New Brit Fire/EMS with BCD536?

[KB1OQ]

I live in New Brit and I just got a BCD536 and I have lots of towns surrounding New Brit working fine. New Brit Fire is on broadcastify so I assume I can get it with my scanner. I have tried selected it in CLMRN and Hartford County but I hear nothing. Any suggestions on how to tweak the programming so I can hear it? There must be a trick...
Thanks guys!

 

[Photo3]

Make sure you are using the New Britain simulcast site. You will not hear everything on the Hartford simulcast site. Make sure you have monitor turned on. That is sometimes overlooked. You should not have to make any tweaks to make it work. Recheck your settings.

 

[doctordialtone]

Any suggestions on how to tweak the programming so I can hear it? There must be a trick...

Make sure you have the Service Types selected for what you want to monitor. Look at the "TAG" column.

Hartford County, Connecticut (CT) Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference

Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference for Hartford County, Connecticut (CT)

www.radioreference.com

Review the manual to check your programming.

Enjoy!

 

[Whiskey3JMC]

Welcome to the RR forums. Simulcast distortion could be the issue at hand depending on your location relative to two or more simulcasting towers. There are a few workarounds suggested in the wiki I linked below but they work in very few cases. I'd highly recommend picking up a Uniden SDS100 or SDS200 if this is a system you intend on monitoring regularly

Simulcast Distortion - The RadioReference Wiki

wiki.radioreference.com

 

[KB1OQ]

Make sure you are using the New Britain simulcast site. You will not hear everything on the Hartford simulcast site. Make sure you have monitor turned on. That is sometimes overlooked. You should not have to make any tweaks to make it work. Recheck your settings.

Thanks - I will try that tonight. I have scanned the simulcast freqs by themselves and heard nothing but I will try it again. I never had to turn "monitor" on to hear all the surrounding towns PD and FD. I am using sentinal and I create a favorites list.

 

[KB1OQ]

Make sure you have the Service Types selected for what you want to monitor. Look at the "TAG" column.

Hartford County, Connecticut (CT) Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference

Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference for Hartford County, Connecticut (CT)

www.radioreference.com

Review the manual to check your programming.

Enjoy!

Thanks - like I said I get every surrounding town PD and FD perfect with no tweaking or programming. I do use sentinel and I do create a favorites list.

 

[Photo3]

If you create a favorite list in sentinel, monitor is set to off. You have to turn it on. I receive New Britain on my BCD 536 with no issues. It should work well with you.

 

[Reconrider]

Make sure you are using the New Britain simulcast site. You will not hear everything on the Hartford simulcast site. Make sure you have monitor turned on. That is sometimes overlooked. You should not have to make any tweaks to make it work. Recheck your settings.

Wrong. You can actually indeed hear Hartford site from New Britain depending on your setup. Don't say no because you weren't able to get.

I live in New Brit and I just got a BCD536 and I have lots of towns surrounding New Brit working fine. New Brit Fire is on broadcastify so I assume I can get it with my scanner. I have tried selected it in CLMRN and Hartford County but I hear nothing. Any suggestions on how to tweak the programming so I can hear it? There must be a trick...
Thanks guys!

The issue you might have is that NB has I think 4 simulcast towers in a small area so you will be getting the most simulcast issues without a simulcast scanner, or sdr.

 

[cg]

I think what he was saying about not hearing everything on the H Simulcast is that most New Britain groups are only reliably heard on the New Britain simulcast. Usually FD/EMS and PD are on the H Sites but often others are not.

 

[jperuta]

Also NBPD is encrypted. Cant pick that up with any scanner.

 

[Photo3]

I monitored New Britain fire on the New Britain site on one scanner and the same on the Hartford site with another scanner. The Hartford site was missing talk I was hearing on the New Britain site. I changed that scanner to the New Britain site and it does not miss anything now. But I would not have picked up on that had I not done a side by side test. Just because you hear it does not mean you are hearing it all.

 

[KB1OQ]

Thanks for all the help! I entered the talk groups (Fire Dispatch and the 4 Incidents) and the NB simulcast freqs and I can hear it now. Last night I heard Engine 4 leave Station 4 and I actually knew where they were going. I have been waiting years for that. I gave up on scanning in the 90's once everything started going digital.

BTW you can pick up a BCD436 or 536 for pretty cheap on ebay or craigslist these days.

 

[Photo3]

KB1OQ, I'm glad you got it working.

 

[buggiecar]

Ok...here's what I figured out for the 536 and P2 systems...make certain you have it selected to receive TDMA X 2...in your software (I use Butel 536Pro) once I figured this out I receive traffic linked to the CLMRN system without issue also any system using P2

 

[KB1OQ]

Ok...here's what I figured out for the 536 and P2 systems...make certain you have it selected to receive TDMA X 2...in your software (I use Butel 536Pro) once I figured this out I receive traffic linked to the CLMRN system without issue also any system using P2

Thanks - I did get it working with sentinel. Turned out I needed to have the talk groups and simulcast freqs for it to work.