PA-DE-NJ Fire feed up!

[DELCOLHFC]

Delaware County and surrounding Tri-State (PA, NJ, DE) Fire traffic now streaming at www.scanamerica.us If you do happen to check it out please drop some feedback here or PM me. There is a ton of traffic at times and it may become difficult to follow some jobs. If you feel thats the case let me know, this is pretty much a test run for now as I see what kind of agency mix will work out the best. Of course you could monitor this feed and if something starts to sound good in Philly, Gloucester Co., Delaware, Montgomery Co. etc...you can then switch over to their dedicated feeds there.
Currently the feed features Fire traffic from:
Delaware Co. PA
Chester Co. PA
Montgomery Co. PA
Bucks Co. PA
Philadelphia PA
Lehigh Co. PA
New Castle Co. DE
Kent Co. DE
Gloucester Co. NJ
Salem Co. NJ
Camden Co. NJ
Burlington Co. NJ
Cumberland Co. NJ
and some other odds-n-ends.

I will be doing some fiddling around with the content as things move forward, your feedback helps.
Thanks,
Tom

 

[WB2UZR]

Feed sounds good Tom! Might get hard to follow without text tags, especially when it gets active, but nice feed, thanks for providing it!

Scott/WB2UZR

 

[jasonk]

Thanks

Yes - I like having this feed .....Once we hear an Active incident we can switch to that County Specific Feed if needed. Not sure what type of scanner is feeding, but Text tags would be great if possible. Thanks for contributing ....Great Stuff ...

Jason Kinley
Xenia, Ohio

 

[policefreak]

Good gosh almighty! What kind of an antenna are you using to get all those counties?

Edit: Hey! I just heard Lancaster Co. Dispatch too! This feed is freakin awesome!

Hey Delco, is that coming from your new Pro-106? Actually it sounds like a couple of scanners at one time. How are you doing that?

 

[DELCOLHFC]

Feed sounds good Tom! Might get hard to follow without text tags, especially when it gets active, but nice feed, thanks for providing it!

Scott/WB2UZR

Thanks for the feedback Scott. I think I would need to dedicate one of my Unidens for the feed to get the text tags, unfortunately at this time I have other mobile plans for them. (If I'm wrong here please let me know of any other scanner that would work!) I agree on the issues involved with following during busy times, a lot of the areas served have dedicated feeds so if you know where the action is going down (over time you know them by sound or lingo) it would be best to switch over to them. I am still deciding what to keep on the feed, I appreciate the feedback and everyone's input will be considered!

 

[DELCOLHFC]

Yes - I like having this feed .....Once we hear an Active incident we can switch to that County Specific Feed if needed. Not sure what type of scanner is feeding, but Text tags would be great if possible. Thanks for contributing ....Great Stuff ...

Jason Kinley
Xenia, Ohio

Jason thanks for the support! The ability to monitor a large area (surrounded by other good feeds) is the original intent of my feed, I wanted something I could listen to at work that had the same kind of coverage that I am able to get at home. The scanners feeding currently are a Pro-2096 for the digi stuff and a Pro-2055 for the balance. If you know what I could use to get the tags streaming let me know.
I see you are from Greene Co. OH, when at work I listen to the Northern Miami valley feed most times, small world!

 

[DELCOLHFC]

Still testing the setup........

Hey Policefreak the glad to hear you like it so far, I really appreciate the feedback, everyones input is welcome and will influence the end product!

Good gosh almighty! What kind of an antenna are you using to get all those counties?


The antennas systems currently being used are a Wilson 800-900MHz Yagi (on a rotor) at about 25', 75' of LMR400 feedline, An Electroline EDA2400 (+7dB) cableTV drop amp feeding the Pro-2096 for the digi.
And the Pro-2055 feeding all the analog is fed by a RS 20-076 sputnick in the attic, 50' RG-11, and another EDA2400. Nothing exotic here, I guess I'm in a pretty decent 'hot spot'.



Edit: Hey! I just heard Lancaster Co. Dispatch too! This feed is freakin awesome!


Yeah, I am making some more changes tonight that will actually increase the number of counties monitored. A lot of the traffic may just be dispatch channels from places that use TRS's or places that provide VHF links to system TalkGroups, this keeps the quantity side of my personality happy. The quality side has to be happy with the better reception on the local stuff.



Hey Delco, is that coming from your new Pro-106? Actually it sounds like a couple of scanners at one time. How are you doing that?

Not the 106, I am still playing with that new toy, it goes where I go for now at least. The feed is actually comming from both scanners now and is simply blended together using a headphone splitter at the soundcard port. (I am sure this will melt my computer and burndown every radio I own with my luck!) Really I'm not sure how kosher that setup is, but it does kinda work....for now. My eventual goal is to have Delco Fire on one speaker and the balance of the feed on the other. I have to talk to Gordon at scanamerica to find out how to do this properly and to find out about streaming the text tags if thats possible.

I will shortly be taking the 2055 offline and replacing it with a 2006OPTO456 using PROBE 7.0 software for the analog. This scanner is fed by the same antenna system as the 2055 but it picks up a lot more and sounds better (to me it does anyway, we will see how it does on the stream with the 2096 duet!) With the 2006 I usually hear Cecil and several (depends on conditions) other MD counties as well as better coverage of South Jersey and some farther out PA comms. I geuss that makes the feed "Quad-State". I'm going to make the switch in about 5 mins, check back in later and give it a review.


Sorry for the goofy way I quoted and answered that mess, I need to work on that

 

[nfd24norf]

Awesome Feed

Hey, how is it going, i am a fire explorer in virginia beach, va hopefully a real firefighter in the near future, anyhow i listen to scanner from all over the country in down time and your new feed is awesome, it will definately go down in my top 10, and im already learning which depts are which to switch to them when a hot incident is going on. anyway, thanks for having this feed, sounds great, stay well Adam

 

[policefreak]

Hey Policefreak the glad to hear you like it so far, I really appreciate the feedback, everyones input is welcome and will influence the end product!






I will shortly be taking the 2055 offline and replacing it with a 2006OPTO456 using PROBE 7.0 software for the analog. This scanner is fed by the same antenna system as the 2055 but it picks up a lot more and sounds better (to me it does anyway, we will see how it does on the stream with the 2096 duet!) With the 2006 I usually hear Cecil and several (depends on conditions) other MD counties as well as better coverage of South Jersey and some farther out PA comms. I geuss that makes the feed "Quad-State". I'm going to make the switch in about 5 mins, check back in later and give it a review.


Sorry for the goofy way I quoted and answered that mess, I need to work on that

Hey that works for me and I was able to follow everything you said. Thanks for the info. All I know is even with your antennas you must be on quite a hill to get so much stuff. Its a good plan too to have just a sampling of each county. Its kind of the way I want my setup in my home. I use a Pro-164 to monitor Camden Co Fire/EMS and Cherry Hill EDACS, then on my BCD396T I have a group of just dispatch channels going (Chester, Bucks, Gloucester, Burlington, Atlantic, and Delco) and the Burlington Co. TRs. If I hear something good on one of those dispatches I will move the scanner and switch that county hoping to hear it. And I get to hear the two things I don't get from home either, Philadelphia and Montgomery. Its great!

 

[jasonk]

Great listening today so far ...(2) Extra Alarm fires ....Delaware County sounds busy with fire ......

On a side note .... I run the PA News Alerts service .....It is a totally free service to send text alerts about Active incidents .....If you sign up you can pick the counties you are interested in and also the times you want to be notified .....It is a hobby that has grown ........So I would encourage everyone to sign up and also we rely on user tips and input to keep the alerts active and timely. If you have questions just e-mail me or post .......... Its great to get a text that theres a Good job going ...you can log in and listen live.

The website - http://panewsalerts.us

We also send all National Alerts for 2nd Alarm or Greater ....so you can sign up for those also.

So sign up and I will get you in the system for receiving alerts. These are the alerts you see posted on the Scan America Site .......

Take care and thanks again ......Great Listening .......

Jason Kinley

 

[jmanpa]

Nice feed! Very comprehensive. You've obvioulsy put some thought into it. I'm sure as time goes by you'll make refinements but you're off to a great start!

Jerry

 

[DELCOLHFC]

Thanks for the input guys!

I am rethinking about moving the Delco traffic to one speaker and the rest to the other now that some other folks have put up Delco feeds. I am getting things worked out with Gordon to have alpha tags streaming with the feed. It would put the feed with a single radio and I'm not sure how well the Uniden will recieve compared to the RS/GRE models now online. We shall see, I'm still programming everything into the 996 to put it on a test drive here in the shack first. As soon as I get the complete list of freqs/agencies completed I will have it attached to an INFO button on the feeds page at scanamerica.us.
Thanks again for the feedback, any other ideas or suggestions?
Does anyone know what all scanners will allow for streaming text tags, I really kinda hate trying up a 996 just for the tags, maybe some of the older Uniden digitals? or maybe a Pro-197?

 

[NYRHKY94]

Hi Tom:

Any Uniden scanner with a serial port is capable of streaming alpha tags using Gordon's TGM program or by using Proscan's client-server software (I use both). I currently stream tags using a BC898T, BC796D and a BCD996T. As far as using a RS or GRE model to stream alpha tags, the answer is "mostly no". You can stream tags with the Pro-197 using Don Starr's Win500 program, however you are limited to a single client connection (i.e. yourself at work) and need to use the Win500 client application.

P.S. As far as "audio quality" goes if you switch your feed from the Pro-2096 to the 996, that is a consideration you'll have to test. I did the same exact thing and needed to tweak the P25 digital on the 996 to get my feed to sound decent. It's not bad on the 996 feed, but not as good as the Pro-2096. I really wanted the alpha tags though, so the trade-off was worth it to me.

Hope this helps.

 

[DELCOLHFC]

Thank you!

Thanks for the info Mike, You hit the nail on the head when you mentioned the sound quality between the Unidens and the GRE's. That is my main concern, do I go for tags or a better sounding stream? I know that my stream can sound better with a little more work on antenna systems, with either radio brand. But my Uniden 996 and 15 don't have the ears that my RS/GRE's do, and my feed is all about covering a WIDE area, so the more we can hear the better. I would love to be able to stream the tags from my Pro-2006 that is providing the analog portion of my feed, that rig hears everything!
Thanks,
Tom

 

[DELCOLHFC]

Improved feed audio.

I made a few changes to the feed today. I took the scanners off their individual 'wall wart' power supplies and put them on an Astron RS20 PS, also tied all the radio's grounds together and connected them to the house ground. Wow! Did that make things sound better, the baseline hiss that has been on the feed all along is now barely noticable! I think it sounds much better, I'm interested in other's opinions. I also changed out the Pro-2006OPTP456, it was misbehaving and generating a 'buzz' on the audio, I will work on getting it on the PS and redo it's ground this weekend, maybe.... The current setup has a 2055 scanning only Delco Fire channels (so I don't miss anything local), another 2055 scanning everything else thats analog and a 2096 taking care of the digi stuff (Philly, DE, Montco) Burlington Co. is off for tonight and should be back on the list by Friday night. Give it a listen and give me your feedback.
Thanks,
Tom