Roseville, Placer County Sheriff P25 - Phase 1 or 2?

[brumey]

Hello:
I am listenting to Roseville PD on a Uniden 536. I also have a Uniden HomePatrol that I just started using again. Both radio's have the same favorite list contecnts but the HomePatrol seems deaf on Roseville. I know the HP1 is Apco Phase 1 only. Does this mead that ROseville is on Phase 2 or am I missing something?

I'll be testing again with Placer County Sheriff which I thought was moving to Phase II but are listed in RR as Phase 1.

Basically I am trying to find out if my HP1 is of use to me or if its faulty.

Thanks.......

 

[mcjones2013]

Both the Placer County VHF P25 system and the Roseville 800 MHz P25 system are running Phase 1 talk groups only.

What is the general location from where you are scanning?

 

[brumey]

Location is almost 2000' elevation east of Auburn on the I80 corridor. Discone in attic with a unity gain x4 splitter so both radios are theoretically getting the same signal. Can get Sac P25 from inside house on SDS-100. Clear views to south west and east. Its good to know that Sac, Roseville, and Placer are on Phase 1 still.

I was hoping to make more use of the HomePatrol 1 as its just been sitting. I go in and out of the monitoring hobby but as I have a new SDS-100, I am back into it for a while. The HP1 has the Extreme upgrade so I was hoping to get some use from it.

I see your signature tag line. Nice setup. I have an SDRPlay using SDRUno. I hope to load up a few SDR Trunking applications that might use the SDRPlay hardware.

Thanks for your response. I'll have to do a little more testing next week.

 

[gmclam]

All phase I (so far); Placer P25 (VHF) comes in great from everywhere I've monitored. Roseville P25 not so much. It's not just good enough any more to have a good signal, but that there's nothing else on a frequency "close by" (including multicast or image frequencies). You might even try attenuating the signal.

 

[jonwienke]

The HomePatrols choke on the slightest sign of simulcast.

 

[brumey]

Thanks for everyone's comments. I think its probably time to sell or just use the HomePatrol1 for conventional.

 

[sacscan]

I have a Home Patrol 1 that I use here in Sacramento, and it works great on SRRCS P25. I can't receive Roseville or the new P25 Placer County system here, so I can't test that.

 

[brumey]

Okay, I found the problem, actually two issue that componded to make troubleshooting difficult. My setup includes a Uniden HP1, 536 and a new SDS-100. When I got the SDS-100 I thought I'd compare the performance to see if it lived up to its reviews. During testing, I noticed that I could receive Roseville Police on the SDS-100 but not on the home patrol. I could get Local Placer P25 on the HP1 so it was not completelly deaf.

Then, during the testing and a lot of new favorite lists being loaded on the SDS-100 and 536, I found the 536 was not receiving Roseville or Sac P.25. This threw me a curveball as I know the 536 was working just fine previously.

I eventually found the Range setting on the 536 was down to 1 mile or something crazy low. Great, two of three scanner working. Further testing confirmed the HP1 was indeed deaf and only receiving very local stuff. This was after testing antenna's, unity gain splitter, etc.

I thought I'd sell the scanner but, if its faulty, I don't want to sell something that will come back. I decided to disassemble the HP1. I had a clue from a few other posts that said they found a bad connection on the SMA to he board in the radio. I dug in,using pics I found here - Uniden HomePatrol-1.

The Radio input is on a lowe board so you have to disassemble everything to get to the board. Once out, the connection from the center pin on the SMA to a pin on the board was broken and altogether a crappy joint. The inner nut was also loose which probably contributed to the broken joint. I resoldered it as best I could. I sucked the old solder off and applied new. Its not the best connection becaue it seems the small pins were not accepting the solder but I got it done.

Reassembly and I can now get Sac and Roseville at full streghth and use the Extreme features on the HP1.

I hope this helps others because it seems to be a common problem.

 

[sacscan]

Glad you got it working again! BTW, kgowen44 and I did extensive testing last night of the receive sensitivity between my BCD325P2 and his BCD436HP and SDS-100. The SDS-100 was the only radio that was almost completely immune to cell tower interference. We drove through all the worst areas for that (Stockton & Southwest, Gerber & Wilbur, Cap City Freeway between Arden & El Camino, etc.). My 325 was absolutely terrible, with zero P25 reception and weak analog. The 436 was a bit better but still went deaf around cell towers. The SDS-100 never seem to skip a beat!

Needless to say I retired my 325 from handheld to base use and am now using my own 436. I'm also saving up for a SDS-100.