Programming DC fire/police in the digital scanners

[ka3jjz]

It's been so long I had completely forgotten about this. This is for BC250, 296, 785, 796, PRO 96 and 2096 owners. The Capitol Hill Monitors have ARC250 and Win96 files for the DC area - indeed I also saw files that had (almost) everything from the 2005 Inauguration - here;

http://henney.com/chm/files/ARCbackup/

http://henney.com/chm/files/p96files/

These files are very old and will need updating (Particularly the DC police, which have some new UHF freqs and one offset that we didn't have back then). Remember that anything ending in .zip will need to be uncompressed using WinZip or similar before the file is usable.

When Alan comes out with the updates, you will be somewhat ahead of the game. All you will need to do is to apply whatever changed 73 Mike

 

[rdballenger]

Best way to organize DC trunked system

I now have the two DC systems segregated into two separate scanlists, and have only linked the fire TG's with the 800 system and the police with the 450 system. The idea is so I can exclude all the police action when I want to hear fire and EMS and vice versa.

The problem is my wildcards which will allow the police talk to come into the fire talkgroup and vice versa. If I do a lockout it will lockout that TG for both scanlists, correct? Is the solution simply to keep locking out and then power off and on the unit so that the temporary lockouts are erased?

 

[rdale]

Make two wildcards, one for each scanlist, so they won't interfere when you LO.

 

[Kumba]

The images for ARC396 look off to me. I don't have options to set these steps and base config frequencies in my copy of ARC396Pro. I did program in the DC systems separately, and I've been able to tune them in fine at the office while working. Does the newer ARC396 software handle this automatically, or am I still missing something, and maybe only picking up sporadic bits and not everything?

I used Motorola Standard 800MHz for both, I believe, but punched in the 46x.xx frequencies for the police system. Picked up chatter, so I figured it worked. Wrong approach?

Edit: Think I figured it out. I added DC Police as MOT2 800MHz Standard originally. Why I still picked up chatter is beyond me. I might be confusing that with Fire...but we'll see. Also tried out freescan...wasn't sure where in ARC396 to go to edit the specialized freqs for DC Police. Freescan's got some changes to their input controls, but it was easy to find things.

 

[rdale]

Delete. Wrong thread.

 

[shelbin]

I have been trying for over one year to program List #1 DC fire and ems. Unfortunately, no luck!! Can anyone else help?

Shelbin@attorney-cpa.com

 

[ka3jjz]

More specifics - like what scanner you've been trying to program 'for over a year' - are needed, as well as if you are doing this by hand or with a program. If memory serves, the 800 mhz fire freqs are the easiest to program - it's the 400 mhz UHF police side that gets tricky. 73 Mike

 

[ka3jjz]

We could stand some updates on the object oriented scanners and how to program them for the DC 400 mhz system - this wiki article is very light in that department, and it's been long enough now that most of the tricks should be known and well understood. With the tourist season starting up again shortly, it should be a timely - and easy - thing to fix...

Programming the MPDC in Digital Scanners - The RadioReference Wiki

73 and thanks to all that contribute...Mike

 

[kiloheavy]

No help programming, but a working P500 file ...

Just swapped out a RS PRO-164 for a PRO-106 scanner (went digital, in other words) and the unit (which appeared to have been unopened) had DC area frequencies pre-programmed. I'm not sure if this is a preset of some kind, something in nonvolatile RAM, or what. DC Fire is on scan list one, DC Police is on scan list two. The only thing I did was change the alpha tags.

Either it's a quiet night for DC Fire/EMS, or that first scan list isn't quite right. DC Police is just as busy as you'd expect, though. Some of the other pre-programmed scan lists were incorrect when compared against current RR downloads, so that may be likely.

Rename the file to have a .p500 extension and you should be able to load it into Win500.

I'd be happy to answer any questions, but I'm new to scanner monitoring (long time SWL), and a relative idiot when it comes to programming and this unit in particular.

 

[cpetraglia]

DC 400&800 Moto systems

I made this easy for the GRE600 by using the 800 frequencies for both. They are simulcast. Upload the 800 freqs with the police TGs only in one scan list and the 800 Freqs with the FD&EMS in another.
Seems to be working perfectly for me. I get a much stronger signal on teh 800 in Fx. City anyway.
Let us know how it works.

Chuck

 

[Dewey]

I made this easy for the GRE600 by using the 800 frequencies for both. They are simulcast. Upload the 800 freqs with the police TGs only in one scan list and the 800 Freqs with the FD&EMS in another.
Seems to be working perfectly for me. I get a much stronger signal on teh 800 in Fx. City anyway.
Let us know how it works.

Chuck

Yes, this will work, especially if you can not receive the UHF system, however, keep this in mind... 800 is not the "home" system for PD, so what you are hearing is the patches. While I can not think of any reason to unplug the patches since they have been going since the Inauguration, they are not guaranteed. Also, since the 800 system is not the home system for PD, you are missing the tac channels, the unencrypted SOD channels, and the channels on Zone C and below.

Dewey

 

[ResQguy]

They are not patched per-se, they are simulcast on two sites in a smartzone that just happens to cover the same geographic area. If the last subscriber sitting on an MPD talkgroup on 800MHz unaffiliates, there goes your listening.

 

[cpetraglia]

Mpd

I had a feeling there was a bit more to it than I mentioned. DC is so busy, you have to listen for some time to figure it all out. I ordered a 460 high gain Yagi to dedicate to MPD. Thanks for the elevated expertise from you guys.

Chuck

 

[ka3jjz]

We could stand some updates on the object oriented scanners and how to program them for the DC 400 mhz system - this wiki article is very light in that department, and it's been long enough now that most of the tricks should be known and well understood. With the tourist season starting up again shortly, it should be a timely - and easy - thing to fix...

Programming the MPDC in Digital Scanners - The RadioReference Wiki

73 and thanks to all that contribute...Mike

bump this up...we could stand some pix for ARC500, Win500 and PSREdit500 - they're the big 3 in this category

73 Mike

 

[sffire]

Well, I am a couple of days late on this request but I have leaving for Washington DC/Arlington in the morning. I am in San Francisco. Our stuff here is on analog trunking systems. What does DC and the surrounding Fire departments use in the Washington/Arlington DC area. I don't know what types of radio system you use. Moto type II P25? P25 digital XT? I will be staying in Arlington so what can I pick up for fire stuff. I will be buying a Uniden BCD396XT I hope.

 

[ka3jjz]

You really should have come here sooner - with so little time it's going to be hard to help.

You should go to the Virginia forum for Arlington stuff, but for DC - assuming all you want to hear is fire/ems stuff - define your system as a Mot Type II/P25 and the site as Mot 800 Mhz Standard(Type II). If you use Freescan, you should be able to use EZ Grab to pull the frequencies and talkgroups that you want. Remember to use control channel only, and only grab the blue/red frequencies. It will save you memory space.

best regards..Mike

 

[ResQguy]

Everything in the region is 7/800 trunked and most are digital.

DC 800 Type 2 Digital
MoCo 800 Type 2 Digital
Alex 800 Type 2 Digital
Arlington 800 P25 Phase 1
Fairfax 800 Type 2 Digital
PG 7/800 P25 Phase 1 & X2
MWAA 800 Type 2 Digital

 

[rescue674aa]

DC

I was wondering what I should program in my scanner. I just want to listen to fire dept disp and tacs

 

[beastieboy101]

I was wondering what I should program in my scanner. I just want to listen to fire dept disp and tacs

What I have in my psr-500 is just the DC Motorola Type II 850mhz simulcast TRS CC's. No need for the Police 460mhz CC's.
Depending on the scanner you are using you may have to manually enter the Custom Frequency Tables for this TRS.

DC Fire Dept coming in great right now from the DC Navy Yard area.