SDS100 ARMER MN Expectations

[MidwestRadioGuy]

Hi folks, I am trying to temper my expectations in regards to scanning ARMER in MN.
I am comparing the apps specifically "Police Scanner" app
I am pretty familiar with the SDS at this point, I am on latest firmware, have enabled correct service types, set location, set favorites list to use location, etc.

I do pick up quite a few things, but I do miss a LOT compared to the scanner apps.
For example I often see a lot of the LAW DSP which I assume are law dispatch centers come through on the app that do not come through on my scanner.
I have attached an example of a missing one.
I have TODD, WADENA, OTTERTAIL, CASS ARMER all added to the favorites list, as well as statewide interop.
My question is there anything specific I am missing for MN, like some simulcast sites or anything else that I need that could potentially be causing the missed scans?
Should I expect to be able to get pretty close to mirror the scan of the apps?
Thanks so much

 

[jason_58201]

Police scanner apps are only as good as the source. It’s quite possible that the supplier of the feed you are listening to on the app is in an area of good or different reception than you and that could cause better decoding performance. Another factor too is that the streams on apps can be delayed up to a couple of minutes and so if your monitoring your scanner and app at the same time you may not hear the same thing at the same time.

As far as I recall there are no simulcast sites in the Wadena OtterTail county area so that shouldn’t be an issue.

 

[bearcatrp]

1st post but joined 5 years ago. Did you change your user name to start over?

 

[MidwestRadioGuy]

No I started with radios years ago and never really had the funds to get into any of it until now.

@jason_58201

That sounds like what’s happening. I’ve moved to a different location and I’m picking up a fair bit of traffic. With scanning my understanding is that unless you have multiple scanners you’re bound to miss something. Sometimes I get pretty close other times I miss stuff. Seems to be just the way it is. Thanks for the input.

 

[ofd8001]

It's going to be a function of where you are compared to where the feed provider is. For example, here in Louisville I can hear East Grand Forks MN police just fine using a scanner app. However, as you might imagine, I am unable to hear EGF on my SDS 100 even though its connected to an outside antenna.

For your situation, do you have all of the sites for your immediate area (as in within 30 miles) programmed?

Also the feed provider may have an exterior antenna that is mounted fairly high up. Topography may be a factor too.

 

[sonm10]

What sites are you trying to monitor and how far away are you from those sites? There is no use in programming sites you can't receive from afar.

Keep in mind, the scanner does hold on each site for a bit, 1.5 seconds per site. If scanning multiple sites, you might miss traffic.

Also, outside agencies do not normally affiliate to every site. Meaning, for example, Otter Tail county agencies normally won't affiliate to a site in Wadina county, unless during inter-agency event. There a exceptions, such as a site adjacent to county border will carry traffic from both counties.

I guess the point I'm trying to make, a single site will not carry all traffic for Todd, Wadina, Otter Tail, or Cass counties.

 

[Robdobb]

Hi folks, I am trying to temper my expectations in regards to scanning ARMER in MN.
I am comparing the apps specifically "Police Scanner" app
I am pretty familiar with the SDS at this point, I am on latest firmware, have enabled correct service types, set location, set favorites list to use location, etc.

I do pick up quite a few things, but I do miss a LOT compared to the scanner apps.
For example I often see a lot of the LAW DSP which I assume are law dispatch centers come through on the app that do not come through on my scanner.
I have attached an example of a missing one.
I have TODD, WADENA, OTTERTAIL, CASS ARMER all added to the favorites list, as well as statewide interop.
My question is there anything specific I am missing for MN, like some simulcast sites or anything else that I need that could potentially be causing the missed scans?
Should I expect to be able to get pretty close to mirror the scan of the apps?
Thanks so much

Im scanning the exact same counties using SDR and i dont skip a beat

 

[MidwestRadioGuy]

I am within range of Wadena, Todd, Ottertail for sure, and to some degree Cass and Douglas counties as well. I have been playing with this for about a week, and I am still not sure what I am doing wrong. I have every county from these sites added to an ARMER favorites list, I checked service types, I check location, location enforcement is enabled.

I set some sites to AVOID since I never saw it pick up anything for those sites anyway, and I thought if I decreased the amount of sites to scan I would pick up more. These sites I set to avoid:

- Aldrich
- Amor
- Lincoln
- Luce
- Lude
- Parkers Prairie
- Plymouth - Statewide Temp

This hasn't seemed to make any difference.

Right now the scanner seems to cycle through my UHF/VHF Favorites list very fast. I occasionally pick up a page on that, or FD so I know that works even though the reception is not the best.

ARMER cycles through these sites (and only these sites)

- Henning
- Hewitt
- New York Mills
- Sebeka

I do pick up SOME events on these, but it is a far cry from the Scanner App on IOS. I would estimate about 50% less traffic. I was listening earlier and I completely missed all Wadena CO 1, Wadena Law Dispatch, and HU1 (Hubbard) CO Law Dispatch.

I even bought a 820S Remtronix and that did not make much of a difference.

@Robdobb I am starting to think I should have went this route!

I attached my favorites list if anyone wants to look.

 

[sonm10]

There is a saying in the scanning hobby the more you scan the less you hear. Try and limit those sites to 1 or 2.

It's also why most of us use multiple scanners.
SDRs too.

@trentbob has said it multiple times and says it best, there is no point in listening to a traffic stop in the next county when there is a shooting down the street.

 

[MidwestRadioGuy]

Aye. Given that. I think my plan will be as follows:

A few SDR.

Cheaper UHF/VHF scanner for legacy stuff. A lot of paging, FD, etc. seems to still use that and it comes in better with a radio with a dedicated UHF/VHF antenna.

SDS100 for exclusively ARMER. Considering maybe a M5 pager for dedicated listening to specific channels or another SDS down the line to separate services.

What I’ve learned here is I can’t really expect parity with the apps or online sources. They’re probably aggregating multiple scanners or SDR themselves.

I will note as a last ditch effort today I cleared out all of my favorites and put each county into their own list. Then set to monitor all of them and avoided sites I know don’t carry relevant traffic on each one. Surprisingly there’s a noticeable difference in doing it this way versus having many counties in one big list. I can’t exactly explain why that is, but I’m happy with it for now.

 

[ofd8001]

You might try increasing the global range to 50.0 just for the heck of it. If that’s not helpful you can put it back to what you had. If that works, let me know and I’ll explain what I think might be going on.

 

[egftechman]

It's going to be a function of where you are compared to where the feed provider is. For example, here in Louisville I can hear East Grand Forks MN police just fine using a scanner app. However, as you might imagine, I am unable to hear EGF on my SDS 100 even though its connected to an outside antenna.

For your situation, do you have all of the sites for your immediate area (as in within 30 miles) programmed?

Also the feed provider may have an exterior antenna that is mounted fairly high up. Topography may be a factor too.

Good to hear someone is listening to my feeds of the EGF area

It's all RTL-SDRs and SDRTrunk

 

[CcSkyEye]

There is a saying in the scanning hobby the more you scan the less you hear. Try and limit those sites to 1 or 2.

It's also why most of us use multiple scanners.
SDRs too.

@trentbob has said it multiple times and says it best, there is no point in listening to a traffic stop in the next county when there is a shooting down the street.

Very true. However the older I get the less I hear, even with multiple receivers going.

 

[Robdobb]

Im in wadena and supply both Wadena county feeds, im currently running aldrich, hewitt, newyork mills, and henning tower on 2 sdr v.3's, my weather feed is on a plain old conventional scanner

 

[Robdobb]

I am within range of Wadena, Todd, Ottertail for sure, and to some degree Cass and Douglas counties as well. I have been playing with this for about a week, and I am still not sure what I am doing wrong. I have every county from these sites added to an ARMER favorites list, I checked service types, I check location, location enforcement is enabled.

I set some sites to AVOID since I never saw it pick up anything for those sites anyway, and I thought if I decreased the amount of sites to scan I would pick up more. These sites I set to avoid:

- Aldrich
- Amor
- Lincoln
- Luce
- Lude
- Parkers Prairie
- Plymouth - Statewide Temp

This hasn't seemed to make any difference.

Right now the scanner seems to cycle through my UHF/VHF Favorites list very fast. I occasionally pick up a page on that, or FD so I know that works even though the reception is not the best.

ARMER cycles through these sites (and only these sites)

- Henning
- Hewitt
- New York Mills
- Sebeka

I do pick up SOME events on these, but it is a far cry from the Scanner App on IOS. I would estimate about 50% less traffic. I was listening earlier and I completely missed all Wadena CO 1, Wadena Law Dispatch, and HU1 (Hubbard) CO Law Dispatch.

I even bought a 820S Remtronix and that did not make much of a difference.

@Robdobb I am starting to think I should have went this route!

I attached my favorites list if anyone wants to look.

Shut some sites down bro, their all active! want me to do it and reupload it

 

[Robdobb]

I am within range of Wadena, Todd, Ottertail for sure, and to some degree Cass and Douglas counties as well. I have been playing with this for about a week, and I am still not sure what I am doing wrong. I have every county from these sites added to an ARMER favorites list, I checked service types, I check location, location enforcement is enabled.

I set some sites to AVOID since I never saw it pick up anything for those sites anyway, and I thought if I decreased the amount of sites to scan I would pick up more. These sites I set to avoid:

- Aldrich
- Amor
- Lincoln
- Luce
- Lude
- Parkers Prairie
- Plymouth - Statewide Temp

This hasn't seemed to make any difference.

Right now the scanner seems to cycle through my UHF/VHF Favorites list very fast. I occasionally pick up a page on that, or FD so I know that works even though the reception is not the best.

ARMER cycles through these sites (and only these sites)

- Henning
- Hewitt
- New York Mills
- Sebeka

I do pick up SOME events on these, but it is a far cry from the Scanner App on IOS. I would estimate about 50% less traffic. I was listening earlier and I completely missed all Wadena CO 1, Wadena Law Dispatch, and HU1 (Hubbard) CO Law Dispatch.

I even bought a 820S Remtronix and that did not make much of a difference.

@Robdobb I am starting to think I should have went this route!

I attached my favorites list if anyone wants to look.

Since were so close lets meet at the cafe with our scanners and reprogram them!

 

[Robdobb]

Try this WIDE LOCAL ARMER - Download - 4shared

 

[jason_58201]

If you are sitting at home, you should be able to just sit on one site and hear everything around you. The more sites you have programmed the more time it's cycling through listening for traffic on each site. Pick one site and maybe the next closest one to you and have the entire ARMER TG database loaded and you should hear everything around you.

 

[egftechman]

If you are sitting at home, you should be able to just sit on one site and hear everything around you. The more sites you have programmed the more time it's cycling through listening for traffic on each site. Pick one site and maybe the next closest one to you and have the entire ARMER TG database loaded and you should hear everything around you.

That's the beauty of running SDRs, you can receive "all" the channels simultaneously. I monitor 4 sites on two different systems (MN ARMER and ND SIRN) with 3 RTL-SDRs. I've seen my SDRTrunk decoding up to 12 channels at one time before....Biggest issue is filtering out duplicate transmissions on from multiple sites. Sometimes if you are listening to a large number of talkgroups, during a busy period the transmissions will queue up and you'll have a bit of latency on the playback, but it quickly resolved when things slow down. RDIO Scanner end up being a great frontend for SDRTrunk. I just have SDRTrunk receive EVERYTHING and chose what I want to listen to on RDIO Scanner (also feeds a Broadcastify linear steams, Broadcastify Calls, OpenMHz, and a couple of private Icecast streams that I rarely use anymore now that I can run RDIO Scanner everywhere)
Also, the SDRs end up being much less expensive. An off-lease i7 desktop computer can be had for like $100-200, $35 for each RTL-SDR, Debian Linux is free (SDR Trunk will run on Windows also), and it does all the reception, recording, streaming, running RDIO Scanner server, etc. in the one box.

 

[bearcatrp]

Which is better to run SDR’s, windows or Linux? Have used Ubuntu in the past so know a little about Linux and installation. I usually install dual boot. Have used RTL about 5 years ago but didn’t care for it. Maybe time to revisit it.