PennDot - Bucks County

[joeyperillo]

Big snow day(s) - being E'd out of local LE traffic I was hoping to content myself with tuning into the excitement of state snow removal.....what am I doing wrong? Loaded PennDot ALL and Bucks County from Sentinel....nothing....either they took the day off or I'm doing something wrong - any help would be appreciated......

 

[trentbob]

I'm not sure Joey but I think they may be on the new state system. Let me look around and see. Someone did send me some information the last time it snowed. Let me look for it.

 

[joeyperillo]

Thanks so much, Bob. Sure is a sad state (county) of affairs these days.....

 

[hippieman556]

i did hear from psp on the old vhf last night talking about plows

 

[u2brent]

PENNDOT are on the new P25 in SEPA.

PA-STARNet: Pennsylvania Statewide Radio Network Trunking System, Statewide, Pennsylvania

PA-STARNet: Pennsylvania Statewide Radio Network Trunking System Profile

www.radioreference.com

Make sure only the sites local to you are active/enabled..

 

[joeyperillo]

mille grazie!

 

[hippieman556]

PENNDOT are on the new P25 in SEPA.

PA-STARNet: Pennsylvania Statewide Radio Network Trunking System, Statewide, Pennsylvania

PA-STARNet: Pennsylvania Statewide Radio Network Trunking System Profile

www.radioreference.com

Make sure only the sites local to you are active/enabled..

how do you go about making sure it's active /enabled

 

[u2brent]

If using an FL avoid all sites beyond your normal range, or use location control. On the link above click the county header on the sites to sort the ones in Bucks, Montco. Those are your best bet to pick up Bucks Co.. BUCK33 vhf is your best bet, but they do use the 800 sites of which Bucks also has 2 of those..

 

[phillydjdan]

Can confirm that all PennDOT plow crews have migrated to the new PA StarNet system. The issue maybe that you aren't within range of a site. Tune the local CCs and make sure you are getting a signal at all. I know the lower end of the County is a huge dead spot for the state system due to its design. It's meant for mobile coverage, not portable, and the lower end is served either by Buckingham or Willow Grove, which is a long shot for a scanner. When I am in Bensalem I don't even get the state system on my APX portable in many spots.

 

[hippieman556]

If using an FL avoid all sites beyond your normal range, or use location control. On the link above click the county header on the sites to sort the ones in Bucks, Montco. Those are your best bet to pick up Bucks Co..

i am using sds100 and the software

 

[joeyperillo]

Can confirm that all PennDOT plow crews have migrated to the new PA StarNet system. The issue maybe that you aren't within range of a site. Tune the local CCs and make sure you are getting a signal at all. I know the lower end of the County is a huge dead spot for the state system due to its design. It's meant for mobile coverage, not portable, and the lower end is served either by Buckingham or Willow Grove, which is a long shot for a scanner. When I am in Bensalem I don't even get the state system on my APX portable in many spots.

Thanks to all of you - it turns out I was in fat monitoring the STARNET Bucks TGs.....I will assume that since I heard nothing at all it is because I'm out of range - still using indoor stick antenna......

 

[phillydjdan]

Tune each CC manually and see if any signal pops up at all

 

[trentbob]

I was doing screenshots of it all but I wasn't fast enough, look in the database. Bucks has three sites, a handful talkgroups.

 

[hippieman556]

could you have it setup using sentinel software

 

[phillydjdan]

Joey's location will likely hit on the Buckingham VHF and 800 sites. Make sure you scan both sites! They use dual band radios, so conversation may occur on either site. Not likely to pickup Willow Grove or the upper Bucks sites from there...

 

[trentbob]

Joey try this frequency, might be fruitful.

 

[joeyperillo]

Tune each CC manually and see if any signal pops up at all

nothing.....

 

[joeyperillo]

I put all the primary and secondary frequencies for PennDot Buckingham including VHF and this Newtown PW frequency in QUICK SAVE SYSTEM and scanning it - nothing happening but more to the point - is this what I should do - and if I had a better antenna situation it should work?

 

[trentbob]

I would think Buckingham would work but with your location using the stock antenna we have spoken about other things that should have been banging in from Jersey and they weren't.

To be honest Joey listening to the plows is pretty boring business unless you have the coordination of the police identifying slick spots, then notifying DOT who then contacts the plows. I like to know the situational awareness of roads that are not passable but of course we would need the police for that.

 

[joeyperillo]

I would think Buckingham would work but with your location using the stock antenna we have spoken about other things that should have been banging in from Jersey and they weren't.

To be honest Joey listening to the plows is pretty boring business unless you have the coordination of the police identifying slick spots, then notifying DOT who then contacts the plows. I like to know the situational awareness of roads that are not passable but of course we would need the police for that.

agreed - the good news is I get DOT and LE in parts of the other places, much more interesting.....just wondered why I got nothing - btw, re the other issue: using a racing stubby made all the difference even though it's T band.....go figure