KSICS Western Kansas

[dgruver911]

Made a trip to Coldwater today and heard a lot of traffic on 2225 which shows as Finney County SO on the Wilmore and Fellsburg towers. On a previous trip I heard Fire traffic from Garden City as well. I also heard a radio tech doing some testing on talkgroup 207 which as of yet is unidentified. Due to the way I have my search systems set up I can't tell you what tower it was on exactly but it was in the Kinsley/Greensburg area.

The bad news in my GRE PSR500 seems to have suddenly gotten VERY deaf on VHF. I can hear the digital 800 stuff all over the place, but any VHF more than 10-12 miles from the repeater gets noisy then disappears altogether within a mile or 2 after that

 

[n0lqt]

Hey Don,

I've got the RS Pro-106 (same radio, different case) and I've noticed the same thing on the HV County VHF-hi channels. The S-meter is showing almost full scale (3 and 4 bars), but the audio the pits. If I pull the flex antenna (RS 800 tuned 20-283) and plug into the magnetic mount on the truck, it comes in just fine. If I plug it into the high antenna at home (87 feet), the static comes back unless I turn on the attenuator. Then it sounds fine again. I tried a different flex antenna and had the same problems. My only thought was that the 106/500's must have a fairly narrow AGC circuit on the VHF-hi side. I think there is a way to change the AGC by individual channel, but I haven't looked it up in the manual yet.

Conversely, my Pro-197, which uses the same software and almost identical circuitry to the Pro-106, doesn't seem to afflicted with this problem.....

 

[dgruver911]

I also have a Pro-197, and use ARC500 to program them both. Truthfully, the 197 is also weaker on VHF than the 780 I still have sitting right under it next to me here. I have it running off a Scantenna 30 ft up and Hutch is MUCH weaker on the 197. Both do seem to pull in weather channels just fine, but 15x.xxx sucks on the GRE and 197..

 

[nec911]

I have noticed the same thing Don. I should be able to hear the VHF's good here in town because I am less than 2 miles from the towers.

 

[n0lqt]

Try turning the Attenuator ON for each of those local channels. I know it seems counter-intuitive, but I really think the VHF-AGC on the GRE-500/600-Pro-106/197 is just a bit too touchy and ends up being too narrow. I do that on my Pro-106 when it is hooked to an outside antenna and it clears the audio right up on HV CO channels 1, 2, & 3.

 

[rankin39]

The recent GRE radios are all very susceptible to overloading and desense from f.m. broadcast transmitters operating in the 88-108 MHz. band. At my location they virtually ruin high band reception except for the 1000 watt weather service transmitters. The ATTenuator cures it "sort of", but a better solution is an f.m. trap installed in the antenna line just at the back of the set. Scannermaster sells a good one and Radio Shack used to sell one. TV channels 2 through 6 can also overload the GRE scanners, but there are very few of them left since they went digital and moved to u.h.f. frequencies. Some sort of f.m. broadcast filter is a must for GRE/Radio Shack scanners.

Bob, WoNXN

 

[SGNL1]

On another topic u seem to be the smartest one on here, that ive found anyway. Can u tell me what tower reno county is using now?

 

[n0lqt]

There's been a lot of talk about that on the KSICS sticky thread. Pro96Comm shows them most frequently on the Partridge (T-115) and Lyons (T-117) towers. I have also seen some of the Radio IDs popping up on the Preston (T-116) and Wichita (T-113) towers occasionally. Depending where you are, I would try the Partridge tower first......