TxWARN East tx.

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mboland

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Winnsboro Tx
I'm wanting to listen to Smith County. I have a BCD 486 HP and have programmed tx warn into my favorites list but can't hear anything. I live in Winnsboro Tx. I've tried everything that I can think of. My antenna is 30' high. I think I'm about 24 miles from the Gilmer Tx. repeater. Hopefully, somebody may have some insight into my difficulties.
Mike
 

hiegtx

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Dallas, TX
I'm wanting to listen to Smith County. I have a BCD 486 HP and have programmed tx warn into my favorites list but can't hear anything. I live in Winnsboro Tx. I've tried everything that I can think of. My antenna is 30' high. I think I'm about 24 miles from the Gilmer Tx. repeater. Hopefully, somebody may have some insight into my difficulties.
Mike
Looking at the data for the Upshur County site, it shows a 'range' of 18 miles. However, that is merely a guess. I'm about 30 miles from the Kaufman site, and yet I can receive it on some of my portable scanners, as well as my 536HP fed from a rooftop antenna.

Are there hills between you & the Gilmer site? If so, that could be blocking your signal path. In all likelihood, there may be no Smith County traffic carried on the Gilmer site. Instead, I would suggest that you try the Lindale & Winona sites in Smith County, to see if you hear anything there. Those sites would be carrying Smith County, TxDPS, and probably some Tyler traffic.

For Upshur County itself, the database does not show any usage on the TxWARN P25 system. The only reference I see, other than the site itself, is a patched talkgroup for Longview to contact the Upshur S.O. That likely would not be repeated in Upshur itself, unless a Longview user was closer to the Gilmer site than the ones for Longview proper. For the same reason, you likely would not hear Smith on the Upshur site, unless one of their units was in the county on official business.

I also wonder if the Upshur site is still in use. I believe the main reason it was built was to support ETMC. However, they have closed a number of their smaller, satellite, hospitals, as well as exited the EMS business, dropping ambulance service in many areas.
 

mboland

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Mar 16, 2016
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Winnsboro Tx
TxWARN P25

Your absolutely right Steve. I was trying the wrong sights. There are some hills but I think I'm in good shape as far as reception is concerned. I can hear uhf signals from that direction fairly easy. I think I'm doing something wrong. I did add Smith Co. in my favorites list and could see the Lindale and Winona sights but nothing, nada, zero hits. I have added many separate counties that I want to listen to. I turn them on and off through the manage favorite list not using quick keys. Everything else works just fine except TxWARN P25 sites. So last night I read your reply and decided to use the zip code feature set the range to 10 miles and to my surprise I started hearing etmc and some Smith county Sheriffs office. Now if I can figure out how to add to my favorites list and keep it working would be nice. There's something I'm doing wrong, but I dont know what it is.

Mike
BCD436HP, Alinco DR638, Icom ic-r75
 

hiegtx

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Joined
May 8, 2004
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11,169
Location
Dallas, TX
Your absolutely right Steve. I was trying the wrong sights. There are some hills but I think I'm in good shape as far as reception is concerned. I can hear uhf signals from that direction fairly easy. I think I'm doing something wrong. I did add Smith Co. in my favorites list and could see the Lindale and Winona sights but nothing, nada, zero hits. I have added many separate counties that I want to listen to. I turn them on and off through the manage favorite list not using quick keys. Everything else works just fine except TxWARN P25 sites. So last night I read your reply and decided to use the zip code feature set the range to 10 miles and to my surprise I started hearing etmc and some Smith county Sheriffs office. Now if I can figure out how to add to my favorites list and keep it working would be nice. There's something I'm doing wrong, but I dont know what it is.

Mike
BCD436HP, Alinco DR638, Icom ic-r75
Mike,

When you first tried the Gilmer/Upshur site, did you append the site from the main database? Or did you manually enter it?

From your description that it "started working" when you instead used your zipcode and a range, it sounds as if you had the scanner set to "use location", but may not have actually entered your location initially. If using location based, be sure that you have YOUR location entered, as well as the range you desire. The way 'range' works can be better described here.

If appending from the main database, the location information in the RadioReference database is included with the information appended to your Favorites list. However, if you manually create a system and/or sites, then the location will be 0 latitude & 0 longitude. That "location" is in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of northwest Africa, and thus would not come up for any valid location you'd likely entered,

For Favorites lists, where I have appended, or manually created, systems, departments, and sites that I know I can hear, I leave location turned off for that list (you can set that in your profile).

For the Smith County sites that you enter or append, as long as you can get reception, I would simply leave location off, and that way you don't need to change range or location data to push them into range.
 
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