TRX- 1 in North Jersey

[ht396jm]

I'm a new user of the TRX-1. I'm trying to monitor the following systems in north jersey....

Wayne Township
Bergen County TRS
Morris County TRS
Fort Lee Boro
New Jersey State Police
NJICS

I've monitored all these systems on my HP-1 and other bearcats, unidens without much issue but this scanner is not performing well on any of these. I'm not hearing anything on the two state bands or Wayne, Bergen county is a hit or miss, Morris county is spotty at best, and Fort Lee is usually clear. All my tables are set to auto fill and I've tried switching between NFM and FM on the individual sites and we'll as switching the attenuators and AGC on and off. Anybody have any advise or suggestions?

 

[craneoperator99]

Is your DSP firmware up to date?

 

[W2GLD]

Make sure your talk-groups that you've assigned to that system are assigned to the correct scan list; this is often overlooked as talk-groups can be assigned to multiple lists. To check this, go into in of your programmed trunked systems and verify where the talk-groups are assigned; I've had this happen to me on more then one occasion myself. Also, as the previous poster commented, with these scanners, I'd consider staying up-to-date on the firmware. Also remember, for Motorola Project-25 systems only the control channels need to be programmed; however, if any of these systems are Harris (formally M/A-COM) systems, you MUST program all of the site frequencies as any of them could become the control channel. I've just taken best practice to always program them all anymore as I'd sometimes have no idea what's Motorola vs Harris without hooking up a computer and watching the control channel. NJSP for sure is Motorola and only requires the control channels as is the NJICS system; I have no idea about the others. Good luck and please report back your findings; I'll be traveling back to that area in a few weeks and bringing along me TRX-1 as well.

 

[troymail]

I'm a new user of the TRX-1. I'm trying to monitor the following systems in north jersey....

Wayne Township
Bergen County TRS
Morris County TRS
Fort Lee Boro
New Jersey State Police
NJICS

I've monitored all these systems on my HP-1 and other bearcats, unidens without much issue but this scanner is not performing well on any of these. I'm not hearing anything on the two state bands or Wayne, Bergen county is a hit or miss, Morris county is spotty at best, and Fort Lee is usually clear. All my tables are set to auto fill and I've tried switching between NFM and FM on the individual sites and we'll as switching the attenuators and AGC on and off. Anybody have any advise or suggestions?

I am not in that area and cannot speak directly to these systems so what I am about to say may not apply at all... but...

I've recently found that there are some P25 system(s) that just don't work using AutoFill. AutoFill requires the systems to send their bandplan information in the control channel some systems just don't do it.

You may want to try changing the trunking table setting in EZ Scan to "Standard" vs. AutoFill. It may not help at all but it is something to try.

Of course, if the bandplan isn't sent in the CC and the system isn't using a "standard" bandplan, none of this will help.

Again, I don't know the systems but simulcast is something I always put on the list of culpruts that impact reception.

There's always other potential issues as well -- I pretty much only use Radio Shack (or similar) 800 Mhz antennas on my radios vs. the stock antenna - they make a significant difference. And, unless you have multiple radios where one works well and the other doesn't, you can't necessarily rule out a bad unit.

As I said - none of this may apply... just things to consider.

 

[ht396jm]

UDPATE:

So first issue I rectified was...... the squelch knob was turned up :/ (facepalm)
That solved much of the problem and I immediately began hearing the vast majority of the systems I programmed. After letting the scanner sit for 12 hours, it is picking up 95%. I'm still unable to hear the Wayne Harris P25 evening with changing the autofill to standard. I'll update again if anything changes.

 

[railtrailbiker]

You may be experiencing reception problems because some of these systems are simulcasting. Scanners don't handle simulcasting as well as commercial grade two way radios do. In my case, I can't hear the Bergen County Trunked System at my house because I'm out of range of all Mahwah Simulcast sites, and I receive too many of the Alpine Simulcast Sites. So I can hear absolutely nothing at my house, but a few blocks away I hear both Alpine and Mahwah perfectly. If you're in the path of too many sites on which the same frequencies are being simulcast, that may explain some of your problem.

 

[SCPD]

Try setting your DSP to 62.Works better for me.The TRX1 you must have your squelch really low to receive the 700mhz NJICS,also lockout all the sites except for the one by you.

 

[Coolant113]

Try setting your DSP to 62.Works better for me.The TRX1 you must have your squelch really low to receive the 700mhz NJICS,also lockout all the sites except for the one by you.

What is DSP on the TRX-1? Curious as i am a TRX-1 user as well