trying it now. standby
MSWIN HELP with BCD436HP
- Thread starter Ronnierozier2
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trying it now. standby
According to FCC searching, MSWIN is on one license and one location (Morgan City). There are tons of other licenses in Leflore County, the City of Greenwood for example has tons of VHF frequencies. However these are not MSWIN. If I'm looking at this correctly, and I believe I am, there is one site and it is a standalone for MSWIN there. Your friend may be referring to Greenwood VHF licenses or some other agency.
Multiple stand alone sites (which happens everywhere).... no, because they use different frequencies. If they were indeed simulcast, which means multiple towers broadcasting the same frequencies which all add up to operate as a single site, .... yes. Your scanner could have issues. However 1) according to discovered data / FCC licenses MSWIN is all standalone there and 2) The scanner cannot monitor multiple sites at once.
I still think this is a signal issue at your house, which is why you can get more reception elsewhere in many directions.
For P25 systems..
DATA - Data is being received on a control channel
LINK - Data is being received on a voice channel
P25 - Voice is being received on a voice channel
PT0 / PT1 - which "half" of a TDMA channel is active. A TDMA Phase II channel is able to split the bandwidth in half to use it's two parts independently. These are called timeslots.
Phase 1 (3 Frequencies and 3 Channels)
Frequency 1 - Channel A - 12.5khz
Frequency 2 - Channel B - 12.5khz
Frequency 3 - Channel C - 12.5khz
Phase 2 (TDMA) (3 Frequencies and 6 channels with same bandwidth)
Frequency 1 - Channel A - 6.25khz TDMA Slot 0
- Channel B - 6.25khz TDMA Slot 1
Frequency 2 - Channel C - 6.25khz TDMA Slot 0
- Channel D - 6.25khz TDMA Slot 1
Frequency 3 - Channel E - 6.25khz TDMA Slot 0
- Channel F - 6.25khz TDMA Slot 1
Extreme rough short version......^
While waiting for a reply i drove around Greenwood and im not hearing much of anything while in the city limits. I again drove north into the county a good 37 miles from Morgan City and yet again i started picking up traffic. I find it hard to believe that while driving around North GReenwood in the city limits i hardley hear anything. but when i drive 15 miles north of Greenwood like i said 37 miles north of Morgan city tower i get 4 bars on the data channel and start hearing everyone. If i have a signal issue, not arguing with you, then how can the police radios pickup everything sitting in my driveway? I asked an office friend of mine to swing by my house and i was hearing all kinds of stuff from his handheld. i dont get what is happening here. I even put a 3dbi gain antenna on the roof of my truck and drove around Greenwood and couldnt hear but 4 broadcast in 30 minutes. go to the county i hear 10 a minute
Agency radios are way better than our scanners....
From my experience with my local P25 system (LWIN)
HP2 - 5 miles from the site is the limit of useable reception
436HP on stock antenna- 6-7 miles from the site is the limit of useable reception
436HP on aftermarket antenna gets me a few more miles of reception
SDS100 with stock antenna - 10 miles from the site is the limit of useable reception
SDS100 on aftermarket antenna gets me a few more miles of reception
Meanwhile agency Motorola radio in the sticks and swamps does fine 15 plus miles
When you drive are you taking note of what sites you are monitoring and when?
During the day I can pick up 2-3 sites with my SDR setup (small indoor antenna). At night I can pick up about 8. Some nights like last night I can pick up 30-50 from three states. While my HP2 remains silent.
Radio signal has many variables, some of which cannot be countered. Im not saying that's what your situation is, I'm saying without watching the radio and being there I cannot tell you what exactly the issue is because there's way too many variables. And some will NEVER be solved. You can only do so much.
From my experience with my local P25 system (LWIN)
HP2 - 5 miles from the site is the limit of useable reception
436HP on stock antenna- 6-7 miles from the site is the limit of useable reception
436HP on aftermarket antenna gets me a few more miles of reception
SDS100 with stock antenna - 10 miles from the site is the limit of useable reception
SDS100 on aftermarket antenna gets me a few more miles of reception
Meanwhile agency Motorola radio in the sticks and swamps does fine 15 plus miles
When you drive are you taking note of what sites you are monitoring and when?
During the day I can pick up 2-3 sites with my SDR setup (small indoor antenna). At night I can pick up about 8. Some nights like last night I can pick up 30-50 from three states. While my HP2 remains silent.
Radio signal has many variables, some of which cannot be countered. Im not saying that's what your situation is, I'm saying without watching the radio and being there I cannot tell you what exactly the issue is because there's way too many variables. And some will NEVER be solved. You can only do so much.
Yes when i drove to the north part of the county i was getting traffic on all three Carrollton, N. Carrollton, and Morgan City. same when i drove to the east of the county. Tomorrow or tonight I'm going to drive to the south of the county. When i went east today i was actually 8 miles into Carroll County.
sounds like i may need a large antenna on top of my house ??
And lemme be more specific. By signal problems, I included interference also (which is more common). Since I use all indoor antennas, I know certain places and heights in my house that just will not work even with my expensive SDS radios.
For example.
Or this could still be a programming issue and that's it. This sort of thing takes time. I've been listening to radios since around 1994 and I'm still learning things every day.
For example.
Or this could still be a programming issue and that's it. This sort of thing takes time. I've been listening to radios since around 1994 and I'm still learning things every day.
I understand. I went ahead and ordered an SDS100 that will be here Thursday so ill be able to compair the two on thursday
Tonight im going to make the trek to my rooftop to see if it's any better. its at a height of about 30' but i do have a metal roof so im not sure how thats going to interfere
There's only one way to find out.
I will also recommend after you get the radio situated, a particular aftermarket antenna from Scanner Master that made the world of difference to me.
Cool thing about the SDS100 is that you can think of it as a more advanced/more capable 436HP. They are not used that much differently. And they are programmed nearly the same also.
I will also recommend after you get the radio situated, a particular aftermarket antenna from Scanner Master that made the world of difference to me.
Cool thing about the SDS100 is that you can think of it as a more advanced/more capable 436HP. They are not used that much differently. And they are programmed nearly the same also.
slayer,
what does this tell you. I went west outside of Greenwood and pulled over on the side of 82 highway and started scanning Leflore County (42) sites Carrollton,N. Carrollton, and Morgan City. Immediately started getting traffic from all over. I did notice that 95% of the time the DAT was present with bars at the top right like a cell phone.
now that I’m back home in the middle of Greenwood in sitting on my porch scanning the same and the DAT light has yet to come on and no bars in the top right corner. Same on the roof of my house. No DAT and no bars. At this point would a good antenna have any effect ? I’m worried I won’t ever get anything at my house.
I drove around greenwood city limits and the DAT icon barely showed up. I can only get this DAT and bars when I go into the county.
DAT is usually what I look for to see the signal decode for P25 site observation. Looking at a site location map of MSWIN, it appears Greenwood itself seems to be closer to the two Carrollton sites to me (no scale reference). West would be primarily closer to Morgan City. In theory all three should be fine for the city limits of Greenwood (blanket coverage not counting interference etc). However the fact that it gets better when you leave the city, is yelling INTERFERENCE in my head. I cannot say for sure, this is just my somewhat educated guess.
In my case my small rural suburb city is fine. When I go to Monroe, the next fairly populated city, there is a certain area that no site works on any of my radios including SDR. This is only 3 city blocks but, its a good example of sometimes there just aint no signal when there "should be".
It should. In my rural area, on my handhelds, aftermarket antennas have only helped my reception. For my base radios this is different as I suspect due to interference. Unfortunately there is no way to "know" until you have tried it. Since you have an SDS100 coming, I wouldn't do anything yet. Whatever you have done, replicate it side by side with the SDS100 and see what happens. You may find that SDS100 works perfectly for your purposes and that will be enough.
It did for me (with the aftermarket portable antenna).
Also, it seems as though your programming abilities and overall knowledge is getting better regardless of signal difficulties. A week ago you couldn't tell if it was programming or what. That is a good thing.
In the preparation for the SDS100, I would recommend getting a jump start on the few but important differences.
Filters:
NAC:
wiki.radioreference.com
Filter changes make a huge difference for me being in a rural area. The 436/536 radios sort of can deal with NAC codes, it's complicated. The SDS series basically can take full advantage of NAC codes. Depending on how you program them and the radio, it may be an issue or not. I do recommend you at least knowing what they are and how the radio deals with them. This is one I don't feel comfortable fully explaining because I'm scared I'll confuse you. Lets just say if you turn the radio to USE NAC and the site isn't programmed correctly, it won't receive as if it was dead. That's only one example.
In the preparation for the SDS100, I would recommend getting a jump start on the few but important differences.
Filters:
NAC:
NAC - The RadioReference Wiki
Filter changes make a huge difference for me being in a rural area. The 436/536 radios sort of can deal with NAC codes, it's complicated. The SDS series basically can take full advantage of NAC codes. Depending on how you program them and the radio, it may be an issue or not. I do recommend you at least knowing what they are and how the radio deals with them. This is one I don't feel comfortable fully explaining because I'm scared I'll confuse you. Lets just say if you turn the radio to USE NAC and the site isn't programmed correctly, it won't receive as if it was dead. That's only one example.
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i dont know what sites ur trying to use but the
BCD436HP
is bad for simulcast sites. just a fyi .
BCD436HP
is bad for simulcast sites. just a fyi .
May work I have an Anritsu spectrum analyzer, I might bring it home and tune to the frequencies in the Carrollton, North Carrollton, and Morgan City and see what happens. I’m not a pro at using a spectrum analyzer but I think I know enough to be dangerous.
I’m really hoping I have better luck with the sds100 and if not I hope that maybe placing a roof top antenna about 40’ up will solve my issue. If not I guess I’ll be out the cost of two scanners, antenna, and tons of time troubleshooting this. My primary purpose was to be able to listen at home not mobile. Time will tell.
what antenna would you recommend for my home? Given that I have a full metal roof with steep angles the highest point being somewhere around 30-35’. I was thinking my best shot would be to get about 10’ above the roof. Any higher I would probably need guy wires to keep things stable. I don’t want to traverse down that road just yet, that’s my last option.
I tried another experiment this evening. In my shop I have an Omni antenna about 18’ high that I use for an ADS-B aircraft transponder for the app FlightRadar24. It just receives transponder data and forwards to the apps servers. It has an sma end so I plugged that into my scanner in heard 3-4 Greenwood police dispatch transmissions so all in all it made a little difference but not enough to call it a fix. I’m not sure what that Omni is tuned to I just thought since it had an sma connector I would try it.
do you think with metal roof should I shoot for a discone or ground plane antenna? If you have any links to some good antennas send them also with your comments.
thanks for all your help Slayer, I’m actually learning a lot. A week ago I was totally lost, now just partially lost haha
I'm curious as to why you acquired the handheld(s) in this case and not the 536HP or SDS200. Assuming you had no radios at all, a handheld would be better for portability reasons but thats just me.
Unfortunately I am not the person to ask. All of my radios have base/mobile antennas (Diamond RH789's to be precise) or a magmount in the window for airband. SDR setup is up there too. I find that this is ok for my needs. Surely I would love a 100ft tall tower outside but, that is a topic for another time. Considering you live in town, I struggle to believe we cannot solve the signal issue or it least be able to say....its your roof for example. There is a specific forum for antennas that surely would be able to help you in that case.
For the SDS100, here is the antenna I have. It makes a significant difference here and I've taken it all over the country with good results, although once I acquired this antenna I have not really felt a need to compare it to the stock antenna....
SMA SDS100 800MHz REMTRONIX Portable Antenna | ScannerMaster.com
SMA SDS100 800MHz REMTRONIX Portable Antenna
www.scannermaster.com
If it came with the ADSB setup I would assume it would be tuned to 1090mhz. For fun I just tried that with my little ADS-B Raspberry Pi setup, Even with the neat tropo it didn't pick up anything.
Side note: Speaking of taking my SDS100 places; I've used it in factories, hotels, warehouses, hospitals, aircraft terminals, metal/glass pyramids (just one, yes the Luxor in Vegas) and I've never seen a building just totally kill the reception. But you never know. I wish I would have found your thread before you selected the radio as I would have recommended the SDS100 and nothing short. I've owned the 436HP for longer and it is a very good radio. I just have way better signal with the SDS100 and have never / will never go back. Hopefully that will make a difference. By the way, I wouldn't consider you "out of pocket" if you did decide to sell a radio or two or ten. The classifieds are pretty good and newer radios don't last long on there.
Antennas and Associated Hardware
Sub-forums for discussing various hardware for scanners and receivers such as antennas, filters, splitter/multicouplers and towers.
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The MSWIN has a few simulcast sites! Hinds County has 2, Rankin County is simulcast, Camp Shelby is a simulcast, as is DeSoto County. The rest currently is all stand alones. In some Counties, you will need to program all the sites in that County to get all the traffic, where as some Counties its mostly on a single site. In a couple of Counties, you need to program surrounding sites as they give coverage of areas that are "weaker" or fringe for the "primary" site located in a County. Some of the Counties, would have been better off as simulcast, like Adams, Lincoln, Jefferson etc.
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I am not in a simulcast area. I just don’t understand if I ride around the city limits I can’t hear a thing. To hear anything I must drive outside the city 4-5 miles in any direction. This is so irritating!!!!!
Correct, however if you were to go south.... you would encounter the sites milf has mentioned which does indeed lead to problems on it's on accord. Like I said, I'm hoping that SDS100 will light everything up.
Welcome to radio monitoring. I just thought of something. If I remember correctly, your terrain isn't like around Vicksburg/Clinton with the bluffs is it? That would be another variable with signals. I'm used to our flat terrain here so I don't often remember other locations actually have hills/mountains.
nope I’m in the Mississippi delta. Flat as can be
tvengr
Well Known Member
You are not very close to any of the 3 nearest sites. 700 MHz sites do not provide the best coverage. I agree that the Remtronix REM-820S antenna will provide a significant improvement over the stock antenna. It has far greater gain on 700-900 MHz. Make sure that the attenuator is off for the 3 site system provided by slayer816.For the SDS100, here is the antenna I have. It makes a significant difference here and I've taken it all over the country with good results, although once I acquired this antenna I have not really felt a need to compare it to the stock antenna....
SMA SDS100 800MHz REMTRONIX Portable Antenna | ScannerMaster.com
SMA SDS100 800MHz REMTRONIX Portable Antennawww.scannermaster.com
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