UCAN Utah County problems

[seaton]

So I am sure I am probably the problem.

Summary:
Live near Cedar Fort / Eagle Mountain
Scanner is a PRO-18 with latest downloads 800mhz radio shack antenna
Target: UCAN (specifically I only really care about the North Utah County Sheriffs channels)

I am wondering if the radio reference guide that the pro-18 downloads is setup right for the rebanded UCAN system. I volunteer for the county so I am familiar with how much traffic is in the area. When listening I do get traffic and can hear 26J (saratoga springs, and some 1J traffic) but it sure seems quiet compared to listening to the county radios on a given day.

So my configuration is pretty much straight out of the database. I did a library Import, choose Utah, Systems, UCAN. This gives a person 64 sites if you choose them all. I would assume in my area I would only need the Utah County ones, and maybe the Vernon Hills one since that is very close to the west of me. I have tried using just selected, and importing all sites.

So talkgroups wise I am almost positive that 46112 Utah County Sheriff North is the main channel that I care about other than an occasional Tac channel or the Car - Car (local only). Life flight etc I might add in later also.

So imported all the utah county talk groups.

So with this configuration I do hear some traffic, mostly 26J, but it is quite quiet. If I suck in some slc county channels it can be quite noisy. The scanner seems to work fine in other words.

It just seems like I am missing alot of traffic.
I will verify more tonight while working and around a real radio to see what I am missing.

I am wondering if things are right in the config I downloaded from the radio reference database.

Do I need to do a custom rebanded setup ?

867.66250 is the Utah Co simulcast site from what I have found.
852.66250 is the control channel from all the research I have done.

I am not quite sure where I am going wrong. Sorry for what is probably a newbie question.

 

[seaton]

Ucan

Yeah there is definately something not right. I was hanging out all night all kinds of calls going on from dispatch to everyone known to man, and not a peep out of the scanner.

 

[halftime]

I think the problem is more geographical in nature. Haven't double checked the frequencies, but if your using the latest download then you should be good. I commute from AF to Provo each day and don't have a problem picking up everything for the North Sheriff's dispatch.

The Utah Cnty Simulcast repeater for UCAN is located around BYU - Lake Mountain is blocking the path. I don't know if there's repeater for that system on the Point of the Mountain site.

Double check the frequencies and bring it out of the geographical shadow and see if you get anything more.

 

[N7YUO]

Quote: I am wondering if things are right in the config I downloaded from the radio reference database.
Do I need to do a custom rebanded setup ?

867.66250 is the Utah Co simulcast site from what I have found.
852.66250 is the control channel from all the research I have done.

NOTE: The first thing that most of us are going to notice here is that 867.6625.
That was the UTCo Simul CC before rebanding, so we don't use it anymore.

I have helped some other members whose scanners would not perform well.
First thing I do is check for the correct frequencies and custom trunking table.
For Utah Co Simul, your scanner should have only these three freqs:
852.6625 CC
852.6375 alt cc
853.3625 alt cc

It needs to have this custom trunking table:
Lo Chan 440, Hi Chan 559, Offset 440, Base 851.0250, Step 25.0
Lo Chan 0, Hi Chan 719, Offset 0, Base 851.0125, Step 25.0
Anything more than this is excess and refers to freqs beyond what UCAN uses.

I am not familiar with the RS Pro 18, but I looked it up in RR.
I could not tell if it had Multi-Site trunking or not, but here is the catch:

If there are more than one control channel programmed in a scanlist/playlist,
and, multi-site is selected, it will scan consecutively for all the TGRPs on each CC.
You may miss action on one site while it is busy checking the other CC's.

If you have only one CC and it's alternate CC's, the Multi-Site thing won't matter,
because the scanner will only have one CC to check anyway.

You mentioned Vernon Hills. I would think that from your location, Vernon site would be blocked
by terrain.

 

[seaton]

Now your talking. I was wondering about something similar, but wasn't sure how to go about it.

My current table has

LO HI OFFSET Base Step
440 559 440 851.025000 25
0 719 0 851.012500 25
720 759 0 848.000000 25
815 831 0 846.625000 25
958 958 958 868.975000 25
961 1022 0 843.400000 25

So I will narrow it down just like you suggested. I was also thinking of deleting some of these other sites out of UCAN. I am guessing it uses alot of time scanning sites that I can't hear.

Thanks again, I will give it a shot

 

[seaton]

Yeah I turned on sites on the scanner and have narrowed down that I am getting traffic from
nelson peak -- clear
Elizabeth Ridge -- clear
point of mountain -- fair

 

[kf7yn]

Correction on the custom table:

Lo Chan 440, Hi Chan 559, Offset 440, Base 851.0250, Step 25.0
Lo Chan 0, Hi Chan 439 (not 719 which is old plan), Offset 0, Base 851.0125, Step 25.0

 

[Junior1970]

I think the problem is more geographical in nature. Haven't double checked the frequencies, but if your using the latest download then you should be good. I commute from AF to Provo each day and don't have a problem picking up everything for the North Sheriff's dispatch.

The Utah Cnty Simulcast repeater for UCAN is located around BYU - Lake Mountain is blocking the path. I don't know if there's repeater for that system on the Point of the Mountain site.

Double check the frequencies and bring it out of the geographical shadow and see if you get anything more.

Utah County Simulast is made up of four sites:
BYU Kimball Tower
Utah County Security Center (Jail)
East Lehi
Lake Mountain

Eagle Mountain has coverage issues on Simo because where the repeater is located is blocked by the terrain on the back of the mountain. City Center has coverage issues such as when an alarm went off at one of the model homes the SO had to use the mobile in their vehicle to transmit as the protables couldn't get a signal out when their PTT was pressed. Solution: Add the Black Crook and Nelson sites and the problem is solved as north county traffic comes over both sites as long as there are units in the area.

If you just want to listen to North traffic do the following...

Add the Black Crook and Nelson sites and program the TG's for the area (UC North, UC Car to car, UTCO Tacs 2 thru 5, etc) but put them in CLOSED mode otherwise Nelson will be full of Salt Lake, Summit, Davis, Cache traffic and Black Crook will be mostly Tooele County traffic.

Add 853.7625 which is a conventional repeater near Cedar Fort that simos UC North

Add 154.860 VHF Patch for North
Add 154.740 VHF Patch for UC Fire Tac 2
Add 155.190 VHF Patch for UC Fire Tac 3
Add 154.445 VHF Patch for UC Fire Tac 4
Add 155.235 VHF Patch for SAR (Many out here) Plus the VHF Tac freq 155.295 for UC SAR
Add 153.950 Utah County Fire Pagers.

That's what's worked for me....

FYI : The site at Vernon Hills is a backup to Black Crook. The only time it's active is when BC is down. Program those too but I havent heard anything on that site since rebanding. Take those freqs from Vernon and back them off by 15 (866 becomes 851, 867 becomes 852, 868 becomes 853) and that should do it...