Rochelle police have switched to the starcom system. I have been wanting to listen in and I have not been able to for over a year. I have asked them to provide an official feed and I always get the response they will bring it but it never seems to be. How do I go about listening in to them? Is anyone able to provide a feed to listen in? If no one can provide a feed what do I need to listen in?
Rochelle police feed.
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doctordialtone
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Feeds are provided by Volunteers.
If nobody wants to volunteer in the area - you'll need a scanner and need to be close enough to receive them.
What type of scanner or radio would I need to get. I have the info from Rochelle Site Details (STARCOM21 Statewide Illinois) but I am completely lost as to what to do with the info.
The best scanner for feeds is probably the BCD996P2. Not only does it work on the P25 system they use there but it has a record jack that provides a constant level of audio to feed your computer. This allows you to change the volume control of the scanner without affecting the feed.
You could do it with a cheaper SDR but the setup is more difficult and the scanner is a "set it up once and forget it" type thing.
You could do it with a cheaper SDR but the setup is more difficult and the scanner is a "set it up once and forget it" type thing.
doctordialtone
Member
Well where are you? it's not listed? You might be too far away? You need a P25 capable digital scanner to hear them on Starcom21. Talkgroup 1829. I'd always include the old conventional analog frequencies as back up too when programming. Any phase 1 digital scanner can get them
for now.
for now.
I live 3 miles from the police station just outside of Rochelle. The old analog frequencies are never transmitted on from what I can tell. 5 days on 155.550 and no traffic at all on it. I can get the traffic from the Global 3 intermodal yard where I work just find from my house. I was thinking about putting up a feed if allowed so people can hear the yard if that is something railfans would want.
Might want to confirm you don't have any simulcast distortion at your location. Looking at that site info, it appears you might have issues with the 996P2.
I was out testing Dekalb Co's new 700Mhz Sheriff system a 3 months ago with my Unication G5pager. I was also using my old, OLD 2004 Radio Shack Pro96 and getting all the Starcom21 stuff perfectly. My newer Whistler WS1080? ... nothing. ..just terrible. The suggestions the others gave you will work. A dedicated yagi antenna will work for most all scanners you get.
Which site? The Rochelle site isn't simulcast, the 996 should do fine on it. Only issue that I remember from the last time I was out that way is the control channel isn't listed in the database, but once I found and added it it worked fine with the 396 I have in my truck.
The area is surrounded by simulcast sites and that's why I made the suggestion. As we know, site reception is dependent upon location which might explain your results. He's waited this long, figure getting together with someone from the area with a similar scanner might not be a bad idea.
How would I combat "simalcast" I'm not exactly sure what that is.
I would like more info on the sdr option. I can get them for 20 bucks a pop. And I know I need 2 of them.
Like Rich said, SDRs are more flexible but have a bit of a learning curve at first. If you go that route, get the Fast Lane version of DSD+, it's worth the $25 for lifetime updates sent to your email. You can use FMP24 (packed in with DSD+) and DSD+ to track everything StarCom with no problem at all. Sometime in the latest versions of DSD+ Fast Lane they added a one SDR tracking option, meaning if it catches voice traffic it'll switch to listen to it and then switch back to the control channel after it clears: on a site with a lot of traffic you'll miss some traffic, but on a slower site it should do just fine. It'll also let you hold on to a single talkgroup so you only get traffic for a specific thing. DSD+ Fast Lane will also follow Phase II, which if you wanted to listen to DeKalb County you'd need. Also, if you want to listen to anything else besides StarCom, I'd go with an actual scanner, in my experience it's much much easier that way.
Don't worry about it. If you go up towards Rockford or wanted to listen to the DeKalb County system you would need to deal with it, but just for the Rochelle site it won't be an issue. DSD+ handles simulcast pretty well also, at least the Fast Lane version does. I haven't used the regular DSD+ release in a long time so I don't remember how it does with it.
And the broadcast software will be compatible with this type of setup? Thank you for the information!
It should work. You'll need to install what's called a virtual cable and then just have DSD+ put its output to the virtual cable input and the streaming software set to use the virtual cable output for your audio. Maybe someone more familiar with the streaming software could shed more light on that, but I don't see why it wouldn't work as long as your computer has enough processing power to run everything at once.
I cannot seem to find the control channel for the Rochelle PD. I am using sdr sharp dsd+ and sdtunk but I am not having any luck figuring this thing out. Could anyone provide some help in this? I am very frustrated with all of this currently.
Did you try 853.1625? Whatever the current control channel is is not listed in the database as a control channel, I remember that much. It's been a few months since I've been out that way but I think that's the frequency it was using.
that is what I currently have it sd trunker running right now. with phase 1 p25 decoding. I don't have to have the other frequencies monitered with that do I?
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