Not Receiving Washington County, MO

[joepainter]

Greetings! I'm new here, glad to find a source for such useful information. Ages ago, just after Marconi and spark-gaps and crystals, I had a Ham license for a while. I had a lot of other things to do, but at least I got acquainted enough with how radios work. All these years later, the "radio bug" has returned in the form of curiosity about scanners.

I just got a Uniden BC125AT. There's a little learning curve, but I'm gradually getting to know how to use it. I started with "search", heard several "live" frequencies, and saved them as channels in Bank 1. Then I looked here on RadioReference for frequencies near me, and programmed some of those into the scanner.

I live in Washington County, Missouri. When I get the scanner scanning, I hear sheriff, fire, and EMS dispatchers in Jefferson, St. Francois, and Franklin counties. I hear a couple of Civil Air channels, and occasional CB users. But I get nothing from Washington County services. I programmed 15 of the Wash-Co frequencies listed here. I didn't use any that are shown as digital, only "FMN'.

Any idea what's going on here? I'd appreciate your comments. Thanks.

 

[sonm10]

There was another thread on here that mentioned a move back to Moswin, which is the statewide P25 system. I would program that in.

Looking through the database, looks like the VHF site, Shirley (3.13). Wasn't there also a 700 Mhz site that covered Washington County also? I can't find it in the database.

Have family down there, hence the interest.

 

[joepainter]

Thanks for the reply. It just happens that, before I got back to this site, I began to hear talk on one of the frequencies I programmed in for Washington County! It's alive!

I looked at the MOSWIN page, and found the line with "Shirley" and "3.13" you mentioned. I put in those frequencies, and there was activity on a couple of them. But no voices, only a low, gravelly noise. I'm curious -- are there any PL or other codes associated with those frequencies?

It occurs to me that maybe these signals are digital! If that's the case, I won't be hearing them any time soon. This scanner is analog only (am, fm, fmn) and it will be some time before I can even think about buying a digital scanner.

Re: 700 mhz, that's higher than this scanner goes. The limit is 512 mhz.

Thanks

 

[sonm10]

Yep, not going to receive LEO with an analog scanner. Maybe fire toneouts, public works, etc. My bad, I missed what model scanner you're using. Not going to receive much with it. Most in county is digital.

 

[joepainter]

Well it's ok. At least I know what I'm dealing with. It's not bad hearing from our neighboring counties. We're actually pretty close to Jefferson County. And a little farther in another direction gets us to St. Francois Co. So, in other words, events just across those boundary lines can still affect us. And as I venture out to less familiar places, I'll be playing with the "close call" feature, as the scanner detects nearby signals.

 

[scanman1958]

Being in a somewhat rural area there is still a lot to listen to on the old VHF stuff. Look around the database and keep playing. You will start hearing things. Have fun.