Need help with conventional channel on BCD396T

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Bjs470

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Hi,

I've been listening to my BC246T for awhile and a few months ago bought a BCD396T. I don't know too much about scanners but I had a simple question....On a conventional frequency used for a secondary police channel I only hear one end of a conversation, which is the dispatcher and not the officers. The closest part of that city is 6 miles from me so I am guessing that the officer's squad car is out of range. The secondary channel is from a radio mounted in the squad car. Sorry if this is a dumb question.
 

Viper43

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Dispatch is using one channel and the car/portable another, you have to scan both channels to get the whole conversation.
This is when a dual recieve scanner is very helpfull!
 

delta_p

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I've got a Highway Patrol setup like that, where dispatch is tranmitting on one frequency and the car on another. Problem is I only know the dispatch frequency and don't know the others. Also, traffic is pretty light on these channels. I haven't figured out the best method to search it out and it bugs me because I know it's there loud and clear.

PP
 

ka3jjz

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Did you look the freq up in the database or ask in the Alabama forum? Likely someone knows the answer....73 Mike
 

garys

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Your guess is correct, the car is out of range. It's likely that the channel is simplex, which means that the mobile units and the dispatch center are on the same frequency, but there is no repeater involved. Since the dispatch center is using a base station transmitter you are going to hear that much more than the mobile units which are using relatively low powered radios.

Two channel simplex, also known as half duplex, is much more rare in most areas than simplex.



Gary
 
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Bjs470

Guest
ok....thanks for the replies so far. I'm pretty sure that they are on the same channel. It's a car to car channel also used for the public works dept. on a motorola radio. I believe I have all the listed freqencies programmed but I can still look. I guess if the car is out of range I was going to be upgrading my antenna anyways....
 
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