Pinal & Cochise County reception in Tucson?

[oracavon]

It looks like I may be moving (back) to Tucson, and I have a collection of old crystal scanners that I like to listen to. I know that most of the Pima County agencies are now on PCWIN, but I'm wondering how easy or difficult it is to pick up agencies from Pinal and Cochise counties in the Tucson area. I would expect some problems in the central and east areas of the city due to the mountains, but what about the northwest (Marana), southwest (Ajo & Kinney) and Southeast (Vail) areas?

 

[KE7VJW]

Hi,

I am on the Northwest side and I get good reception with my PRO-106 with a outside discone antenna for Pinal and Santa Cruz (most all is encrypted now). Cochise County is blocked from my location by mountains, but there is a Mt. Lemmon repeater for the CCSO and I have heard them on it.

A friend in Vail gets reception with a indoor antenna into Maricopa County, Pinal, Cochise.

Reference PCWIN I would wait until there are more scanners on the market for that system, the current ones work, but not great.

Good luck,

Jim

 

[oracavon]

Thanks for the info. It will be quite a while before I get there, so there will be more radios available to choose from by then. I already have a couple of 996XT radios, but they only do P25 phase 1, so I'll eventually need to get a phase 2 radio. But as I say, it will be a while, so there's no rush.

Thanks again.

 

[FLANO]

I live in the Vail area, and have varying degrees of success with just a handheld for Pinal County. Cochise I hear without real problems. Santa Cruz has a mountain in the way, so not heard very often at all. As noted, some encryption is starting to creep in from down south

In my area, the current radios do not handle the PCWIN simulcast sites very well at all. I have a lot of garble interference, even in the "sweet spot". The PCWIN stand-alone sites are all clear, and I can pickup the Confidence Peak repeater, which is to the west of Marana.

You should have fairly decent reception with all around the Tucson area. As expected, with varying degrees of hearability for the other county assets.

 

[oracavon]

Thanks, FLANO. I appreciate hearing from everyone that can give me a clue what to expect.