Hit and miss reception for Knox County Police and Fire.

Status
Not open for further replies.

gsquared18

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Jul 29, 2009
Messages
71
Location
Knoxville, TN
Does anyone else have sporadic reception problems with the Knox County frequencies? I own the BCD396XT and typically have the RS 800Mhz antenna attached. I have a mobile mount antenna as well and still sometimes get inaudible (crackling) reception on some of the frequencies. It comes and goes and while most channels come in perfect, others are horrible for a while.

I'm in West Knoxville which is about 10 miles from downtown yet I'm about 30 miles from the Smoky Mountains National Park and I can pick up all of their chatter with absolutely no crackling or interference. Am I missing something in my settings or is this common? Note; my radio is programmed using ARC XT.

Thanks,

Greg
 

jfhtm350

Member
Joined
Dec 25, 2010
Messages
1,107
Location
New Market TN
Exactly what frequencies? I might be able to pick up what your having problems with. The trunk system comes and goes here at the house, but I should be able to pick up the rest.
 

kd8x

Member
Joined
Aug 24, 2008
Messages
541
Location
NC
I drive into K-town everyday from here in NC and I was noticing today a lot of static on the vhf Knox Co fire channels so I don't think it is just you...The 800 trunk system sounded okay though....I also am using a 396xt with stock antenna....
 

zerg901

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Apr 19, 2005
Messages
3,725
Location
yup
Perhaps Knox County uses a synchronized simulcast system. They can be hard to hear on scanners. You can search at Radio Reference for "simulcast" and "problem" - that should give you a bunch of hits.

In addition, the 800 Mhz systems often use low level repeater sites. Instead of having one repeater on top of the highest spot in the county, they might have 3 or 4 repeater sites scattered around the county at various lower locations. You can probably find the specifics in the Radio Ref Database for Knox County.

If you are usually line of site to the National Park repeater (which is probably on the top of a mountain), that could give you solid reception out to maybe 50 miles.
 

gsquared18

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Jul 29, 2009
Messages
71
Location
Knoxville, TN
Last edited:

n4yek

Member
Joined
Apr 20, 2004
Messages
2,506
Location
Newport, Tennessee
Do you know if each frequency stays on the same repeater or do they all bounce around depending on availability?

Frequencies don't bounce around.
There are five transmitting sites for the Know county system and each site has the exact same frequencies
as each of the other sites.
WNFF582 (KNOX, COUNTY OF) FCC Callsign Details
When a radio transmits, the controller chooses a frequency to use and all sites will use it until the controller tells it the transmission is over.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top