MPSCS system wide scanning

Brettame5

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I have the BCD325P2. I only hear traffic that is near my county but not system wide talkgroups on the MPSCS. I was looking at the Unication G5 pager and I know that is capable but is the SDS100/200?
 

Brettame5

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You aren’t going to hear the entire system with any scanner/pager, as you’ll only hear radios affiliated with tower(s) within your range of reception (+/- 20 miles or so).
I’ve heard people say they’ve picked up things across state before so with certain talkgroups like the statewide and regional state police channels does that mean I can hear units that key up across the region or just within my local tower sites?
 

RaleighGuy

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Raleigh, NC
I’ve heard people say they’ve picked up things across state before so with certain talkgroups like the statewide and regional state police channels does that mean I can hear units that key up across the region or just within my local tower sites?
You will hear any units (statewide or out of area) that affliate and key up on your local site, but if they are not affiliated with your site/tower you will not be able to hear them, as @jtwalker said. Keep in mind, if someone from out of area is affliated then you will be able to hear the traffic on that TG as long as they are affiliated, when they move out of the area you will no longer be able to hear that TG.
 

Ronaldski

MI DB Admin
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Bay City MI
If the 325P2 is properly programmed so you can use ID Scan to only stop on talkgroups that are programmed for whatever county your in for just that quickkey. instead of ID Search which will pickup anything on the tower your receiving.

There are indeed many statewide ones I.e. all the Event channels, Statewide MSP's, Air LZ 1 & 2, DNR RAP's, etc. Listed in the database,
 

hruskacha

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Muskegon
Ive picked up talkgroups from across the state on Muskegon County Simulcast. Based on years of logs, it looks like a random TGID is patched through my counties site each day, id imagine its for testing system versatility and reliability.

heres a map of counties that had traffic on Muskegon County Simulcast at one point in time since July 2021. I have audio for them too. Theres more than are dotted too.
CountyNumbersMap_249760_7.jpg
 

DVINTHEHOUSEMAN

Up North
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Sep 14, 2021
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North of Hwy 8
Statewide talkgroups aren't usually forced to every tower in the state either. They can be accessed by anyone in the state regardless of where they are however. I have heard traffic from under the bridge on the Ironwood tower so it's not out of the realm of possibility to hear every once in a while.

Also, keep in mind that statewide talkgroups are never active all the time. Most of them are pretty much interop use only, so in one given area it'll be pretty much dead silent unless something serious is going on.
 

iMONITOR

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S.E. Michigan
I’ve heard people say they’ve picked up things across state before so with certain talkgroups like the statewide and regional state police channels does that mean I can hear units that key up across the region or just within my local tower sites?
That has nothing to do with using a Unication G5. They have the same limitations that any P25 digital scanner has in that regard.
 

Brettame5

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You will hear any units (statewide or out of area) that affliate and key up on your local site, but if they are not affiliated with your site/tower you will not be able to hear them, as @jtwalker said. Keep in mind, if someone from out of area is affliated then you will be able to hear the traffic on that TG as long as they are affiliated, when they move out of the area you will no longer be able to hear that TG.
That makes sense. I have heard some out of area traffic mainly on DNR/USFS fire management channels so that’s why I was wondering
 

krokus

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Most TG on the system are effectively geofenced to their county of origin, and one ring of towers around that county. If a user tries to use a TG on a tower it is not authorized, they will get an "out of range" type of warning. Part of the reason for this, is to keep the lower capacity towers usable. This also keeps TGs usable, as the system will not allow transmissions that all the current users are not able to receive. (IE, if one tower has no repeaters available in any location, it will not allow anyone to transmit on that TG anywhere in the system.)
 

dmchalmers

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Apr 12, 2019
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Most TG on the system are effectively geofenced to their county of origin, and one ring of towers around that county. If a user tries to use a TG on a tower it is not authorized, they will get an "out of range" type of warning. Part of the reason for this, is to keep the lower capacity towers usable. This also keeps TGs usable, as the system will not allow transmissions that all the current users are not able to receive. (IE, if one tower has no repeaters available in any location, it will not allow anyone to transmit on that TG anywhere in the system.)
great reply , last years forest fire in northern montmorency Co they had to bring i a cow to handle the radio traffic that overloaded the MPSCS towers for the MSP. yes a cow the Airplane requested not a sow.
 

west-pac

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Nov 13, 2004
Messages
1,564
great reply , last years forest fire in northern montmorency Co they had to bring i a cow to handle the radio traffic that overloaded the MPSCS towers for the MSP. yes a cow the Airplane requested not a sow.

What is a cow?
 

hockeyref2

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Mar 26, 2002
Messages
227
Location
Northern MI
What is a cow?
I think the COW is its own site, like a repeater for mutual aid/tac channels. I dont remember if its the fire DMChalmers mentioned, but there was a large fire in the area a year or so ago and it was used as a local repeater, not on MPSCS.... there was not good service on MPSCS and the simplex channels had poor range.


edit: here it is: Montmorency Co. Forest fire
 

west-pac

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Nov 13, 2004
Messages
1,564
The COW is a NPSPAC repeater with an ACU for patching other freqs.

The SOW is a mobile MPSCS 800Mhz site.
 

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