Long story short, bought the BC 200XLT new in 1991 or so. Still have it. Pulled it out to try and get back into scanning. I plan on buying a Uniden 396XT soon for all the digital stuff that most have gone to.
Question is though for the time I want to listen to stuff that is still on analog. One of those is Harrahs Ak Chin casino. I live about 2.5 miles from it but when I program the freqs in my scanner I hear nothing. The output from what the fcc license info shows is 5km radius around. So does this mean I literally have to be right under them to hear them?
Also for those in the Maricopa (pinal county) area what are cool things to hear that are still on analog and active?
I'm not from the area but have you looked at the database pages for both counties?
Pinal County, Arizona (AZ) Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference
and
Maricopa County, Arizona (AZ) Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference
Anything with FMN or FM listed in the Mode column should be able to be heard by your 200XLT providing the database is kept up to date by someone and you are in physical range.
It looks like some local PD and Fire may still be using analog around Pinal and Maricopa Counties.
I would not say a lot though as it looks like a lot of the listings that have analog licenses still are now using a P25 digital trunked system and probably most of them that show them using that system are using it for their primary form of communications.
Maricopa County itself shows that it is using a Motorola mixed mode analog/digital trunked system that you may be able to hear some of the analog chatter on it if it's within your range.
Maricopa County Trunking System, Maricopa County, Arizona - Scanner Frequencies
It's actually covering 4 counties according to the database listing so it stands a good chance that you can hear it.
That trunked system appears to have a lot of analog on it still.
I know the 200XLT will not do trunking but you can still program that Motorola mixed mode system in as analog channels. The 200XLT will round off and hide the last digit for many of the frequencies but it will still tune them correctly.
Also, enter in all the control channels also and just lockout the current active one. I think those systems rotated the active control channel at least once every 24 hours so you would want to check and unlock/lock any that have changed since you last monitored the sites as they do use the frequencies for voice channels when they are not control channels.
With any luck, that trunked system will not be super busy and you will be able to follow each conversation as it moves through the channels of the system by scanning it as a bunch of normal analog channels.
I see it does have a site in Pinal County and several in Maricopa County so who knows which ones you would need to program.
I'd try them all myself and make a note of the sites with good signals and then just program those. You might be able to just program the ones listed as control channels for each site and that may tell you which of the sites are within range if you get a strong signal from the control channel.
Of course the 200XLT will not show the talkgroup numbers so you won't really know who you may be hearing.
And I don't know what happens when a digital talkgroup comes on the air.
I assume the 200XLT will just stop on the digital talkgroup and open the squelch and you will just hear white noise. I doubt it would skip over the digital talkgroups like some of the modern analog only scanners sold today will do.
That could get frustrating really fast if there is a lot of digital activity and the 200XLT keeps stopping on busy digital channels. About all you could do in that case is keep hitting the scan button until the digital talkgroup goes off the air and the 200 starts scanning normally again or give up and scan railroads or something!
The Maricopa county mixed mode system does show a fair amount of analog talkgroups though so it's worth trying I think.
You may find enough good stuff to hold you over until you can get a digital model.
The other trunked system that a lot of the Arizona towns near you are using is a full digital P25 system so don't even bother with that one as you won't hear anything with just the 200XLT scanner.
The old 200XLT's were pretty decent analog radios so you could install a discriminator tap in the 200 after you get your new digital model and use the 200XLT for monitoring the control channels of both analog and P25 digital sites using one of the many control channel decoding programs out there. I think all of them are free software and the 200XLT would make a good control channel monitoring radio. Unitrunker is probably the most popular today for discriminator tapped scanners. It will even decode the control channel from P25 sites and can steer a 2nd radio to the correct voice channel or frequency so you can follow a conversation as it moves through a sites frequencies.
The 2nd radio can be one of those $20 dollar SDR type USB dongles.
A lot of neat things can be done with the SDR dongles and the right mix of free software.
You can basically build yourself a P25 capable trunked receiver with your 200XLT, a cheap SDR USB dongle and some free software that does the tuning of the dongle while another piece of software does the decoding of the digital data for listening to via your computer speakers.
Another program called DSD or DSD+ will actually decode the discriminator audio of several different digital formats and allow you to hear the audio right from your computer speakers using just your discriminator tapped 200XLT. If you actually want to trunk track, then you need the 2nd radio which can be the 20 dollar dongle. It works rather well once you get it running and the audio levels set correctly. It started out as a Linux only program but someone was able to port it too Windows but you need a pretty decent computer to decode some of the digital formats when running the Win version. The Linux version could run on about any old laptop or desktop. It is all command line driven though so it can take some fiddling around before you get it working.
I think the two biggest problems or mistakes new users had were setting the audio input level way too high and possibly not trying the 'invert data' switch when starting the program. Some discriminator taps need the data inverted before the program will actually decode data into voice.
Then a lot of new users would start the program and nothing would happen so it seemed. It was actually running but did not have any input data to decode so the screen just stayed blank. The windows version behaves the same way but I think someone may have written a GUI based interface now that helps the new user get it running. There are a lot of command line switches that can be used at startup to set the application to only attempt to decode one type of data, set audio filters and levels etc. Those can be very handy in helping get it running and decoding things for the first time.
Once you succeed and get it running and decoding some digital voice, it's like learning to ride a bike and you will be able to start it and have it decoding from that point on with very little effort.
With a discriminator tapped 200xlt and a $20 dollar SDR dongle and some free software, you could make yourself a setup that will follow plus decode P25 trunked sites!
I've used the cheap SDR dongles before and decoded P25 and DMR (TRBO) signals but I've never went as far as many do and setup the part that actually trunk tracks a P25 site.
I don't think the trunk tracking software module was even written yet when I last played with a SDR dongle for decoding digital audio but I recall being amazed at how well the little SDR dongle could decode P25 data and put it back together so you could hear it on your computer speakers! It worked well.
Of course if you have the cash for a dedicated digital scanner, that is a LOT easier!
The SDR dongle stuff is more work getting all the needed software working together but it is a cheap way to get into digital scanning or digital trunk tracking and it can be a lot of fun if you like tinkering with the hardware and software that makes it all work!.
I think Unitrunker does most of the work and then you just need the drivers for the dongle and the software that knows how to convert the digital data back into analog audio that comes out your computer speakers. Unitrunker takes care of setting the dongle to the correct frequency when following a talkgroup.
It won't decode all digital formats out there but it can decode DMR which is pretty much the same thing as MOTOTRBO and also NXDN which is the digital mode that railroads have selected to use when they make the switch to digital and of course APCO P25 Phase I and II. I think there are other digital formats that it can decode as well but I've not kept up with it.
D-Star may be another digital format that one of the DSD's can now decode also but I'm not certain on that one.
It can be a fun project for a rainy or cold weekend!
There is a wealth of info out there on getting the cheap USB stick tuners working. So much info in fact that it becomes overwhelming and you end up getting confused.
There is a digital decoding forum here however and the users that hang out in that forum will usually go out of their way to help you get up and running and also help you purchase the correct dongle. There are several different SDR dongles out there on eBay and not all will work with the common software that makes the fun stuff work like P25 decoding so a visit into the digital decoding forum here will usually help you get the correct hardware should you decide you want to take the plunge into software defined radio!
I still use my SDR dongle but only for decoding aircraft stuff using a program called Plane Plotter these days.
That Casino does show a range of only 1 mile from its center point so I'd say you are correct in that you darn near need to live in it to hear it!
I just looked at the sub-category info posted here for the casino as that info is probably more realistic than what the FCC license would show when it comes to things like the actual range of the system. The FCC license shows what is allowed while the sub-category info posted here is often realtime data taken by user submissions that have actually monitored the system and know its real world performance. If nobody has submitted that data, then I think the DB Admins may use the data from the FCC license and may use some basic formula to attempt a guess at the distance or range the systems signal may be useable. I do know that the sub-category data is read in by the programs that program scanners that can use GPS coordinates and have GPS inputs. That's how your location based scanners like the Home Patrol models can auto switch systems on/off as you travel if you have a GPS attached.
Not sure if the link below will work but if it does, this should show you the sub-category details for the casino and what the users here have found in how well the site or system works. In this case, someone only gave that casino a 1 mile range which sounds like it may be pretty accurate if you are only 2.5 miles away and get no signal!
RadioReference.com - Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference Database
