St. Charles County...SLATER or no?

[rbritton1201]

I've been monitoring St. Charles County, via S.L.A.T.E.R, I think/maybe, and they do not appear to be "E'cryptonited " I'm receiving signals for all the municipalities in St. Charles County. I'm a little confused because I don't notice any control channel signal indicators, and I was expecting to see evidence of control channel activity. I'm receiving signals loud and clear from all the municipalities, as well as St. Charles County Police. I have talk groups programmed into the system under what is categorized as S.L.A.T.E.R. within Sentinel. I don't understand why I would be receiving excellent signals via S.L.A.T.E.R, via talk groups programmed via Sentinel right from the data base, but I see no control channel indicator. I can't figure out whether I'm just receiving "conventional" signals, which it appears I am, or transmissions via S.L.A.T.E.R. I can't figure out if these agencies in St. Charles County are only enrolled in S.L.A.T.E.R as a backup, or what. I was expecting not to be able to monitor St. Charles County Public Safety at all because I figured that if they were a part of S.L.A.T.E.R, they would all be automatically "E'cryptonited." There is a list of "E'Cryptonited" agencies in RR, and the only agencies that appear in the list in St. Charles County are their OPS channels, which is understandable if conducting undercover work, etc...But, their main dispatch channels and car to car traffic seems to be open.

Conversely, I have Jefferson County programmed into the scanner under S.L.A.T.E.R via Sentinel, and I can see where there is control channel activity. I know they are "E'cryptonited," but I can receive signals from Pevely PD just fine, which I believe is programmed under S.L.A.T.E.R as well. Not surprisingly, I don't hear any traffic out of Jeffco, which was to be expected., and I don't seem to hear any other municipalities in Jefferson County, which was also to be expected. But, Pevely was kind of a pleasant surprise, not that I'm ever down that way, but with this "E'cryptonite" craze, it's a bit of a surprise.

St. Louis County? Hughhh! forget it! But, no surprise...

Can anyone explain why I'm not seeing control channel activity in St. Charles County, but monitoring them flawlessly? I assume I'm able to receive Pevely PD because they have their cloaking device turned off. I assume that perhaps that's the case with St. Charles County agencies as well, but why no control channel signal activity?

 

[kruser]

For St Charles County Slater, the control channel is on 853.8625.
You should be scanning that system as a P25 trunked system unless you somehow entered all the frequencies as conventional and not a P25 trunked system.
If you plug in 853.8625 as a single conventional frequency, your scanner should display the sites info which would be site 1-3 for St Charles if you are getting a signal from the control channel. Otherwise I don't know why you seem to be hearing the site without any control channel info showing.

And yes, pretty much everything in that county is in the clear. There are several towers for that simulcast system so I would think you won't have any problems getting a decent signal from one of the towers.
I do not know if anyone is still on analog in that county.

I know in St Louis county that they pretty much forced everyone onto the Slater system and then cancel their now unused analog licenses except for those the still use the point to point analog frequency and probably some others.
I'm not sure of the details of how someone forced all the muni's in St Louis county onto Slater but that sure seems to be how it went down.
Jeffco still has a very few analog users not on their Slater system but like I said, I'm unsure if anyone in St Charles county is still on their old analog systems.
They encrypted all law traffic in St Louis county after a Ballwin office was ambushed and killed I think.
They also used Slater unofficially back when the Michael Brown thing was going on in Ferguson. They had to get permission from Motorola to use the system which was mostly installed but they didn't want to risk Motorola taking their use of the system as acceptance of the system yet.
Prior to them using Slater for the Ferguson mess, they used the STL City system for a lot of talk amongst the various users involved plus of course they used the counties analog channels as well.
St Louis City decided to go encrypted as a result of the Ferguson incident but said the decision may be temporary and go back to in the clear after it's over. Of course that never happened.

Crestwood PD was the first official user of Slater after the county accepted the Slater systems contract was complete but I forget what date that was.

 

[rbritton1201]

I have the control channel frequency of 853.8625 Mhz. plugged into the frequency list for S.L.A.T.E.R., but it's number (13 ) on the list of frequencies. Do you think I should plug that frequency into the first space of the S.L.A.T.E.R. frequency list? Maybe the scanner is skipping over it when it's at number (13) on the list of frequencies. I know that with MOSWIN, only the primary and secondary frequencies are most important, and the rest are kind of backup frequencies, but I don't know if the scanner skips over the other frequencies down the list within the MOSWIN system or not, or if S.L.A.T.E.R. even mimics MOSWIN with respect to its infrastructure.

For St Charles County Slater, the control channel is on 853.8625...

 

[kruser]

Yes, you can add just the control channels and the alternates only for Slater. Just make sure you are getting a signal from the control channel.

Did you try to manually tune 853.8625 and see if you have a decent signal?

I've monitored several sites on various systems over the years where some of the frequencies are simply not heard. I've always suspected the physical antenna placement on the sites tower is the cause of this.
Even on some of the VHF Moswin sites I'll see signal strength differences between the sites frequencies. In some cases, there's no control channel to be heard or it's so weak that the scanner cannot decode it well enough.
For those distant sites I'll usually add all the sites known frequencies and find that some of the voice channels are strong enough to decode and play the audio. Normally I only have the primary control and alternates in the scanner though. But for the sites I find with a poor control channel signal, I will add all the known freqs for a site and then I'll catch some voice traffic on the voice channels.
I'm pretty sure Unidens current models will remember the active control channel frequency after a scan pass or two so it's not constantly checking all the frequencies a user may have entered so having all freqs entered for a given site should not slow down scanning speed for a site unless the radio can't get a good enough signal from the control channel. With that in mind, the order you have a sites frequencies entered should not matter.
I did once have an Ameren electric site that had interference on one of a sites frequencies. That prevented the scanner from ever getting to the control channel. Ameren uses a Harris system so for them you need to enter all the frequencies as they rotate the control channel sometimes more than once per day. For the site that had the interference, I logged which freqs were used as a control channel and found that the noisy channel was never used as a control so I was able to remove it from the sites frequency list and it worked fine. It would still get voice comms on the noisy channel also when it became active as the real signal was much stronger than the interference.

I'm not sure if the control channel position in your list of frequencies actually matters or not.
I suppose it could slow things down initially until it gets a good signal from the control channel on a busy system but once that happens, it should just check the control channel only during scan passes. At least this is how I understood it to work from reading other threads here in the Uniden forums about this subject.
Once a Uniden gets a decent control channel signal, it should populate the Band Plan info under the Band Plan tab for the site you are scanning. if you read the scanner back into Sentinel after a few minutes, you should see data under the site band plan tab. in Sentinel.
Sometimes reading the scanner back into Sentinel and then looking at the data under the sites band plan tab can tell you if the scanner is getting a decent signal from the control channel or not.
Usually not all of the 16 band plan fields will contain data as its system dependent on the systems frequencies used for a site.

For a typical Moswin site around our area, the band plan tab should show something similar to the info below.
A user here used to post a list of what band plan each site used but I can't remember where I saw that info. I think they had a Google spreadsheet site setup with the info. The same band plan info is broadcast by each site but not all sites use all the band plan data lines.
Some old scanner could only handle about 5 band plan lines. Usually called a "table" or "custom table". For Moswin, I don't think any sites used more than 5 lines of band plan data so you could still use those old scanner models to monitor any Moswin site and the scanner would follow the voice channels correctly.

The band plan info below is broadcast from the Weldon Spring VHF sites control channel but all Moswin sites should have the same info.

The first column is the Base Frequency in MHz and the 2nd column is the frequency step size in kHz. Somehow the subscriber radios use this info to know what frequency to go to when a voice channel becomes active and changes during the conversation.

851.006250	6.250
762.006250	6.250
0.000000	0.000
0.000000	0.000
136.000000	12.500
142.425000	5.000
145.320000	5.000
140.115000	7.500
139.575000	7.500
137.277500	7.500
136.006250	12.500
0.000000	0.000
0.000000	0.000
0.000000	0.000
0.000000	0.000
0.000000	0.000

The info above does not show the line numbers but the first line is Band Plane 0 (zero) and the last line is Band Plan F for a hex total of 16 possible band plans.
For the Slater system, the band plan tab should look similar to the below for the Slater sites.
Slater band plan used to just show the top two lines and I think line 4 until roaming between Slater and Moswin became a thing. Then the band plan lines 6 thru Line A started being populated so VHF radios could communicate on Moswin or vice versa.

851.006250	6.250
762.006250	6.250
0.000000	0.000
0.000000	0.000
935.012500	12.500
0.000000	0.000
145.320000	5.000
140.115000	7.500
139.575000	7.500
137.277500	7.500
136.006250	12.500
0.000000	0.000
0.000000	0.000
0.000000	0.000
0.000000	0.000
0.000000	0.000

If your band plan tab is showing all zero's for each line, that could indicate you are not getting a signal at all or weak signal from the sites control channel that the scanner cannot decode correctly. I'm not sure if the data is based on being valid by a CRC check or not.
Let the scanner sit and scan a site for several minutes before reading it back into Sentinel and looking at the sites band plan info tab.
In theory the data rotates and is sent over the control channel every 2 seconds or so. So the band plan tab should populate pretty fast with a good control channel signal.

I'm not positive but the band plan info could be included in what Sentinel downloads when you do a DB update but I don't think it does include that info and instead, it needs the actual control channel signal to populate the band plan tab. That's the way it should work in case the sys admins change a sites band plan for some reason.
Some 7/800 MHz sites will only have data in the first couple or so band plan lines. It all depends on if a site has users using multiband radios or not. If all radios are 700 or 800 MHz, then I usually see just the first 2 to 4 band plan lines populated with data.
The band plan data fields can be altered by the user in Sentinel but in 99% of cases, you do not want to mess with that. Just let the radio populate the band plan table. The scanner stores this info automatically for each site as the data is received.
Back in the early days when everyone was rebanding due to interference from Sprint, it was common that the end user of a scanner had to figure out the band plan but this was mostly before scanner were smart enough to get that data from the control channel.

Confusing as all heck huh!!
That's okay as like I said, the scanner should fill in this info for you. At least all modern scanner should.
I think it was the old P25 models like the old RadioShack Pro-96 and 2096 that needed the info input by the user. Those models are also two of the old ones that only allowed 5 lines of band plan data.

 

[rbritton1201]

Great information, and I really do appreciate the time you put into explaining it. Your obviously quite knowledgeable, and I know it took a lot of effort to get it all down, I surely do appreciate it! But, not having the experience with SALTER or MOSWIN infrastructure, and still needing to explore all the features in the SDS200, it will take me a little time to get a full understanding as to how to interpret the results I find within the scanner.

Here are some photos of that show how the scanner isn't picking up the control channel, but when you see the signal indicator, that means that I'm receiving voice traffic. Sometimes there's a signal indicator when I can read signals loud and clear, and sometimes there is no signal indicator whatsoever. Confusing...


I believe I was receiving voice traffic when I snapped this photo...


This showed just one bar of signal, maybe even a half bar, but you'll also notice that it's scanning the St. Louis County Urban (South) S.L.A.T.E.R. site. But, I never seem to hear any voice traffic on this site. I speculate it's some kind of Inter-operational site on the St. Charles County system in case there's a need to support St. Louis County PD.


You can't see it, but there's never any signal indicator when I receive signals off of the St. Charles County Simulcast @ 853.862500 Mhz. But, I do hear voice traffic loud and clear via St. Charles County PD.

 

[kruser]

I'm not sure whats going on with your radio but the 853.7875 frequency shown in your first two screenshots should not be there. That frequency is only used on Slater South like you mentioned.
Somehow you are either scanning multiple sites or accidentally entered some of the Slater South frequencies in with the St Charles sites frequencies.
Something is seriously messed up!

Try this while you are scanning something.
Hit the button under the Channel item on the screen. This should put the scanner into a hold mode.
Then just enter 853.8625 and hit E twice to enter it. That should bring up a menu of options.
Change the Audio Type to Analog only and then hit E to save that choice.
Then turn the squelch knob all the way counterclockwise so it shows a setting of zero.
Then press the AVOID key on the scanner. It will then write the info into a Quick Save System and when finished, it should be sitting on the 853.8625 that you entered.
See what it shows for a signal strength on the radio.
While still sitting on that frequency, press the E button. That will bring up the channel options again. Change the Audio Type to Digital and then press E again and then press the Avoid button again. After a short delay, the channel should show up with no audio and the display should show the NAC as 4F1h and SYSID as 4F2h if you have those set to display on your screen settings.

I have a suspicion your radio is either hanging up on a weak signal from the Slater South control channel on 853.7875 or you are not getting a signal from the St Charles site.
I think you are getting a signal though from your comment about hearing them.
Seeing the control channel signal strength should confirm signal from the St Charles site. Hopefully it's more than one little dot or bar!

Once you finish this test, you will probably be scanning the Quick Save System along with whatever else you have enabled.
Turn off the Quick Save System by entering 99 while in Scan mode and pressing the E key. That should turn off Favorite list quick key 99 which should be the quick key assigned to the Quick Save System. Then set your squelch back to 2 and you should be back to where you were before doing the test.
Now you need to look at your programming and make sure 853.7875 is not entered with the St Charles sites frequencies. Then make sure you assigned Favorite list quick keys to the St Charles sites favorite list. Use an unused Favorite list quick key and then go back to scanning but make sure any other quick keys are turned off.
You can turn them off quickly while scanning by simply entering the two digit quick key number and hitting the E key. The display should show Quick Key xx = Off. If it says ON, it sounds like you have quick key issues.
I know the use of quick keys can be frustrating and confusing. Once you get it though, it really does become easier over time!
I come from the days of tunable receivers, then crystal scanners, then binary programmed models and then direct frequency entry models with a few oddballs in between like the ones with the aluminum combs where you broke teeth off of or the models that used punch cards that allowed light through to set the frequency and finally to what we have today with the x36HP and SDS models that use quick keys. Each change had a learning curve but none were near as hard as the models that came out that use quick keys!
I also messed with the GRE made models which use a totally different method of memory compared to Uniden. That era was very confusing trying to remember how one make worked compared to the other brand.

It seems like you may not have any Favorite List quick keys assigned or just some of your favorites don't have a Favorite List quick key assigned. I think the scanner will default to scanning all the favorite lists in the radio that do not have Favorite List quick keys assigned. Each Favorite list should have a unique Favorite List Quick Key also. I'm not even sure the scanner will even allow the same quick key to be used by more than one Favorite list but I've never tried it.
I could be wrong on a lot of this as these radios are so complex but I do think your issue(s) has something to do with Favorite List quick keys or System quick keys.

When I create a new system or append a new system from the master DB using Sentinel, I always assign a Favorite List quick key and then I assign at least a System quick key also. That allows me to turn off or on any of my favorite lists very easy and quickly.
Then you have Department quick keys which you can leave blank for now but you may want to add them later to be able to say quickly turn off PD but leave Fire turned on for example.

Somewhere here on this site is a good page full of info about using quick keys. I'm not sure where it's at but I think it may be in the wiki.
Quick Keys are probably the most confusing things for many users with Service Types being second!

Hopefully all the above info made some type of sense instead of just confusing the heck out of you. I'm not very good at trying to explain things like this but I'll try.

 

[kruser]

One other thing I see with my SDS models is just like you commented on. A good and clear decode of voice but without a signal indication.
I don't have a lot of trust with the signal meter bar graph thingy that Uniden uses in the SDS models. Signals that should be way down in the noise are still heard and many digital signals are decoded with perfect sounding quality. I think it's just the nature of the beast with the TV tuner chip they used in the SDS models. The tuner chip has a very wide bandwidth on its front end which can make it hard to tune in strong signals that are not spaced very far apart from each other. I think the tuners bandwidth before filtering is like 8 or 10 MHz wide. Luckily Paul Opitz had the filters the SDS models offer added in via firmware before he became sick and we lost him forever.
These filters are not ideal but they do often work once you get the hang of using them depending on your RF environment.

I don't think you have a filter issue with your current problem with Slater and the St Charles county system but if you want to mess with them, I'd try setting them to Off or Normal. Some of the filter settings do lower the signal strength kind of like an attenuator. Also stay away from the filters that say Auto. They sample the signal each time and slow down your scanning speed while testing each filter setting and they do this without even telling you which filter the radio decided is the best for a given signal!
With your location pretty far away from sources of high level RF, you can probably get by with the Off setting for filters.

 

[rbritton1201]

Thanks a million! Give me some time to mess with it according to your instructions, and I may have some explanations as to why certain frequencies are showing up under St. Charles County's S.L.A.T.E.R. site. I believe I programmed St. Charles County thinking that S.L.A.T.E.R. inter-operational frequencies may need to be there if St. Charles County were called into St. Louis County to assist in an emergency or pursuit. I speculated at the time I programmed St. Charles County that I might need to have the St. Louis County site frequencies in the mix, but I was probably mistaken with respect to that assumption.

Today was chemo day, so as a result of steroids in the treatment, I'm wide away all night. So, for quite a few days, as I bounce back to normal, my energy level is down a bit, except for checking the forums. About the only enjoyable entertainment I have to look forward to is the forums. It might take me a few days to become totally familiar with experimenting fully with the instructions you sent. But, don't worry, if I screw things up, I have micro SD cards duplicated to take me right back to current programming. Again, I really appreciate the instruction, and I'm not just saying that!

Kruser, I truly think I enjoy the experimentation, and mastering the learning curve, as much as monitoring the radio traffic itself. It's weird, I didn't hear enough radio traffic in a 30 year law enforcement commission? I must really love it! I'm like you with respect to being a scanner enthusiast for probably around 50 years. The first scanner I got is so old I could not find a photo of it when doing an extensive Google photo search for vintage scanner photos, so I could post a photo of it here in the forum.

See if you might remember it, or anybody else reading this...It can be described as the cabinet being about 7" wide x 6" deep x 2" tall, the cabinet had rounded corners, painted in battleship gray in color (kind of a distinctive color for a scanner) , 4-channels, crystal controlled, no lighted indicators, just a volume, squelch, and channel selector, maybe the Electra brand, just maybe, not sure I even remember the brand, but I'm pretty certain it wasn't Radio Shack, but who knows. Might have been a company purchased by Electra eventually? I would have probably gotten it in the mid to late 1960s, probably just a preteen living in Creve Coeur at the time.

I recall only having frequencies for Creve Coeur PD, Creve Coeur Fire, and maybe Point to Point. As a preteen, I seem to remember crystals costing around 5 bucks (?), and for a preteen, that was kind of expensive, so I only had three crystals in it. I couldn't bring myself to fill up the scanner with 4 crystals, just being a cheapskate, or it may be that reception was a little dicey pulling in signals outside of Creve Coeur city limits, which means other crystals may not haved served my purposes with respect to pulling in other agencies I might have been interested in monitoring. I remember the scanner had a removable, screw-in telescoping antenna, mounted through the top of the cabinet, but I think it had another antenna port on the back too, just a plug in style, not an SO239 or BNC.

Now I wish I had held onto all these scanners I've had over the years. But, I always sold them off to buy the next best thing, just couldn't afford to bank roll them one after another at younger ages, growing up, etc...The older you get, the more you start to realize how important they would be to still have when you get older, and you would have just loved to reminisce over them, and experiment with them in person just one more time. And, if you knew you were going to have the money to eventually buy what ever you wanted, multiples of whatever scanner you wanted, then maybe you would have held onto them. Hindsight is 20/20. To the younger members of the forum, keep that in mind. But, technology now-a-days is so rapid, you might be holding onto something that won't even work just a few years down the road. Remember the VCRs, 8-tracks and Cassettes?

I remember having gotten one of the Electra Bearcats, I, II, or III, but I don't remember which, if not all three in succession...plenty of photos of those on the web, but I don't remember which of the three models I may have had, if not all of them at one time or another. I must have had (100) or more scanners over the years (gross exaggeration, but it sometimes seems like it), not to mention ham radios that would receive crystal controlled, VHF/UHF analog, then progressing to the current technology, VHF/UHF/DMR and or Fusion digital portable radios, not to mention the the ham shack, and the radios covering the HF bands, VHF/UHF, Digital, Data modes, etc...

With respect to the scanners though, I forget when I got which subsequent models after the first one I ever had, but I distinctly remember upgrading to the newest thing as the technology progressed from crystal controlled to synthesized technology, when they incorporated light bulbs,(light bulbs not LEDs just yet), then LEDs, etc..so you could watch the cool scanning sequences, very cool at that time, kind of Star Trecky! Then, all the way up to the BCD536HP, the BCD436HP, and the SDS200. I also had the SDS100 too, as I mentioned to you in another post, Kruser, I hated the ergonomics of that SDS100 portable, and got rid of it. I prefer the BCD436HP ergonomics, if I can live with its limitations with respect to other of its minor detractors.

There's a great sense of accomplishment when you get to the bottom of what is a very complicated scenario with radios that can receive trunked systems. I mean, we not only have the complexity of the radios themselves, the programming, etc...but also the complexity of these new trunked systems, all the while the politicians and agency administrative brass are striving to make it as difficult to access "OUR" frequencies, as tax payers, as is humanly possible. By "e-cryptoniting" these technologies, they cut off public participation in the investigation of criminal activity by cutting law abiding citizens out of the integrity of the investigative process. Any 3-month rookie knows that's not good investigative procedure!

Sorry to be so length...steroids! Don't worry, they'll wear off around 4am, and I should be back to normal, which I fully admit is prolific enough, in and of itself.

I'm not sure whats going on with your radio but the 853.7875 frequency shown in your first two screenshots should not be there.

 

[kruser]

That's a nice bit of history!!
I have no idea what your old radio would have been. I was pretty young back then and didn't pay much attention to who made what.

I learned a ton about P25 trunked systems when they were building the VHF sites for MOSWIN. I was able to monitor all that as the sites went live on the air but were still in a coverage testing phase with mobile users running around the state calling out what I'd compare to grid square locations. They also used colors for the signal quality. The people running around the state sometimes said an actual location name so I kind of knew where they were when testing. That was a ton of fun for me hearing Moswin come to life.
A lot of the sites were still wide open so those doing the testing could talk to each other several counties away from one another.
Of course the whole system was cleaned up before it went live with state patrol traffic so a user here was not keying up transmitters in Kansas City for example.
Listening to that chatter during the buildout was very fun plus educational.
I was also able to monitor the Slater system as it was being built and tested but it was not nearly as detailed with info as MOSWIN was.

That's a very good idea having spare SD cards with your programming on them. I do the same.
There are some talkgroups on the Slater system that can show up on any of the Slater systems but it's not many.
I think one is the talkgroup they call the Pursuit channel on TG 103 I think. But it seems that most of the talkgroups are only used within the county they are listed under in the RRDB.
A while back I was monitoring Monarch fire protection. They were working an incident along the Missouri river near Howell Island. They asked the county dispatcher to open a patch with a St Charles fire agency working the same incident but on the St Charles side of the river. The dispatcher quickly told command that such a patch between fire districts in different counties was not possible. I would have thought some of the many talkgroups marked as Interop talkgroups would have had that capability but apparently not. That one really surprised me. They could even see each others flashlights across the river but they sure couldn't talk with them on the Slater system!
They ended up using cell phones to try and coordinate the search. That just seems stupid that it was not possible to setup a patch between the two counties. If they were law enforcement users, they could have used that pursuit talkgroup but apparently fire users don't have a similar talkgroup they can use. I've also heard some talkgroups that spanned across St Charles and St Louis counties. They were also low number talkgroups in the 1xx range. Many of them were used for funeral processions or for crowd or traffic control for parades or sporting events like bicycle events. So Slater can have patches between counties but apparently not for fire use. That's just stupid in my opinion.
Being able to talk with each agency was one of the bullet points they used to get the public to approve the funding for Slater at voting time!
I remember how they talked about all the different radio systems not being able to talk with one another in the county because some were on VHF and some were on UHF. I'd guess some radio shop salesman created that pitch to win over the public's vote to approve the system.
The county was going to build the system even if it didn't pass at voting time but it would have taken much longer to build it using funds from their existing operating budget. At least that's how I remember the beginning of the Slater system.
I never did hear how much the system actually cost and how much the public's vote provided but if it's like most P25 systems built, I'd imagine it came in way over budget like most of them do in the end!
And Franklin county never joined onto the Slater system and also has a very low presence on Moswin as well. I was told it was a money thing that prevented Franklin county from switching to Slater or Moswin. I think the city of Washington is the only user in that county that finally switched!

I still have several of my original scanners plus I bought several old ones on eBay that I could not have afforded back in the days they were new models. One of my favorites is an old Electra Bearcat III that had VHF High and Low boards in it. It was new old stock still packaged in the original never opened box from wherever it came from. I use that one to this day and have its 8 crystal sockets filled with eight of the states low band highway patrol frequencies. I've not turned it on in about a month or two now but Troop C was still doing weekly low band testing on their two primary dispatch frequencies each Sunday morning around 9 to 10 AM. I love the audio from the old scanner models.
I also have some other old models filled with mostly VHF high frequencies that are still used. For those I changed the IF filters to a narrow bandwidth IF filter to help with the narrowband mandate from several years ago now. They all still work very well today but I don't use them as much as I did when I set them all back up.
One is loaded with CCE911's tone out VHF frequencies still in use in the counties around St Louis and in St Louis county. I've heard the old VHF tone out channels will go silent at some point when they transition to some type of P25 signalling. I have no idea when that will happen though.
That's okay though when I look at how many years I was able to enjoy the old radios.

For the Slater north and south systems here, most users are allowed to use north or south. I see radios from the other counties trying to affiliate with the St Louis county systems but they are usually denied access. That can be seen by monitoring the control channels.
I don't know if the two Jeffco systems are setup like the two St Louis county systems are. I can only get a signal from the Jeffco south system.

Then you have St Charles with only one system. It's a pretty active system also with a lot of in the clear traffic. As you learned, most Law Enforcement talkgroups in St Louis county are encrypted. Fire and Public works and a few other departments like county highway are about all that's left to monitor on the STL county Slater systems. I suppose it's nice for those that like to monitor fire traffic. I was never into fire monitoring very much myself but it is nice to be able to monitor it if I hear the sirens getting near!

Hopefully my instructions are clear enough to understand! I was never very good at turning what's in my head into typed instructions.
If you get stuck with any of it, just post a message in this thread or send me a private message if you wish. I'll try to help figure out what is going on with your SDS200 and I assume the 436 I think you said you purchased recently.
If you can get one of them working like you want, the other one will be easy.

I still keep an old VCR in a closet! I have several family recordings on the old tapes I have. My intention was to convert them all to DVDs but I never got around to doing it. I had a VCR to DVD copier that played the VCR tapes at double speed so it didn't take as long to copy a tape over to a DVD disc but I have no idea what I did with that thing. No more 8-track players here but I do still have some cassette player/recorders as well as my old record album turntable for all the old vinyl albums I bought back in my younger years! Most of that old stuff is stored in a closet with moisture absorbing desiccant packets to try and preserve them should I ever get them out to use. That's a job that will probably never happen. If I have not done it in the last 20 years, I just don't see myself doing it today unless I become really bored to death!