Palmetto 800 Master Thread

[jaymatt1978]

It would help to know which scanner you're using to be able to provide specific advice.

The majority of public safety agencies in Horry County use the Horry County trunked radio system, not Palmetto 800. Contrary to what was mentioned, quite a bit of the use of this system is still in the clear. Myrtle Beach PD is the notable exception, as is the Fire/Rescue dispatch channel. But you can still hear HCFR operations traffic. Murrells Inlet Garden City FD has access to both the Horry County system as well as Palmetto 800, and they use the appropriate system for calls in each county.

Horry County Trunking System, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina

Horry County Trunking System Profile

www.radioreference.com

Georgetown County public safety exclusively uses Palmetto 800, and is almost entirely in the clear at this time.

Because I like more granular control of what I listen to at any given time, I would set up 3 separate trunked systems in my scanner - one for Horry County TRS, one for Palmetto 800 Horry County, and one for Palmetto 800 Georgetown County. Add talkgroups of interest to each system as preferred. Assign each to different banks/scan lists/favorites list quick keys. I would put Palmetto 800 sites for each county in each respective system - Georgetown County has only one site; Horry County's TRS has only one site; and Palmetto 800 for Horry County has 3 sites - Myrtle Beach, Conway, and North Myrtle Beach. You could consider omitting/locking out/avoiding any of those three sites that cover areas you never visit.

Note that there is a simulcast subsite for the Palmetto 800 Georgetown site in southern Horry County - in the community of Burgess not far from Garden City. So the southern area of Horry will actually be covered by the Georgetown site.

Aside from SC Highway Patrol, you won't hear a lot on Palmetto 800 in Horry County. You'll occasionally hear some channels from adjacent Counties, or from agencies like SCEMD, or SC DPH, and maybe some public transport channels. You'll probably hear some medical helicopter channels while they're active in the Horry County area.

Let me know if you have specific questions.

I'm actually very happy with the Horry system, it's what I listen to mostly since for some reason I can't get the Palmetto 800 right now! I have a BCD325P2 with a rubber ducky and just want to get the most out of it

 

[brian]

Do you have the Palmetto 800 system added to a favorites list? Or are you scanning full database using location control?

You just have to make sure the correct sites are enabled, and you're not trying to scan all ~100 sites in the state. If you use sentinel for programming, and add one department (ie, SCHP Troop 5) to a favorites list, then it adds every site in the state to the system. You need to avoid or delete all of the sites that aren't in range.

This shows the relative locations of the three Horry County sites. And keep in mind there is a subsite of the Georgetown site down between Socasteee and Garden City that isn't shown but is active.

 

[jaymatt1978]

I am actually in Murrells Inlet and have both the Georgetown and Myrtle beach sites in the scanner and nothing

 

[jaymatt1978]

UPDATE: I GOT IT WORKING@!!

 

[dkscism]

Are Greenville county Sherriff and Greenville City PD encrypted?

 

[KMG54]

Are Greenville county Sherriff and Greenville City PD encrypted?

Mostly open, some TAC channels are encrypted though.

 

[FireLite]

Trying to get some help as It looks like I have no idea what I am doing. Have not had a scanner since everything was analog. I just bought a BCD436HP and dont really have a clue. I entered my zip code and was able to pick up HP. but not county sheriff & ems. Went to youtube and downloaded Sentinel, added newberry County as a fav. & saved to SD card. The scanner now scans the departments in the county that I want but never makes a sound. Can someone tell me what I am doing wrong?

 

[tvengr]

Trying to get some help as It looks like I have no idea what I am doing. Have not had a scanner since everything was analog. I just bought a BCD436HP and dont really have a clue. I entered my zip code and was able to pick up HP. but not county sheriff & ems. Went to youtube and downloaded Sentinel, added newberry County as a fav. & saved to SD card. The scanner now scans the departments in the county that I want but never makes a sound. Can someone tell me what I am doing wrong?

It would help to know your city or town to determine the best site or sites. Are you in Newberry County? The Newberry County site is simulcast which may be your issue. Please export and attach your favorites list so we can take a look at it and check for problems. Go to the File tab in Sentinel and click on Export to hpe file (Favorites List). You will need to zip the exported file to be able to attach it. Click on Attach files and open the zipped file.

 

[brian]

Trying to get some help as It looks like I have no idea what I am doing. Have not had a scanner since everything was analog. I just bought a BCD436HP and dont really have a clue. I entered my zip code and was able to pick up HP. but not county sheriff & ems. Went to youtube and downloaded Sentinel, added newberry County as a fav. & saved to SD card. The scanner now scans the departments in the county that I want but never makes a sound. Can someone tell me what I am doing wrong?

To add a little more context to the post above, Newberry County public safety agencies use the Palmetto 800 P25 trunked radio system for their communications. The primary site for this system which covers Newberry County uses simulcast technology. This is significant because most consumer scanners struggle to reliably receive and decode transmissions from simulcast sites, and that includes the 436. Your specific location relative to the transmission towers and your antenna have a great effect on the performance of your scanner. So, you may have things programmed correctly and are just in a bad spot. Some trial and error are required to see if you can get things to work.

One suggestion is to consider monitoring a different site. I pasted a screenshot of the site map below. If you're toward the southern and eastern end of Newberry County, try monitoring the Little Mountain site. If you're more toward the North and West, try monitoring the Joanna site. If you're far west, try the Chappells site. These three sites are NOT simulcast and you're scanner won't struggle nearly as bad with decoding. The downside is that these sites might not carry all of the Newberry County-related radio traffic that you're most interested in all of the time, or even some of the time. Monitoring each site to see what radio traffic is carried is the only way to know if one of those sites will work better.

Aside from that, you can tinker with different antenna options (less antenna is likely better than more antenna), move the scanner around your location to find a sweet spot (sometimes a few inches one way or another will help), or return the 436 and get an SDS100 or 200. These are the only scanners currently made that support reliable decoding of P25 simulcast systems.

Also, if you added the conventional (VHF and UHF) channels into your favorites list, you won't hear much on those channels anymore now that most agencies have migrated to Palmetto 800. The VHF fire dispatch channel likely still carries initial tone-out and dispatches (I don't know that for certain as I'm not local) but not much else.

Feel free to post more details of your situation and we can provide more specific guidance.

 

[FireLite]

Thank you for the replies. The information is very helpful to a point. I actually have been able to pick up some County traffic after following some info from another youtube video, Just nothing from fire or EMS yet. I also found that I get more when outside vs inside, I'm sure that is antenna related.
I am located at the very northern part of the county at the Union county line in Whitmire.

I have also been trying to figure out how to set all of Palmetto 800 as a favorite that way I can turn off sites that I dont want to hear and turn on sites that I want to hear, but not able to get that figured out just yet.

I don't understand the whole simulcast technology thing but from the answers I have gotten I guess this is a large part of my problem.
You said the SDS100 & 200 are the only scanners currently made that support reliable decoding of P25 simulcast systems. I was looking at the SDS150 due to the built in wifi and simulcast decoding. Is my info wrong? Or are the other two just better at it?

What antenna choices would you recommend for the best overall results. I'm sure none would be perfect for everything.

Thanks again for the help

 

[DanRollman]

I don't understand the whole simulcast technology thing but from the answers I have gotten I guess this is a large part of my problem. You said the SDS100 & 200 are the only scanners currently made that support reliable decoding of P25 simulcast systems. I was looking at the SDS150 due to the built in wifi and simulcast decoding. Is my info wrong? Or are the other two just better at it?

What antenna choices would you recommend for the best overall results. I'm sure none would be perfect for everything.

The SDS150 is the best scanner you can get for this purpose - it is a newer, better version of the SDS100. But the SDS100 would work too because it too is designed for monitoring P25 simulcast systems even if it lacks a few of the features that the new SDS150 has. (Note that the SDS150 doesn't have wifi, but it does have Bluetooth and GPS, which the SDS100 doesn't have built in.) If you can afford an SDS150, that's currently the best consumer-grade scanner you can get for monitoring P25 simulcast systems.

In terms of 700/800 MHz antennas, at least for handheld scanners, it's pretty universally accepted that the Remtronix REM-820S is the way to go.

 

[FireLite]

The SDS150 is the best scanner you can get for this purpose - it is a newer, better version of the SDS100. But the SDS100 would work too because it too is designed for monitoring P25 simulcast systems even if it lacks a few of the features that the new SDS150 has. (Note that the SDS150 doesn't have wifi, but it does have Bluetooth and GPS, which the SDS100 doesn't have built in.) If you can afford an SDS150, that's currently the best consumer-grade scanner you can get for monitoring P25 simulcast systems.

In terms of 700/800 MHz antennas, at least for handheld scanners, it's pretty universally accepted that the Remtronix REM-820S is the way to go.

Thank you for the reply and the info about the SDS150 and the antenna. I will look into the one you recommended.

My mistake about the wifi, I meant built in GPS and was talking about wifi to someone while typing.

At this point I will be returning the 436 and getting the SDS150 even though it sure is pricey.

I'm sure I will be back asking for even more help when the new one gets here.

 

[shajoe44]

Sounds like SCHP Troop 2 is being dispatched out of Columbia. Dispatch use to ID themselves as "Greenwood". Now I am hearing them ID themselves as "Columbia". I know this is for the Counties of Edgefield, McCormick and Saluda.

 

[c4181]

They seem to be downsizing communications again. Charleston is gone now too but I don't know how long ago that happened. I don't actively monitor as much as I used to. Just Blythewood, Greenville, and Florence now.

Telecommunications Unit | SCDPS

scdps.sc.gov

 

[shajoe44]

They seem to be downsizing communications again. Charleston is gone now too but I don't know how long ago that happened. I don't actively monitor as much as I used to. Just Blythewood, Greenville, and Florence now.

Telecommunications Unit | SCDPS

scdps.sc.gov

The "Columbia" ID is also being used for Troop 7.

 

[brian]

This strategy of a single consolidated dispatch center for state agencies makes sense, right? There's not technical reason why dispatchers need to be physically proximate to the troopers (or any other state agency) they're supporting. It used to be, when they were on low band, that the dispatch center was close to the local radio transmitter. Palmetto 800 made that requirement obsolete many years ago. Later on, it was useful to have dispatchers will knowledge of their local areas and roads, and maybe that's still true to certain extent. But modern CAD and mapping systems and GPS have reduced the importance of that factor. This seems to me to be a logical change that likely streamlines operations and saves money.

 

[beanball14]

anybody know anthing going on in Dorchester County? They all of a sudden went silent on my unit.

 

[drainpipe592]

anybody know anthing going on in Dorchester County? They all of a sudden went silent on my unit.

Dorchester Fire/EMS went encrypted yesterday.

 

[brian]

I'm hearing talkgroup 27827 active in the Upstate. ID'd in the database as SC Forestry Roam. This is the first time I've heard it active. The vast majority of their comms are on VHF and they're quite active.

 

[mrat1234]

Brian both forestry talk groups I verified. They will occasionally say the channel name over the air. I also got a chance to visit a forestry site and they had both BK vhf portables/Mobiles as well as Motorola 800 portables/Mobiles. The 800 side is mostly for forestry law enforcement and high ranking units/personal and I noticed the uptake in 800 use since the fires and burn ban went in effect with multiple forestry units on Forestry Roam 27827 talking about a few unauthorized burns that had been reported and if they had their personal checking on it. Sounded like unit chiefs or some sort of supervisors. And an interesting thing I found out is their ops talk group 27626 is locked to the Richland county site. I found this out by being allowed to look at a few portables and at the time I was their the 800 radios were xts2500’s. I’d imagine they have apx’s now. The site lock I discovered by hitting the site search button on the radio and it would only allow affiliation on “RICH SIML” and obviously the roam talkgroup can use any site. Also, if you search on Google there are a few pics of forestry radio techs with xts2500’s on the desk with a tuner.

In my monitoring it appears all 3 forestry dispatch centers monitor 27827 Forestry Roam and when a unit calls on 800 they will call xxxx dispatch unit xxx on 800. My latest transmission heard was protection 6 calling coastal dispatch. They have Pee Dee Dispatch, Coastal Dispatch and Piedmont Dispatch.