OKC Police Recption -- Not That Great.....

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Drkatzjr45

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I.

I recently purchased Uniden's HomePatrol-1. (updated last week)
It --should-- be able to hear OKC's digital....should it not?

Under the category Oklahoma City, I tried both ---"Core---" and ---"Wide---" and hear nothing.


II.


The "Links" available on OKWIN seem (at least to me) to be of rather "so-so" reception (at least compared
to Tulsa).

I am staying in a downtown OKC hotel --right now--, on a high floor, and the "Links" to OKC
are average to fair to say the least; I am using the tried and true Radio Shack 800mhz antenna.

Why the average/fair reception?
 

W8RMH

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The Oklahoma City EDACS system uses ProVoice digital modulation for most public safety operations. This means that your scanner cannot monitor the ProVoice digital talkgroups on this system. There is no way possible to monitor any ProVoice digital communications with any scanner today.
 

n5usr

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As for reception of the "links", do you mean the audio is so-so, or the signal strength?

If signal strength the towers for the OKWIN system are on the east side of the metro (I don't remember exactly where) and coverage toward the west side is weaker. This is one reason the smaller communities on the west joined OKC's ProVoice system. Perhaps your hotel room is west-facing or doesn't have a good "view" (RF-wise) to the east?

The signal still shouldn't be too bad. I can hear the system acceptably - with a little flutter - on a handheld at ground level in Bethany on the west side. There are some dead spots in my house though, have to pick the right spot.

Otherwise, I've found the audio of the links to be so-so. Sometimes they sound great, other times there are all kinds of issues. At times just garbled or difficult to understand audio. Sometimes something "hangs" and I'm stuck listening to a dead-air TG for a while, then it'll finally release usually after someone makes another transmission. More recently I've seen one of the link TGs appear but no audio at all. Sometimes it'll be intermittent - I might hear one transmission but not the next in a conversation. I don't know how they make the links, but there would appear to be something less than ideal in the setup.
 

Drkatzjr45

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I found the best reception on the links to be in the east part of the city; I actually received a stronger
signal 15 miles east of the OKC metro area (while approaching on I-44 from Tulsa) than in the -downtown- area
where I was. The east-central area was OK as well) Both audio and signal (in the heart of downtown) was both so-so,
despite being on the 12th floor of my hotel facing east

It must simply be an uneven range of coverage, commensurate to areas we have here in Tulsa,
like south of 81ST and Yale, where a hill backdrops behind that area.

I must apologize for my ignorance concerning the ProVoice issue and failing to read Plaws' note. I feel embarrassed for posting this now..

Does anyone think that.......down the road.....technology will be able to monitor ProVoice?

Thanks all.....
 
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peterjmag

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No sir, Pro Voice and Open Sky are proprietary. They make more money by keeping there source code secret then allowing Uniden and GRE to use it for production of scanners. It's also a good selling point to agencies that their systems are not able to be monitored.
 

n5bew1

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Dec 19, 2002
Messages
747
Location
norman, ok
I.

I recently purchased Uniden's HomePatrol-1. (updated last week)
It --should-- be able to hear OKC's digital....should it not?

Under the category Oklahoma City, I tried both ---"Core---" and ---"Wide---" and hear nothing.


II.


The "Links" available on OKWIN seem (at least to me) to be of rather "so-so" reception (at least compared
to Tulsa).

I am staying in a downtown OKC hotel --right now--, on a high floor, and the "Links" to OKC
are average to fair to say the least; I am using the tried and true Radio Shack 800mhz antenna.

Why the average/fair reception?

You might have too much rf around you. downtown OKC has a lot of transmitters and a lot of cell phone antennas. I have had my unidens go into rf overload when I got too close to certain 800 Mhz cell towers. They swamped my scanner and it actually makes the signal weaker and more static prone. It would have been a good test in that hotel room if you could have turned on your scanners attenuator and see what happened to the signal after that. If it got a better signal that would tell you what the problem is.
 

darkwolf

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Oklahoma
okc pd reception

when your in okc do you ever use the close call ? i use it all the time works well for me
 

HogDriver

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Oklahoma City, Ok.
Keep in mind guys that solar storms are becoming much more prevalent and these will interfere with radio signals for a few hours at a time.
 
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