State of Ohio Marcs

[dougiedoug777]

I have a pro 95 dual trunking scanner from radio shack. I currently receive pretty much all law enforcement agencies in my area except one. I live in Findlay Ohio and i'm trying to receive Ohio State Patrol but having no luck. From what I understand theyre using Motorola Type 11 Smartzone Omnilink. I also recently spoke to an officer and he mentioned they had switched to 800 mhz. I'm thinking my scanner isnt set up to receive these communications. Can anybody help me?

 

[rdale]

MARCS is a digital system, which you cannot hear with your Pro95.

 

[xusmarine1979]

I have a Pro-96 and works great for MARCS.

 

[Dubbin]

Nice to see someone else from the Findlay area The OSP here has made the move over to the new system about a month or so ago. You will need a Digital Radio to listen to them now (I have a PRO96). I will say this though, you will hear ALOT more then what you did before. Before the change you would hardly hear a thing but now it is busy busy busy.

 

[Cobra_Commander]

Nice to see someone else from the Findlay area The OSP here has made the move over to the new system about a month or so ago. You will need a Digital Radio to listen to them now (I have a PRO96). I will say this though, you will hear ALOT more then what you did before. Before the change you would hardly hear a thing but now it is busy busy busy.

Yeah its alot busier here to in portage county to.

 

[SLWilson]

Pro2096

Hello Everyone,
I'm waiting on UPS to deliver my new Pro2096. We have purchased one for our office and I've tinkered with it some. We got the programming cable with it. We've downloaded the Win96 program Ron Starr wrote. It's really neat. So, my point for this post.... In my tinkering, I've figured out how to program things, but, I don't think I quite have the jist of the different talk group ID's. As a for instance, we used the V-Scanner setup for the Ohio MARCS system. We thought we were hearing everything, but, I'm not sure we are. Some folks say I need to add the local tower frequencies (divided by a conventional frequency) in a seperate bank. Anyone know why I need to do this? And, if a mobile (OSP Officer) talks, what should be displayed? If the local post talks, what should be displayed for them? Is the talk group listing different for EACH radio that talks or just different for seperate "areas" that talk. Any info on the "inner-workings" of the MARCS stuff and what I'll be seeing on the display will be greatly appreciated. NOTE: I've read a good bit on Yahoo's MARCS Group, but don't see the answers to these questions....Thanks, Steve/KB8FAR

 

[xusmarine1979]

Hey Steve, welcome to the site. I live in Stark County and own a Pro-96. For Stark I just programmed the CC's(Control Channels). Those are the ones that are red and blue. I think if you are going to have two different sites in one bank then you'll need to put a conventional frequency in between them. For my 96 I just have the main CC's with nothing in between and it works absolutely fine for me. As for talkgroups, the fun never ends there. I have all the talkgroups for OSP in my county and just a few other agencies I like to listen to. Just check out the database and see what you want to hear. I'm thinking about getting a second 96 for the mrs so she can listen while at home because I take mine to work. I don't know if mine isn't programed right, that's just the way I have mine set up and it seems to do fine. If I am incorrect somebody please let me know.

 

[SLWilson]

MARCS Questions

Jon, I think if I understood your info correctly, and I put the control channel of out county's towers in, I'll hear "what I need to hear" OK. But, I guess I still don't understand the TG thing. As a for instance, We neighbor Jackson County. That is the District post for our area. We hear the Jackson post AND all of their cars on the control channel of the Gallipolis MARCS site. It ID's as Post 40 when they talk. When post 27 talks, it ID's post 27....When a cruiser tallks, there is a 5 digit number that appears. THEN, if, say the EMA radio (we have that radio in our office) transmits, we hear IT on the control channel of the Gallipolis tower. Same thing for the S.O.27 radio (we have it too). Each of those radios displays (EMA = COSE) and Sheriff's = SO27) shown on the Pro2096. I'm still not 100% surre if I'm going to miss something or not.....

 

[xusmarine1979]

I honestly don't know what to tell ya. It seems the more I think about it the more I get confused. I wish I had 2 96's so I could program them differently and see how it works. My county has 2 sites so I usually leave Canton's site in there since it's in the center of the county, if I'm up north I'll unlock Nimisilla's site which is in Summit. I honestly don't think you'll miss anything, if anything you might want to try to program the surrounding counties' CC's and see if you'll hear your county on those. I did that for a while but just wasn't getting a good enough signal.