Where do I find that screen shot, for my areas?
What is your location? City (or county) would help get you a more useful answer.
Does Fort Bend and N.W. Harris Co. use Simulcast? Would that make a difference on the scanner I buy?
Texas Wide Area Radio Network (TxWARN)
I'll let the locals confirm for sure but the few sites I checked at random on the system don't appear simulcast. Yes, it would make a tremendous difference if it were. Read about simulcast distortion below. If this were true I'd highly suggest the Uniden SDS100 as this & its base counterpart (SDS200) were the only scanners designed to mitigate simulcast distortion
wiki.radioreference.com
Many of the TxWARN sites in the Houston/Harris County are simulcast.
This is the Fort Bend Simulcast
Texas Wide Area Radio Network (TxWARN) Site: Fort Bend County Simulcast Details
www.radioreference.com
This is the Houston Public Safety Northwest Simulcast
There are others that are also simulcast. Whether or not simulcast issues will directly affect you is very location specific. If you are in the
right spot, where terrain, clusters of taller buildings, or something in your house (such as aluminum siding or foil backed insulation in your walls) block signals from multiple towers, or if you are extremely close to one site, like a quarter mile or so, then you might not have an issue
at home. In some cases, moving the scanner to a different location in the house, even a few feet, can make a different in whether simulcast affects you, or does not. Read the Simulcast article in the Wiki that
Whiskey3 linked for more details on issues caused by simulcast sites. In some cases, you can prevent issues by choosing the right antenna, whether its a smaller, less efficient antenna (even a
paperclip), or using a directional antenna, such as a yagi. While some of these measures may help for a fixed location, the minute you walk out the door to drive around the area, all bets are off, and simulcast issues come into play without many ways to combat them.
Sorry wasn't specific. Are ALL counties/cities in the Lower Colorado River Authority is Phase 2? Anyone in that area?
Not
all counties and cities on the
LCRA system are currently using Phase II (which is noted in the mode column with a
T). Some, still, are Phase I (shown with a
D in the Mode column). However, as time goes by, and newer radios are brought into use, I suspect you will see many of them moving from Phase I to Phase II.
In the Houston area, from what I've seen posted here on RadioReference, as well as mentioned on the HoustonScan group, all users in that area will be required to shift from Phase I to Phase II. I don't recall whether a
specific deadline date was noted, but my impression was to expect this to happen over the next couple of years.
