One ? and one observation

[Hoofy]

The question first.
Sometimes when someone keys up on the 800 system I hear echos in the background. Could this be other radios near the transmitting radio????

The observation.

Because I can hear many 800mhz towers I have found that if I am getting a marginal signal from a tower I hit scan and the scanner will move to the next tower and it may have a good signal. I have tried this during a BOL and found that I hear the same traffic on up to 5 different towers.

 

[KB8UYC]

The question first.
Sometimes when someone keys up on the 800 system I hear echos in the background. Could this be other radios near the transmitting radio????

The observation.

Because I can hear many 800mhz towers I have found that if I am getting a marginal signal from a tower I hit scan and the scanner will move to the next tower and it may have a good signal. I have tried this during a BOL and found that I hear the same traffic on up to 5 different towers.

Yes, if you hear echos....then someone has either their mobile or their portable turned up too loud....usually if there are 2 radios within so close to one another it will echo....

 

[ffexpCP]

Yes, there is a noticeable delay in the received audio on other radios from what the user is transmitting.

 

[k8tmk]

Your observation is correct. Typically a police mobile unit will lock onto whichever tower in its range provides the stronger signal. Because some cars serving a particular jurisdiction will be closer to one tower than it is to others, the same transmission will be sent to mutliple towers.

For example, three main towers cover Berrien County. When the BC Sheriff's Department puts out a transmission they want all units in the county to hear, such as a BOL, it will be heard on all three towers.

Conversely, only one of the three towers serving Berrien County also serves Cass County. Cass County Sheriff has not yet switched to the MPSCS system, but simulcasts on the tower which also serves their county. These transmissions are not heard on the other two which serve BC because there is no need. However, I suspect that they also simulcast on other towers which do serve their county (such as the Leonidas tower).