops up when sdr trunk scans the 851 Mhz freqs.....the 852 and 853 scan fine with no error. Is there any way to set this zone up where I can DELETE the 851 Mhz freqs? Since I hear nothing anyway when sdr trunk scans thru these 851 mhz freqs, if they were deleted I wouldnt have the error. I looked in the program to see if there is any way to only pick certain freqs in a system but it wont let me delete the 851 mhz freqs. I am thinking maybe the dongle is getting old? I dont remember ever having this issue before when I used to run 3 zones.

 

[RaleighGuy]

Most dongles, especially older ones, have the bandwidth of 2.4 MHz, some of the newer ones like Nooelec Smart V5 have 3.2 MHz, Airspy has 6 or 10 MHz depending on the version. Keep in mind, it isn't 2.4 MHz on either side of the center channel it is 1.2 MHz down and up for a total of 2.4.

 

[jtwalker]

I think they are more or less being avoided since you don’t have a tuner available to receive these frequencies.

I don’t know for sure but you are probably only configuring the possible control channels and the voice channels come in as data on the control channel. So to answer your question, no I don’t see how you could do what you suggest.

 

[bobruzzo]

OK I did find out how to manually set up a config where you can select the freqs. But it still doesnt work cause the program somehow still scans those freqs! I tried changing bandwidth of dongle but no good. I whittled down the alias list to only receive the Metro PD and FD. Well at least I can still hear basically what I want to. I have a BCD996P2 set up as well and I have the SOUTH zone programmed and it works very well. Maybe cause one of the South zone transmitters is close to me. But that radio has trouble with the Metro zone. So I dont use that zone on the scanner.

 

[dave3825]

The "tuner unavailable" pops up when sdr trunk scans the 851 Mhz freqs.....the 852 and 853 scan fine with no error. Is there any way to set this zone up where I can DELETE the 851 Mhz freqs?

Sdrtrunk directs the dongle to voice channels so you can't delete the 851 freqs. You can try shifting the centerpoint up some and create a dummy channel. Your still going to see tuner unavail when there are calls on thes 851 freqs.

Best solution is to acquire another dongle. And make sure the proper bandwidth is selected in the tuners tab.