MSWIN HELP with BCD436HP

[scanphreak]

Slayer,

Im hearing everything now, It was a programming error. But yeah I went from absolutely no signal for all three sites and the stock antenna to 4 of 5 bars for all three sites. I’ve also noticed that the audio quality is wonderful with this setup.

let me ask you this, once I mount this antenna 40’ up above my roof line is it possible that the signal will be to strong? I think what I’m going to do is order this antenna and try it. The db gain isn’t as high plus it’s smaller and looks better. Let me know your opinion.It may not be a problem but im just wondering what happens with your signal is to strong

I see you got it working! Congrats. I knew that yagi would work for you. That's what I use at my house, and its inside on a camera tripod so it works perfectly. Your elevation won't make things worse. I don't think you're going to have an issue with a signal being too strong. You could be sitting right under the tower with that thing pointing at the antenna and it'll receive just fine. I have the SDS200, you'll like it, but it's really too big for small cars but great for a computer desk.

 

[devicelab]

I went all out and got one of my SAMCO 900mhz huge Yagi antennas. I was hearing Greenwood Sheriff and Greenwood Police with the stock antenna on the same sites. Any ideas why I cannot hear them now?

If you bought the SAMCO 91313 YAGI then someone sold you the wrong antenna. The specs for that antenna are 890-960 Mhz. Your MSWIN sites are mostly 770 Mhz.

Here's a much better (and cheaper) solution: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0006H4FVM

The above antenna supports MSWIN sites on 700 & 800 Mhz. There are higher gain YAGI antennas but those get expensive very quickly.

 

[Ronnierozier2]

If you bought the SAMCO 91313 YAGI then someone sold you the wrong antenna. The specs for that antenna are 890-960 Mhz. Your MSWIN sites are mostly 770 Mhz.

Here's a much better (and cheaper) solution: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0006H4FVM

The above antenna supports MSWIN sites on 700 & 800 Mhz. There are higher gain YAGI antennas but those get expensive very quickly.

yeah i know it was a 900mhz antenna, i borrowed it from work just to see if it would work. i have it in a temp location and its giving me 5 bars on my sds100 compared to 0 bars with the rubber duck antenna. read my post below. I posted the equipment i odered to try a dual yagi setup. yagi's pointing at different towers

 

[Ronnierozier2]

Same setup and a multicoupler for now, maybe few more 200's. Milf you want anything?

Glad you got everything worked out, sometimes it takes days weeks months years decades; but you'll eventually get it. Go back and read your first posts in this thread and see how its changed.

Slayer,

I canceled my antenna order from a few days ago and thought about it some more and researched some more and this is what im going to try. Today I ordered everything for a dual Yagi setup. I ordered two identical hi gain Yagi in the 700Mhz spectrum, a phasing harness to tie the two yagi's together. 100' of LMR400 with N male connectors on the ends. a polyphaser for lightning protection, eave roof antenna mounting system, and a 3' jumber to go from the LMR400 to an SMA connector. this cable is LMR240. everything will be here thursday, I will install it all on Friday and report back. the dang phasing harness was over 200.00 !! it wasn't cheap.

I've researched enough to be dangerous. !!! HA HA HA

 

[Ronnierozier2]

Same setup and a multicoupler for now, maybe few more 200's. Milf you want anything?

Glad you got everything worked out, sometimes it takes days weeks months years decades; but you'll eventually get it. Go back and read your first posts in this thread and see how its changed.

Can someone take a look at this video and tell me what is happening. the video is clear but it dosnt appear clear from the link. It will quickly flash the department but i hear no audio. At times it will stay up there 5 seconds but no audio.
I've just noticed im not hearing all of the conversation even when I lock it on Greenwood Police Department.

What’s my sds100 doing

 

[slayer816]

What’s my sds100 doing

For starters, scanning multiple sites will do that. By the time you get back to it, they're no longer talking. I've never had D-error visible, so that may be something. Lock it on one site, and see if it does it again (when the talkgroup is active).

 

[devicelab]

Can someone take a look at this video and tell me what is happening. the video is clear but it doesn't appear clear from the link. It will quickly flash the department but i hear no audio. At times it will stay up there 5 seconds but no audio. I've just noticed I'm not hearing all of the conversation even when I lock it on Greenwood Police Department.

Simulcast issue. The scanner isn't able to get 'enough' signal to decode properly. Look at an older thread of mine for some tweaks to try...

SDS100/SDS200: - Debug Help needed with new Motorola Phase 2 system

With my SDS-100 this system was working just fine -- but then the last few days, I'm noticing a LSM-type issue. It seems that when the scanner detects voice activity on a TGID, the TGID starts flickering on the display -- on/off -- for multiple times. No audio comes through. This is NOT an...

forums.radioreference.com

 

[Ronnierozier2]

Simulcast issue. The scanner isn't able to get 'enough' signal to decode properly. Look at an older thread of mine for some tweaks to try...

SDS100/SDS200: - Debug Help needed with new Motorola Phase 2 system

With my SDS-100 this system was working just fine -- but then the last few days, I'm noticing a LSM-type issue. It seems that when the scanner detects voice activity on a TGID, the TGID starts flickering on the display -- on/off -- for multiple times. No audio comes through. This is NOT an...

forums.radioreference.com

From my understanding im not in a simulcast area. how can i tell for sure?

 

[devicelab]

First off, try scanning 768-775 (and if applicable 850-868) and see which specific sites come in strongest for you. Try the rubber duck antenna first and if no luck (or very low signals) then try the external antenna. Make note of these.

Lock out all other sites except the strongest and go from there. There's no point scanning sites that are not around you.

 

[Ronnierozier2]

First off, try scanning 768-775 (and if applicable 850-868) and see which specific sites come in strongest for you. Try the rubber duck antenna first and if no luck (or very low signals) then try the external antenna. Make note of these.

Lock out all other sites except the strongest and go from there. There's no point scanning sites that are not around you.

Sorry for sounding stupid but can yu be a little more specific when you say scan 768mhz to 775mhz? not sure if i know how to do that on my sds100 scanner, as this is all new to me. Also what is IFX if you dont mind me asking.

 

[devicelab]

 

[Ronnierozier2]

First off, try scanning 768-775 (and if applicable 850-868) and see which specific sites come in strongest for you. Try the rubber duck antenna first and if no luck (or very low signals) then try the external antenna. Make note of these.

Lock out all other sites except the strongest and go from there. There's no point scanning sites that are not around you.

check out this video I just made. Notice how the signal goes from around -60 to -100 plus. I notice this happens everytime someone talks also. Secondly notice when it's scanning its showing D-ERROR's like someone is talking but im not hearing anything.

any suggestions on what i should be doing differnet?

Problem video 2

 

[devicelab]

You're also 'scanning' only the TGIDs you have programmed into the scanner. You need to change it to ID SEARCH.

 

[Ronnierozier2]

You're also 'scanning' only the TGIDs you have programmed into the scanner. You need to change it to ID SEARCH.

your correct because that’s all I want to hear at the moment

 

[slayer816]

I just replicated it. You have barely enough signal for the control channel. But nothing on voice channels.

use another site at that location.

 

[Ronnierozier2]

I just replicated it. You have barely enough signal for the control channel. But nothing on voice channels.

use another site at that location.

that’s what I’m afraid of. That’s with using the hi gain yagi. I have figured out the programming with the help of you guys now I’ve got to figure out how to get more signal somehow. There is definitely a lot of interference in the middle of town cause everything works right outside of town

 

[slayer816]

that’s what I’m afraid of. That’s with using the hi gain yagi. I have figured out the programming with the help of you guys now I’ve got to figure out how to get more signal somehow. There is definitely a lot of interference in the middle of town cause everything works right outside of town

Without experience with outside antennas, the following is only my opinion.

If you're not picking up an in-county P25 site with a very good rooftop yagi setup, I don't think trying to make any more of a super antenna setup is going to work. You obviously have super intense rf interference (which I suspected awhile back) and it is possible that you could build your own 100ft tower and still not get signal on Morgan City. Your SDS had good reception of the Carrollton sites (which are closer to your city anyway). Why not just use those and not worry about Morgan City? I would assume local agencies are on those sites for the same reasons.

 

[Ronnierozier2]

Here is what I worked on today. I took a 20' piece of very thinwall pipe and put an eave mount. Yes this is a temporary mount before anyone makes any comments on the mount. Anyway, I wanted to see what happened if i got it up in the air. I'm able to hear both sides of the transmission, dispatch and patrol vehicle just fine now. My decode errors have drastically went down and im having less garbled transmissions. The morgan City and Carrollton sites have a fair signal but North Carrollton is still a little weak. The greenwood Police department as well as other agencies in my area use all three sites because im hearing traffic on all three sites. overall everything is definately better than before. so now im at a point where I feel confident in programming my scanner, I even purchased ARC536PRO and Proscan. I think I've done all i can as far as the antenna goes. I have 2 yagi and a phasing harness on the way that im either going to try on a temporary setup or just send the antennas and phasing harness back. I don't think I will be able to get much better than what I've done to this point.

Yes the metal pip is grounded to my home earth ground and the lightning arrestor is also grounded to my home earth ground

here is my setup:

6 Dbi gain omni antenna from amazon, nothing special
125' of LMR400 coax
N-male to N-female coax lightning arrestor
N-female to N-female barrel connecting 100' to 25' of LMR400 and another barrel connecting the LMR400 to 3' jumper
3' jumper LMR240 with N-male to SMA

 

[Ronnierozier2]

If you notice the picture above I have the antenna on a 20' pole on my eave. After running this i noticed i started missing transmissions so I wanted to try an experiment. I was always under the impression that an antenna close to a metal roof would act like a faraday cage essentially blocking all the signals. Well.........in my case it's quite opposite. i moved the antenna close to the roof and put my SDS100 in analyze mode looking at the three towers and I have much stronger signal with the antenna 3' above the roof. So obviously the metal roof is reflecting the signals up into the antenna. anyway now i have great signal.

 

[AC0RV]

Cool