P25 performance and variables

[bfletcher]

Hello. I don’t know what title to use or even where to post this, but first my excuse: I’ve been home alone today with no one with whom to converse and I’ve had 2 beers.

I bought a PSR-800 2 weeks before GRE closed. I'm not a techie and cannot invest countless hours tweaking a scanner. In short time I gave up hope listening to P25. It was always garbled and didn’t even open squelch until I bought RS’ 800MHz duck. Now, I have a BCD436HP. At day 2 I was still convinced I wouldn’t listen to P25 with favorable results. Then, because of Google, I bought an RH77CA. What I actually received was RH789. With further Google inspiration I adjusted its length to 10.25”. For three days, now, with the RH789 I’ve been receiving transmissions with—I’d say—99.789% accuracy and clarity on the BCD. I say that because I’m in a rural, flat area and our PD is for now being simulcast, so I’m comparing BCD P25 hits to PSR-800 155.xx hits. But for all I know the part in my hair may affect P25 performance. This same RH789 antenna does not help P25 on the PSR-800. Still curious about the RH77CA, I ordered and received one. It does not provide favorable results on either scanner on this P25 broadcast. So, four questions if I may.

1) When simulcast ends will that [potentially] improve P25 for me?
2) Is Google accurate when it leads to posts suggesting the PSR may work beautifully for John in Denver, prompting him to burn his BCD, yet Jane in Smithville might sleep with her BCD and send the PSR to the dog house?
3) If I seek to become more technical might I stumble upon a manual tweak leading to favorable results from the PSR?
4) In EZ Scan I see this site defaulted to FM. What triggers a given mod? With the BCD, is the mod determined by the band defaults? If so, my vague notion is it is set to NFM.

Thanks for reading and if you reply I’d be amazed by your kindness.

 

[AZScanner]

So, four questions if I may.

1) When simulcast ends will that [potentially] improve P25 for me?

Probably not. What you hear now will likely be the same thing you hear when they turn the analog repeaters off.

2) Is Google accurate when it leads to posts suggesting the PSR may work beautifully for John in Denver, prompting him to burn his BCD, yet Jane in Smithville might sleep with her BCD and send the PSR to the dog house?

Yep. Location, the system being monitored, the antenna, even where you place the scanner in the room can all be factors that affect P25 reception, especially with Simulcast systems. There's also a large portion of very vocal people out there who are Uniden fans, and an equally large portion of vocal GRE fans, and that tends to skew the reports from end users towards one or the other.

3) If I seek to become more technical might I stumble upon a manual tweak leading to favorable results from the PSR?

I'm sure you could, but until then, I'd ask in the forum for the state this system is in. Chances are high that someone else in your area has a PSR and can share their data files with you.

4) In EZ Scan I see this site defaulted to FM. What triggers a given mod? With the BCD, is the mod determined by the band defaults? If so, my vague notion is it is set to NFM.

Couldn't hurt! I say go for it - you've got nothing to lose except a few minutes time if it doesn't help.

-AZ