Scanning South Dakota P25 System

[FD21]

Has anyone noticed that the new system does not have the reach the old system did. I used to be able to hear transmissions from Northern Hills Iinteragency etc along with Southern Hills (where I live) and as far east as the Philip tower. I could also listen to Rapid City Fire/EMS as well as Pennington County but now they only come in intermittently. Anyone have suggestions as to possible fixes?

 

[Whiskey3JMC]

Welcome to the RR forums. What model scanner(s) are you using? You could be facing simulcast distortion if monitoring with anything other than an SDS100 or SDS200 depending on your location relative to two or more towers on the Rapid City Simulcast (reference map below). Feel free to try these multipath mitigation methods to try and isolate the signal to one tower. They may or may not work...

 

[nolinger]

Quite honestly, I haven’t noticed any difference between the old and new system in SE South Dakota.

 

[Rlahey]

Has anyone noticed that the new system does not have the reach the old system did. I used to be able to hear transmissions from Northern Hills Iinteragency etc along with Southern Hills (where I live) and as far east as the Philip tower. I could also listen to Rapid City Fire/EMS as well as Pennington County but now they only come in intermittently. Anyone have suggestions as to possible fixes?

I don’t think that it is a receive issue, I would suspect that people are not affiliating to those tower sites with those talk groups. Conversely, P25 systems can also limit what talk groups are on what tower, so they may be implementing that to help with tower congestion

 

[ikm19]

I don’t think that it is a receive issue, I would suspect that people are not affiliating to those tower sites with those talk groups. Conversely, P25 systems can also limit what talk groups are on what tower, so they may be implementing that to help with tower congestion

This is correct. I have a specific example of this. when Custer county deputy takes a trip to Rapid City, he looses his regular channel, he has to switch to Southern hills channel to be able to talk to their own dispatch. their talk group is not able to roam to RC simulcast

 

[FD21]

I do not know how to set up the proper talk groups. Basically, I would like to listen to RC and Penn Co Fire.

I get RC and Penn Co Fire at various times but it is inconsistent.

 

[ikm19]

I get RC and Penn Co Fire at various times but it is inconsistent.

Unfortunately, they went encrypted just over a year ago. There's no way possible to listen to them anymore

 

[FD21]

Unfortunately, they went encrypted just over a year ago. There's no way possible to listen to them anymore

Not true. Fire is not encrypted. PD and SO are.

 

[ikm19]

Not true. Fire is not encrypted. PD and SO are.

My bad, I missed few words when I read it. You can set up an SDR dongle. In my experience when I lived in rapid valley, airspy mini with sdrtruck (software) works best. Currently I am in Custer, and I am scanning Coolidge and Bear mt, at home. No issues. If you want specific guidance, I am available to help with it. PM me and we can go from there

 

[FD21]

My bad, I missed few words when I read it. You can set up an SDR dongle. In my experience when I lived in rapid valley, airspy mini with sdrtruck (software) works best. Currently I am in Custer, and I am scanning Coolidge and Bear mt, at home. No issues. If you want specific guidance, I am available to help with it. PM me and we can go from there

How do I pm you?

 

[ikm19]

How do I pm you?

actually email me wrmr920 at gmail