Newb Question: How to listen to GMRS repeater?

[Cutaway]

Hello, I'm trying to listen to a local repeater that is 462.5500 MHz with a PL tone 141.3 Hz. I can't hear anything on the scanner while my handhelds are talking on it. I thought the scanners listens for anything regardless of the PL tones?

Or is this not possible with my kind of scanner: Sportcat 180? Thanks in advance.

 

[WA0CBW]

If the scanner and your radios are close to each other your radios are desensing the scanner when they transmit.
BB

 

[teufler]

Like wa0cbw suggests, desensing, so remove the scanner antenna, that will probably attenuate the scanner enough to be able to hear the scanner when your ht is being used. Turn the scanner volume up and walk into another room. That sometimes helps.

 

[jwt873]

Can you hear the repeater when other people are using it? If you can hear others, but can't hear yourself when you talk on your radio, then as mentioned above, it's most likely a desense problem.

If you can't hear anyone talking on the repeater at all, then you might have a wrong PL or DCD receive tone set.

 

[UPMan]

SC180 can't be programmed w/PL or DPL, so that can't be it.

 

[Cutaway]

Thank for the quick responses. Y'all are awesome!

I think it's because SC180 doesn't support PL. I tried the "de-sensing" suspicion by walking far away from the scanner. Then I trigger the repeater with the handheld (Tx). The repeater makes an announcement which can be heard on both handheld units, but scanner is silent.

Thanks again. Cheers!

 

[mmckenna]

If your scanner doesn't support PL or DPL tones, then it works in carrier squelch mode, and it would still be able to hear the repeater.

That would indicate that your scanner just isn't receiving the signal. Since the hand held transceivers usually have better sensitivity and selectivity when compared to a consumer scanner, this isn't surprising.

I think if you either took your scanner outside or hooked it up to an external antenna, you'd be able to hear the repeater on the scanner.

 

[DJ11DLN]

Thank for the quick responses. Y'all are awesome!

I think it's because SC180 doesn't support PL. I tried the "de-sensing" suspicion by walking far away from the scanner. Then I trigger the repeater with the handheld (Tx). The repeater makes an announcement which can be heard on both handheld units, but scanner is silent.

Thanks again. Cheers!

Another vote for desensing. The way PL works, if your scanner doesn't support it, then you hear all traffic on a certain frequency. You don't need it programmed in to hear a certain radio. But you'll hear other stuff you're not interested in on that frequency. Get the scanner farther from the TX'ing radio and it will probably work.