Metro area

[afbird]

Hello,
First time poster to the forum and am seeking some assistance. I live in south Minneapolis and am using an SDS100 with a Remtronix antenna. I mostly listen to Minneapolis PD, Ramsey Co., and St Paul PD. My Sentinel profile has all ARMER sites loaded within my favorites list but I am using location control /range of 20 so only metro sites/towers are loaded. I have my exact monitoring address location (lot and lat) entered within the Sentinel program. I know I'm missing transmissions from St Paul PD and nearly all from Ramsey Co sheriff. Any ideas as to what I may be doing wrong? I was wondering if I should put my Sentinel/scanner location in the area that I wish to hear transmissions from (St. Paul lat. and long.) even though I’m in Minneapolis. Any info would be appreciated. New scanner user here. Thanks in advance!

 

[johnmoe1]

(I've never owned a scanner, so you may not want to pay any attention to me.)

First Minneapolis PD is only reliably on the Minneapolis site (1-9). It may sometimes be on other site. Sometime even fairly often, but the only place to reliably get it site 1-9.

Ramsey Co (including St Paul) is reliably found on the Ramsey site (2-3). It seems to often end up on other sites, too. The one site it is not commonly on is the Minneapolis site (1-9).

What I do not understand at all is how scanners deal with multiple sites. Do they pick one and stay there for long periods of time. Do they switch periodically? How often? (I can't imagine they could switch much more often than every 1/4 second or so.) Hopefully someone on here knows this answer.

Suppose your scanner right now was on Hennepin East (2-1), you would not get Minneapolis PD 1. You would get Minneapolis PD 2. You would get all three Ramsey Co channels (I think they are all patched together at this moment.) You would get St Paul East and Central, but not West. This all changes at unpredictable times in unpredictable ways depending on where radios happen to travel.

 

[wogggieee]

What John said, you're probably locked onto the Minneapolis tower. To hear all of the Ramsey county traffic you'll need to be on the Ramsey county tower. Depending on your listening situation that could be difficult.

 

[afbird]

This is most helpful and appreciated guys. Any ideas how I can obtain which Minneapolis PD and St Paul TG corresponds with which site? Better yet, anyone have a favorite list they are willing to share?

 

[wogggieee]

As a general rule if you want minneapolis use the Minneapolis site and if you want St Paul use Ramsey county. They sometimes roam to other sites but its not always consistent.

 

[afbird]

Thanks. Yeah, it seems odd. Im getting Minnneapolis PD on the City Center site and St. Paul PD East dispatch on On the Hennepin Co. East site and Dakota Site. Picking up more transmissions. If I monitor St Paul Pd on the Ramsey site, I miss alot.

 

[ofd8001]

Unfortunately its been a while since I've been up there to monitor the system, so I'm basing this on past experiences. And the ARMER system is as complicated/complex system as there is. A number of sub-systems all working together.

Each site (Minneapolis NS, Ramsey, Hennepin East, Dakota, etc.) are designed for specific coverage areas. Sometimes units who typically use a site as their "home" site may have a need to go outside the coverage area of the site. For example, a St. Paul East detective goes down into Bloomington to interview a witness. So the "magic" of the system will allow that roaming unit to affiliate to the site covering the area. In that example, it is Hennepin East. The two sites will link together so the detective can remain in contact.

Once the unit leaves that "foreign" area, the link shuts down (assuming no other units have gone into the Hennepin site coverage area).

Fortunately the south side of Minneapolis is a potentially good area for scanning. You may be close enough to hear Minneapolis NS (Minneapolis units), Minneapolis City Center (EMS and State Units), Ramsey (St. Paul and other Ramsey) and Hennepin East (Bloomington, Richfield, etc.). You may or may not hear Anoka, Dakota, etc.

There are many nuances to this system you can only learn by listening. For example, one of these is where the state patrol metro units' main talkgroup is "forced" to use all the sites in the metro area. (I guess that is so the units can keep up with each other).

As a rule, you should count on reliably hearing St. Paul units on Ramsey, Minneapolis units on Minneapolis NS, etc. Hearing them on other sites is a bonus that occasionally happens due to roaming. Another reason why you may hear these "weird" things is a better/stronger signal is available at another site. For example, up in north Minneapolis, coverage from Minneapolis NS is weak in areas, but Hennepin East is good, so weak area radios may jump over to Hennepin East.

For general listening, the more sites the merrier. But if you are listening to something specific, such as a fire in Minneapolis, it is best to remain only on the Minneapolis NS site.

Your scanner will monitor each site for about 2-3 seconds to detect activity on the control channel. If it sees a conversation is happening on a talkgroup you have programmed and not avoided, it will turn to the assigned voice frequency and "do its thing". If there is no activity, the scanner moves on to the next site and goes through the motions. You can't assign the amount of time the scanner spends on a site, as in 5 seconds on Minneapolis and 10 seconds on Ramsey. System Hold is different.

 

[afbird]

This was a very good explanation that helped me get a grasp of the ARMER system in the metro. Thanks for taking the time to offer your knowledge. I really appreciate it!

 

[wogggieee]

If I monitor St Paul Pd on the Ramsey site, I miss alot.

You're probably not receiving Ramsey county well

 

[ryolsen8]

If you aren't traveling with your SDS, I would suggest just taking out all of the other sites, and not using the location feature. Just use Minneapolis N-S, City Center, and Ramsey Simulcast. Just my two cents.

 

[ryolsen8]

@afbird If you'd like me to modify your Sentinel file, I would be happy to take a look at it for you.

 

[ofd8001]

Maybe Hennepin East too if you are interested in things like Bloomington, Richfield, etc.

A good rule of thumb is to have whatever site that is in the area you are interested in monitoring, as long as you are close enough to get a signal from that site. For examples, if you can receive Dakota, but you aren't interested in Dakota units, leave it off. Or if you want to listen to Anoka units, but are too far away to receive Anoka, it should be off.

 

[KA0XR]

A related Metro Area question, I noticed there is still a VHF DB-201 trombone style VHF antenna at the State Patrol's St. Croix Weigh Station tower just west of the river. I can't find any licensing documentation for this on Antenna-Search or elsewhere. Does anyone know if the State Patrol still uses VHF at weigh stations? Or is this installation set up for the various VHF interoperability frequencies like VLAW, etc.? I doubt the state would leave up a VHF antenna if they did not have a valid license for it.

Earlier this year I noticed a similar folded monopole antenna on top of the MnDOT headquarters in St. Paul, and I believe the FCC license for it is 155.7525.