Simulcast in St. Clair county.

[KD8OSD]

Hello everyone,

I have a Pro-197 digital scanner and recently purchased a cheap yagi antenna from Amazon that works amazingly well for 15 bucks. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EC804SO?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details.

Here is my question, the reception is much better and it's just sitting on a shelf for the time being, with a Simulcast system do I point to the best tower I get a signal from and use just those Control Frequencies? I currently have both sets of Control Frequencies set, the tower in Birchville and the Simulcast frequencies and I can see the signal drop and rise while scanning and still sometimes get a choppy segment of the transmission.

Some of the choppy signal I can probably cure once I mount the antenna permanently and pointed directly at the best tower, it is just sitting on a shelf pointed kinda north from my home in Marysville.

Thank you for any heads up.

Charlie

 

[a29zuk]

Hello everyone,

I have a Pro-197 digital scanner and recently purchased a cheap yagi antenna from Amazon that works amazingly well for 15 bucks. Amazon.com.

Here is my question, the reception is much better and it's just sitting on a shelf for the time being, with a Simulcast system do I point to the best tower I get a signal from and use just those Control Frequencies? I currently have both sets of Control Frequencies set, the tower in Birchville and the Simulcast frequencies and I can see the signal drop and rise while scanning and still sometimes get a choppy segment of the transmission.

Some of the choppy signal I can probably cure once I mount the antenna permanently and pointed directly at the best tower, it is just sitting on a shelf pointed kinda north from my home in Marysville.

Thank you for any heads up.

Charlie

The first question is, does the Birchville tower have all the talkgroups in St. Clair county affiliated to it or just a select few? If it has all of them don't even use the simulcast system.

If monitoring the simulcast system, pointing the antenna in the right direction will probably be an experiment. That beam will still pick up signals off the side. The signal rise and drop is due to simulcast distortion. Your location in Marysville is right between two towers. You may want to mount it on a short piece of PVC pipe and spin it around for the best signal. Usually less signal is better for simulcast.

Years ago I battled the simulcast signal in Genesee Co., when I purchased a new Uniden 396T. I was lucky for a while as the Holly site had all of the counties talkgroups affiliated to it, so I didn't use the simulcast. That lasted about 6 years then they dropped most of the talkgroups.

If all else fails a Uniden SDS series scanner or a Unication G5 pager handle simulcast well. I was going to get the G5 but with our county police along with Lapeer and Oakland Counties being encrypted I mostly only listen to my scanners while on vacation in northern Michigan.
No simulcast and very little encryption up there!

Good luck,
Jim

 

[Hit_Factor]

Use the nulls of the yagi to your advantage.

You might find pointing it in a direction to avoid a certain tower gives the best result.

In other words, spin it until you get the signal you need.

 

[KD8OSD]

The first question is, does the Birchville tower have all the talkgroups in St. Clair county affiliated to it or just a select few? If it has all of them don't even use the simulcast system.

If monitoring the simulcast system, pointing the antenna in the right direction will probably be an experiment. That beam will still pick up signals off the side. The signal rise and drop is due to simulcast distortion. Your location in Marysville is right between two towers. You may want to mount it on a short piece of PVC pipe and spin it around for the best signal. Usually less signal is better for simulcast.

Years ago I battled the simulcast signal in Genesee Co., when I purchased a new Uniden 396T. I was lucky for a while as the Holly site had all of the counties talkgroups affiliated to it, so I didn't use the simulcast. That lasted about 6 years then they dropped most of the talkgroups.

If all else fails a Uniden SDS series scanner or a Unication G5 pager handle simulcast well. I was going to get the G5 but with our county police along with Lapeer and Oakland Counties being encrypted I mostly only listen to my scanners while on vacation in northern Michigan.
No simulcast and very little encryption up there!

Good luck,
Jim

Thanks Jim,

I am going to find a perm home for the antenna later today and work on the best direction. That won't be a problem.

As far as if the TG's I am needing being on the Burtchville tower vs the Simulcasts, I have no idea how I would find that out except to try putting them in and hoping. Is there a seachable database here on RR? New to the site as far as a paying subscriber so I haven't looked around too much and that is on me.

Charlie

 

[KD8OSD]

Use the nulls of the yagi to your advantage.

You might find pointing it in a direction to avoid a certain tower gives the best result.

In other words, spin it until you get the signal you need.

I am really surprised at how well this little antenna works just sitting on a shelf in my ham shack kinda sorta pointing in the direction of either the Burtchville tower or Simulcast tower in Port Huron.

I have a tv antenna rotor looking for something to do and it may end up in the attic with the yagi on it, right above my shack.

 

[freqs]

Just my experience anything less that the SDS 100 OR 200 is not a good choise with MPSCS Simulcast .went thru many Scanners to get to to this .even putiing my 436 the pro 651 next to each other SDS getting 100 % 436 and Rd Shack all it did was break up

 

[KD8OSD]

Just my experience anything less that the SDS 100 OR 200 is not a good choise with MPSCS Simulcast .went thru many Scanners to get to to this .even putiing my 436 the pro 651 next to each other SDS getting 100 % 436 and Rd Shack all it did was break up

It was given to me and does seem to work better now with the yagi. After I eat lunch and finish the grass I will be getting the antenna better situated and find the best signal for it.

 

[KD8OSD]

I have the antenna mounted inside my ham shack on clamped pole on a desk. About 4.5 feet up. Took a little tweaking for the best tower and signal and have it locked on one of the Simulcast towers using only the Simulcast control frequencies.

Very happy with it. No more broken up transmissions for any of the St. Clair County users but sometimes a few of the Macomb County transmissions from mobile can be a little broken but dispatch is usually clear enough.

Others experience may differ but this little cheap Amazon special works very good for me.

 

[Ronaldski]

All the radio traffic is on the simulcast system. Disregard about trying other towers within system as they are on the same simulcast system.
towers Michigan's Public Safety Communications System (MPSCS) Site: St. Clair County Simulcast

Look at