SDR Help Needed.

[wb3avz]

Good evening all.
I need some assistance from anyone in York County that has gotten an SDR and SDRTrunk sw working to monitor York County system. I have it set up and seem to be able to copy YH ALS Med notification channel but that is the only activity that I am hearing.
If anyone can point me in the right direction, I would appreciate it.
Thanks in advance,
Frank K

 

[Whiskey3JMC]

Welcome to the RR forums. So in other words you're seeing activity from the other talkgroups flash up on the screen but are only hearing activity from one talkgroup? Go to your playlist editor, select the "Aliases" tab. Go through each non-encrypted talkgroup & ensure the "Listen" slider is turned on for every talkgroup you want to hear

 

[wb3avz]

I have them all set to Listen. I am not sure that it is receiving the signals strong enough to decode and come thru. I also am not sure of what settings I should have to make this all play nicely together. I see activity in the waterfall and but no audio coming thru. I have attached a couple of screen shots.
Thanks,
Frank

 

[jtwalker]

Where are you located? I am in Menallen Township (north west Adams Co) and although York North is closer to me than other York Co sites, I can't get a good decode on it. I use West and South. From your waterfall it looks like your gain is too high, as there is too much noise (yellow clutter) and the noise floor looks too high. Try one of the other sites and see what you get.

 

[wb3avz]

Thanks for the assist. I am currently located in my camper at Pinchot State Park Campground and will be here until Oct 31 doing Campground Hosting so I figured this would be a good time to get this up and running.
I have the gain control set to automatic. I switched it to 296 and that seemed to decrease the noise received. I have tried Central and West and I dont see any activity there.
This is a capture of Central. I dont even see the 'control' label like I had on North.
I just am not sure of what I am doing or what I should be seeing. I am hearing nothing at the present time from the speakers.
Thanks,
Frank

 

[wb3avz]

I am also using only one dongle, not sure if that makes a diff or not.

 

[jtwalker]

One rtl-SDR dongle does not cover enough spectrum for York Co. Looks like it would require 3 rtl-sdr dongles or one more expensive one that covers 10 mhz like an AirSpy R2.

 

[jtwalker]

And when you get additional dongles, don’t use auto gain. Pick a starting value and experiment, raising or lowering setting until the waterfall doesn’t look as cluttered with noise and audio sounds good. It’s a bit of a hunt & peck until you get it right.

 

[wb3avz]

That is the problem. I dont have any audio. I see activity but no audio. I ordered a 2nd dongle today so that should be here tomorrow so I will try setting that up and see what happens. Since all the channels are listed as control channels, how would I set up the dongles?

 

[jtwalker]

You most likely don’t have audio because you don’t have enough dongles.

What dongles are you using? If rtl-sdr you will need 3 for north or south sites. West or central should be ok with 2. If other model please specify and indicate how much rf spectrum they can monitor concurrently.

Have you installed mbe codec?

The reason all frequencies are listed as control channel capable is due to this being a Harris system. That is just how these systems work. Any frequency can be a control channel and the others will be voice.

 

[dave3825]

It’s a bit of a hunt & peck until you get it right.

I usually tune to a known freq with the gain low. Start raising it to where the signal reaches its highest point, and the noise floor just starts to rise, and then back off a hair.

Since all the channels are listed as control channels, how would I set up the dongles?

On a trunked system, you program all channels listed as control. When the program starts, it cycles thru all control channels until it finds one that's active and then it locks on. Some systems rotate control channels so if SDRTrunk loses the one it was on, it will start cycling until it finds an active one.

 

[Scanner996p2]

Good evening all.
I need some assistance from anyone in York County that has gotten an SDR and SDRTrunk sw working to monitor York County system. I have it set up and seem to be able to copy YH ALS Med notification channel but that is the only activity that I am hearing.
If anyone can point me in the right direction, I would appreciate it.
Thanks in advance,
Frank K

the best sites to monitor where you are located are the North and South sites central doesn't reach that far west. the west sites should work as you are in that area.

 

[wb3avz]

You most likely don’t have audio because you don’t have enough dongles.

What dongles are you using? If rtl-sdr you will need 3 for north or south sites. West or central should be ok with 2. If other model please specify and indicate how much rf spectrum they can monitor concurrently.

Have you installed mbe codec?

The reason all frequencies are listed as control channel capable is due to this being a Harris system. That is just how these systems work. Any frequency can be a control channel and the others will be voice.

I have ordered an rtl-sdr dongle that should be here Thursday and the original one that I have is an Nooelect dongle.
I am not sure if I have the mbe codec. How would I check to see if it is installed? I have installed the JMBE Audio Library 1.0.9 installed thru the SDRTrunk sw.
I have installed the sdrtrunk sw in both unbuntu on one laptop and windows on another to try and get it working on either one. Would prefer the linux to be the one that works as I am not using that laptop for anything. I use the windows lt for Army Mars work and digital over there.
How do I set up both dongles once I get them plugged in or do I select the

the best sites to monitor where you are located are the North and South sites central doesn't reach that far west. the west sites should work as you are in that area.

Ok I have talked to a Park Ranger here at Pichot and he says that they use the South/West groups so I will try putting in the west and see if I get more activity there.
Thanks for the advice.

You most likely don’t have audio because you don’t have enough dongles.

What dongles are you using? If rtl-sdr you will need 3 for north or south sites. West or central should be ok with 2. If other model please specify and indicate how much rf spectrum they can monitor concurrently.

Have you installed mbe codec?

The reason all frequencies are listed as control channel capable is due to this being a Harris system. That is just how these systems work. Any frequency can be a control channel and the others will be voice.

I currently have a Nooelec dongle and I am to receive a V4 RTL-SDR dongle today from Amazon. I am not sure about the codec. I do have the JMBE Audio file that I installed thru SDRTrunk, if that is what you are referring to.
Once I get the 2nd dongle plugged in, I would suppose that I need to go into User Preferences | Source | Tuners and select the 'Dual Tuner' option?
Thanks,

 

[jtwalker]

The JMBE audio file is the same thing as MBE codec. I probably used wrong term.

Did you have to go through ‘ZADIG’ steps for driver with the Nooelec? The rtl-SDR requires using ZADIG for driver installation but not sure what you would have to do if you already did this for Nooelec. Anyone know?

After you get driver installed and rtl-SDR recognized by Windows, SDRtrunk will just use them both when it needs to. The ‘dual tuner’ parameter is for a SDRPlay dongle.

 

[jtwalker]

The JMBE audio file is the same thing as MBE codec. I probably used wrong term.

Did you have to go through ‘ZADIG’ steps for driver with the Nooelec? The rtl-SDR requires using ZADIG for driver installation but not sure what you would have to do if you already did this for Nooelec. Anyone know?

After you get driver installed and rtl-SDR recognized by Windows, SDRtrunk will just use them both when it needs to. The ‘dual tuner’ parameter is for a SDRPlay dongle.

Oh btw, pretty sure Ubuntu doesn’t have anything like the ZADIG driver issue that windows has.

 

[wb3avz]

No. Unbuntu seems to be straight forward, if one can copy/paste correctly (all the 'sudo's and such.) Now I have to 2nd dongle installed and the SDRTrunk sw sees both but I am not sure what to do from here. I noticed one is scanning the freqs that I have programmed in the channels and the other is just sitting there staring at me and doing nothing. No sure what I am supposed to do with #2 to make it play nicely. Again, doing all this in Linux. Program is the same so I am sure that I have something that is not setup correctly.
Thanks in advance.

 

[jtwalker]

Both dongles show up in tuner tab? If so, SDRtrunk will use it when it needs it.

What site are you locked on to now? What does waterfall look like?

 

[wb3avz]

I am on the West group. I can switch dongles and the freq scan changes but all I see is what you see here. Havent received anything yet,
This waterfall is from the new dongle that is doing the scanning(waterfall.jpg). Waterfall2.jpg is from the other dongle that seems to be locked on to one freq and is not scanning. I still have no audio out so cant prove that it is working at all.

 

[jtwalker]

Raise your gain. You are not locked on to a control channel. When locked on CC it will show on "now playing" tab. The tuner that is not on CC will come and go with different voice frequencies.

What antenna(s) are you using?

 

[wb3avz]

Got a new problem where the app just locks up and stops running. Have to close the terminal and restart to get it back so there must be something that is still not set up correctly.
The little dipole that came with the dongles. I just plugged in my 144mhz Jpole and have to restart the app since it locked up again, Only using one dongle this time. Antenna is outside of the camper and up about 15'.