Hollywood Casino Columbus
- Thread starter gthatch
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You will have to program it as a MotoTRBO system, and have the LCN's configured correctly. Program in all the channels you know are in use by the system and run the LCN finder
Which system are you trying to monitor?
This one?
Loking at that system in the database, the listed talkgroups are tagged with service types "Security" and "Business". Make sure those service types are enabled in your Sentinel profile as well as in the scanner.
Ubbe
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Are casino's using indoor antennas that give bad outdoor coverage?
First thing to do at an unknown listening situation are to check if you actually have radio coverage.
Program all frequencies of a site or system as conventional and set to analog only. Listen if you hear the datasignals from the system. If not, then adjust antenna position or change to a better antenna.
Only then is it time to try and use the settings that are in the database. If those settings do not work then program the frequencies into a OFT system and you can then listen to the conversations. If you only hear one sided conversations and miss a lot then program the frequencies into a trunked system and run the LCN finder on that system.
/Ubbe
Hollywood Casino Columbus
I successfully listened to this casino yesterday from a different location, north Columbus, which is actually farther away from the casino than my location here in Hilliard, OH. I am currently running the LCN finder and found one LCN out of 6 so far. At least I know my scanner is properly configured, just curious why it receives at a location that is 15 miles away, yet my home is only 10.4 miles away
Terrain difference one direction vs other?
Looking at the system in the database, it's entered showing two sites.
Site 1 has six LCN's, entered as 1 thru 6, with Color Code 3.
The second site, tagged as unconfirmed, has 3 frequencies, entered as LCNs 7 thru 9, with Color Code entered as zero. I suspect, if the site is unconfirmed as to LCNs, that the LCNs 7, 8, and 9, are simply 'place keepers', since the confirmed ones are 1 -> 6. The CC 0 likely means the color code is not known either.
But what strikes me as odd is that both sites are on the same license, WQPQ645, which shows all 9 frequencies at the same site address and antenna site, not two different locations. Is this really one 9 frequency site? Or are they running two separate ones off the same antenna site.
That's what I was thinking as well.
Look at the map and satellite view of the site.
It appears that the antenna is on the casino building itself, with the parking garage to the south.
If there are hills, or taller buildings, between your location and the casino, they may be impacting the signal strength you get at home, but at the other location you mention, even though farther away, there might be no obstructions between there & the casino's antenna.
For the LCN finder to work correctly, there needs to be enough traffic so that all of the LCN frequencies are used at one time or another. Too little activity, and some of the frequencies would never be utilized. Too much (extremely busy), can also keep the LCN from completion.
One note on the LCN Finder:
When you set the LCN Finder to work, it resets all of the LCNs to 0, then starts trying to fill in the blanks. If you only get a couple of them, then the others are set as blank, so you may miss radio traffic unless you manually edit them back to what the database shows. So, when you exit the LCN Finder, be sure and follow the on display instructions to save what was found. Then either review the findings on the scanner, or read it back into Sentinel, then see if any (that it found) were different than what the database shows. If what was 'found' is the same as what the current database page shows, then edit the system back to that before trying, again, to monitor it.
Out of curiosity, you might want to try & run the LCN finder on the 'unconfirmed' site, & see if anything shows up. If you create the site, or append it from the database, System Status (under the Analyze menu) will indicate whether there is a control channel in use, the color code, and an indicator of activity.
While the SDS series scanners deal with simulcast very well, and do a good job monitoring various trunked systems, they are more vulnerable to interference from other signal sources, whether a broadcast TV or FM site, or another trunked system in the same band. This thread was started by someone with the SDS200. I don't see where you specified positively that you also have an SDS scanner. If you do have the SDS100 or SDS200, then try adjusting the filters when used at your home location. See if one setting makes a difference. You don't want to use the Auto setting for normal scanning, since that seriously slows down scanning. But you could still try an Auto setting, which will try, in turn, each of the filter settings to see which works best. It you see a definite improvement, using auto, then try each setting till you find the best choice. The auto setting tries each filter every time it scans the system. It does not save the setting for the next time the system comes up in scan rotation, and unfortunately, there's no indication on the display of which setting it picked. At least having the ability to at least see the filter chosen on the display, even it it did not save it, was one feature request made to Joe Bearcat on the 'Help Me Help You' thread.
Couple things...
Unless Motorola has changed something recently, I recall reading in the documentation that Capacity Plus systems are limited to six repeaters (which would provide a total of twelve simultaneous talk paths). So there would be no way for it to be a single-site nine repeater system. One of those extra repeaters (461.900) appears to actually be a conventional repeater for security. See this page: Franklin County - Businesses Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference. The other two repeaters could be additional conventional voice repeaters, or they could be for data such as location services.
My suggestion would be to first try to monitor the security repeater (461.900) from your Hilliard location. If you can hear this repeater, then it is a good bet (though not a guarantee) that you should also be able to hear the trunking system (since there's a good chance they're at the same location/elevation/power), but if you don't hear anything on the security repeater after a while, then it may be a reception problem.
Unless Motorola has changed something recently, I recall reading in the documentation that Capacity Plus systems are limited to six repeaters (which would provide a total of twelve simultaneous talk paths). So there would be no way for it to be a single-site nine repeater system. One of those extra repeaters (461.900) appears to actually be a conventional repeater for security. See this page: Franklin County - Businesses Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference. The other two repeaters could be additional conventional voice repeaters, or they could be for data such as location services.
My suggestion would be to first try to monitor the security repeater (461.900) from your Hilliard location. If you can hear this repeater, then it is a good bet (though not a guarantee) that you should also be able to hear the trunking system (since there's a good chance they're at the same location/elevation/power), but if you don't hear anything on the security repeater after a while, then it may be a reception problem.
Hi Chief! There are several reasons this might be the case. You may be 5 miles further away, but at a higher elevation. Also, it could be the way UHF propagates from the casino to the 15 mile location vs the 10.4 mile location. Lastly, the antenna system might be slightly directional (not necessarily on purpose) in favor of the 15 mile location. Hope you are doing well and enjoying retirement!
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