PWRN/PPD - Latest Info? Downloads?

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mesocyclone

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Nov 5, 2005
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111
Location
Phoenix, AZ
I have a 996 and have been trying to monitor PPD for months. It's pretty useless. I am located about 1.5 mi NW of Camelback Mountain's head at 1600' and have line of site to east Mesa/AJ. I have a line of sight to South Mountain, but no line of site to anything else in Phoenix.

Trying to receive PPD is driving me nuts (thank goodness Paradise Valley is still on analog) - same with PFD/RFD.

Questions:
1) Are there already-loadable PPD databases for the 996T for Phoenix? If so, where?
2) I saw some mention of adjacent channel interference. Does anyone know if it is truly adjacent channel (which cannot be filtered out and which is rarely helped by attenuators), or if it is intermodulation (which can be helped by attenuators) or de-sense - caused by strong signals not necessarily nearby? I have a pile of RS 2004-2006's, and they all suffered 30db de-sense from S Mtn (pagers and broadcast) which could be eliminated with a combination of a Grove filter and attenuator.
3) If I am going mobile in Phoenix, any recommendations?
4) Are there plans to create loadable databases - perhaps in the wiki? A database in Comma Separated Values (csv) format (such as Excel likes to import) would be great - it wouldn't be hard to write scripts to convert these into various other formats.
5) I get a lot of choppy conversations. Is there an equivalent of a squelch or something to take out the more marginal ones? Does the squelch knob do anyting in P-25 mode?
6) Are there other useful sites/forums for this?

Thanks

Frustrated near Phoenix

Meso
 

KE7VJW

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Premium Subscriber
Joined
Aug 3, 2004
Messages
60
Location
Tucson, AZ
Go to the yahoo group arizonascanner. You should find help there. Check the files section for 996 files.
 

aar9sm

Member
Joined
Sep 10, 2006
Messages
109
Phoenix

What contol channels are you using? Do you have it set to Id search or scan? Is it programmed to P25? I live in Surprise area and get them fine on my 396 with the stock antenna.

Mike
 

K7TKR

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Dec 19, 2002
Messages
258
Location
Based in Phoenix, Arizona
Just to answer your questions about downloading a database for the Phoenix area. If you are using ARC996pro/basic and are a PREMIUM MEMBER of RadioReference, you can download both trunked and conventional data into your 996.

Although I would also highly recomend the Southwest Frequency Directory as well.

73

Mark
 
M

mormandy

Guest
Reception near Camelback Mountain

You should be able to get a great signal from North Mountain. You just need ONLY the frequencies from Simulcast A. Don't put the others in. Put up the 25$ Radio Shack rooftop antenna if you can with 9913 cable. For portable scanning, I prefer the BCD396T with Seeker 800mhz antenna, or Antennex 800mhz antenna (hard to find now) which both do great. The seeker does better with other bands though than the antennex. If you put in frequencies from other simulcasts, or intellirepeaters, it will screw things up. After all of this though, keep in mind many like myself still have problems with the tx's breaking up and coming in garbled at times. I have done a great deal of testing with the 996, 396, and pro96, and they all suffer from the same issue to some extent, good luck.
 
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