Not receiving some transmissions for Seattle Fire

[TeeEarls]

The problem I'm seeing is that I miss some transmissions on particular talkgroups - I notice this most often on Seattle Fire's primary talkgroup 1648. I have a BCT8 and have re-banded it and programmed it from scratch using ScanControl v7.1.0 and the latest frequencies for the Seattle Simulcast. Several times. Either I'm missing some little piece or BCT8 isn't going to work well with the reband!

It's driving me a bit crazy and need some ideas of what might be going on. Where I most often notice this is something like a full fire response from the dispatch channel (1744). I'll hear that fine and will lock the scanner onto 1648 and will simply hear nothing for a while and then potentially after a long bit, hear some update where clearly there had been lots of previous talk on the channel.

I initially thought I did the reband wrong, so I've checked that a few times. Then thought maybe I had mistyped one of the simulcast frequencies, so redid all that. Everything seems fine and yet it's clearly missing things. For what it's worth, I have a few BCT8 scanners and they all have the exact same problem, so it's not just one flaky scanner.

(1) Is anyone else using a BCT8 and having it work fine for Seattle Fire?

(2) On the reband thread (Seattle Simulcast Changes? - The RadioReference.com Forums) there are two conflicting offsets for 851.0125 - which one is actually working for people? 851.0125 is the base/lower frequency - but should it pair with 868.9875 or 861.9875 for the upper?

If others are having Seattle Fire work totally fine, I'd love to hear what scanner(s) are working in case I need to give up and try a new one!

thanks

 

[SCPD]

You said you were entering in the trunk frequencies from Seattle Simulcast. Did you try CC Only Mode? This way you should only enter the control channel frequency and its alternates.

There's no guarantee that the RR d-base is perfect and thus you may be missing a voice channel frequency. If that voice channel frequency is missing then the scanner can't follow the action.

If all your concerned about is Seattle Fire then there's probably no reason to buy a new scanner just yet -- but I don't have that scanner so not sure what quirks it may have with the re-banding.

Also, check out this Uniden page for info on the re-banding:

http://info.uniden.com/twiki/bin/view/UnidenMan4/BCT8FirmwareUpdate

 

[SCPD]

Quick and dirty but this should be the complete Seattle Simulcast frequency list:

Seattle Simulcast
-----------------

851.0375
851.0875
851.1375
851.1875
851.3625
851.4125
851.4375
851.4625
851.4875
851.5375
851.6375
851.6875
851.8875
851.9375
851.9875

852.1625
852.4125
852.4375
852.4625
852.6375
852.6875
852.7625*
852.7875*
852.8625
852.9125

853.175*
853.3875
853.4125
853.4375
853.475*
853.4875
853.6125
853.6625
853.675*
853.875*

854.0875
854.1125
854.1875
854.2375
854.3625
854.4125
854.6375
854.9875*

855.0875*
855.3875*

856.0125*
856.1625*
856.1875*
856.3125*
856.6375*
856.8375*

866.2875*
866.3125*
866.3375*
866.4375*
866.6875*
866.7125*
866.7375*
866.8875*

867.2875*
867.7625*
867.7875*

868.175*
868.475*
868.675*
868.875*

* -- LICENSE #2

 

[TeeEarls]

I hadn't tried the control channels only - I'll give that a whirl for a couple of days and see what happens (I'll reply back with results for others who might run across this thread in the future).

Thanks also for the full freq list, that will be option 2 if needed. I'm not familiar with the "License #2" designation - does that matter (what does it means)? If I did go to this option, would you literally program in all these into the trunked scanning bank?

Thanks a ton!

 

[DickH]

I hadn't tried the control channels only - I'll give that a whirl for a couple of days and see what happens (I'll reply back with results for others who might run across this thread in the future).

Thanks also for the full freq list, that will be option 2 if needed. I'm not familiar with the "License #2" designation - does that matter (what does it means)? If I did go to this option, would you literally program in all these into the trunked scanning bank?

Thanks a ton!

From the RR database, there are 19 freqs. in the Seattle Simulcast system. If/when they reband, the normal rebanding rules say the 866 freqs. change to 851, 867s change to 852 and 868s change to 853.

851.18750
851.41250 Alternate Control Channel
851.93750
851.98750
853.17500 Control Channel
853.66250
854.18750
854.36250
866.28750
866.33750
866.43750
866.68750
866.71250
866.88750
867.28750
867.78750
868.47500
868.67500
868.87500

 

[SCPD]

I hadn't tried the control channels only - I'll give that a whirl for a couple of days and see what happens (I'll reply back with results for others who might run across this thread in the future).

This should fix your problem as the CC will direct the scanner to do the frequency changing for you.

I'm not familiar with the "License #2" designation - does that matter (what does it means)?

Sorry that was for my own info. It just meant that they're using (2) FCC licenses for the same site.

Thanks also for the full freq list, that will be option 2 if needed. If I did go to this option, would you literally program in all these into the trunked scanning bank?

Dick was right in that you'd drop anything above 856 Mhz due to the re-banding. Also note that a site may have a pool of frequencies but only X of them are used on a daily basis with other frequencies reserved for emergency overflow.

BTW, I should have pointed out that all new scanners only require the control channel(s) these days -- which obviously makes programming a little easier. Uniden finds other ways to drive us crazy. :lol:

 

[SCPD]

If/when they reband, the normal rebanding rules say the 866 freqs. change to 851, 867s change to 852 and 868s change to 853.

Thanks for the reminder -- but they re-banded a few weeks ago. :wink:

Using your partial list here are the active Seattle Simulcast frequencies seen as of this posting:

851.18750
851.41250 Alternate Control Channel
851.68750 (Nick)
851.93750
851.98750
852.43750 (Nick)
852.78750 (Nick)
853.17500 Control Channel
853.67500 (Nick) Alternate Control Channel
853.87500 (Nick)
854.18750
854.36250 Alternate Control Channel
854.63750 (Nick)
854.98750 (Nick)
855.08750 (Nick)
856.01250 (Nick)
856.16250 (Nick)
856.18750 (Nick)
856.63750 (Nick)
856.83750 (Nick)

I'll let Unitrunker run all day tomorrow and see what other frequencies are active. Then I'll submit an update to RR so it's corrected.

 

[lowboy654]

Any update on this Nick.

 

[SCPD]

Any update on this Nick.

Ken, yeah sorry, I got distracted with a few other things from work.

So the only catch is that the longer you monitor the system the more frequencies get added that may not be a part of the default system.

After monitoring for only ~5 min several different times (no matter the time of day), I do get a "core" set of frequencies:

851.4125 alt cc
851.6875
851.9375
851.9875
852.4375
852.7875
853.1750 cc
853.6750 alt cc
853.8750
854.3625 alt cc
854.6375
854.9875
855.0875
856.0125
856.1625
856.1875
856.6375
856.8375

I believe this list is valid. From what I saw on Unitrunker, these frequencies will definitely get you the core Seattle TGIDs.

Obviously, control channel monitoring is the way to go these days.

 

[DickH]

Obviously, control channel monitoring is the way to go these days.

Be sure to put in all 4 control channel freqs. Some systems change periodically, some almost never.

 

[SCPD]

Be sure to put in all 4 control channel freqs. Some systems change periodically, some almost never.

Exactly. And the time you don't enter the alternates is the time you get burned when you really need your scanner.

 

[TeeEarls]

This is great info, thanks all. Just to be explicit, when someone uses solely the control channels, do they also program in the rebanding into the scanner? Or is the control channels alone enough?

 

[SCPD]

This is great info, thanks all. Just to be explicit, when someone uses solely the control channels, do they also program in the rebanding into the scanner? Or is the control channels alone enough?

Yes it's required for Seattle Simulcast. (The GRE PSR-800 seems fine without the information but the Uniden scanners require it.)

 

[TeeEarls]

I'm still not having luck with the BCT8s. Oh well - I really appreciate the help from everyone.

What ARE the scanners that people are using to successfully receive Seattle now? Particularly ones that support rebanding natively?

 

[SCPD]

What ARE the scanners that people are using to successfully receive Seattle now? Particularly ones that support rebanding natively?

Any currently selling trunk-tracking scanner works fine. As I said in the previous post, UNIDEN scanners *require* the re-banding information. There's no getting around that...

If you're looking to *only* monitor the Seattle Simulcast then this is your best (and cheapest) solution...

Uniden Bearcat BCT15X Scanner BCT-15X

The serial programming cable is included and you can download FreeSCAN to program.

BTW, HRO in Portland has the BCT-15x for $179.95 with free shipping (UPS ground to Seattle is 1-day.)

UNIDEN BCT-15X | UNIDEN BCT15X NON DIGITAL - TRUNK TRACKER III BASE/MOBILE SCANNER

 

[SCPD]

Yes it's required for Seattle Simulcast. (The GRE PSR-800 seems fine without the information but the Uniden scanners require it.)

Correction: the PSR-800 definitely requires the re-banding plan. It *appears* to be working without it but you won't get about 25% of the conversations including SFD or SPD.