Philly police sporadic

[Depmodeche]

Hello everyone,

My BCD436HP works great for monitoring Bucks and Montco, but Philly police is sporadic. I drive all over the city of Philadelphia during the day so it can't be a location problem. The scanner will be picking up all Philly police traffic for maybe twenty minutes or half an hour and then go silent for 20 minutes or half an hour, and often much longer. Some days I turn it on and hear nothing for several hours and then suddenly everything will be coming in fine.

Firmware and database are updated regularly.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[Septa3371CSX1]

This system uses LSM. I've had issues myself with my Pro 106 and a little less with my Pro 668. Best bet would be to lower the squelch and see if it helps bring in the signal any better - I had to do that with my 106.

 

[w3nrl]

also Philly is run low power to their system and umbrella in philly area difficult to scan

 

[Depmodeche]

Thanks for the help. I didn't think a BCD436HP had a squelch when monitoring digital systems. And I don't quite understand the low power comment.

Thanks!

 

[phillydjdan]

Actually, fellas, I do not believe the umbrella comment is true. I am able to pickup the Philly system from Levittown to Rt 476 on a real portable, and was able to pick it up from Doylestown on a real mobile. I highly doubt that would be possible with the system antennas pointed in towards each other. In comparison, other trunking systems that I've received using the same equipment produced similar results. I have not noticed much of a difference at all between ranges of similar systems. You are right that the scanners cannot properly pickup LSM modulation, and that IS the problem here. Trying to use a consumer scanner to receive this system just won't work very well. Several of us have tried everything we could think of to make it work. The only solid results any of us got was to use a directional "yagi" antenna pointed at one tower site to isolate the signal to one source. But since you are mobile, that really wouldn't work for you. I've also had limited success using a short "stubby" antenna. It looks like the stock BNC antenna for a portable scanner, only its a mere 1 inch long. The goal here is to reduce the receiver's strength so that two simulcast sources are not fighting it out.