Verdugo Fire Communications: What am I doing wrong?

[SuperHotLarry]

Hello everyone!

Please bear with me while I try to explain the situation. I've been an avid scanner listener for a while now and up to this point, I really enjoy listening to my local LASD and LACoFD and CHP frequencies and a few other local agencies. But I recently had to lock-out the dispatch channel for Verdugo Fire due to not being able to understand it. I know it's a digital radio rebroadcast over analog, but no matter which radio I use (either digital or analog, base station or mobile, headphones or speaker), I can't seem to understand what is being said, despite me tuning in and having excellent signal only a few blocks away from the broadcast point. Just to be clear, the issue is only with Verdugo Fire and nothing else.

Has anyone else experienced this kind of phenomena with Verdugo Fire (or a similar situation with anyone else?). Are there steps that I can take to improve the intelligibility of the audio from Verdugo?

TL;DR: Verdugo Fire dispatch sounds like a muffled, jumbled mess of words and beeps. What can I do to help improve the sound quality of that channel when listening in?

Thank you!
-SHL

 

[Randyk4661]

Are you talking about 154.370?
Could they have gone encrypted?
I will monitor from my location to see if I can hear it.

 

[SuperHotLarry]

Are you talking about 154.370?
Could they have gone encrypted?
I will monitor from my location to see if I can hear it.

Hello and thanks for your reply. I am indeed talking about 154.370. I can still hear voice and dialogue, so I don't think they went to encryption, it just doesn't sound good at all compared to the other fire frequencies I monitor and I'm wondering why

Thanks again for your response.

 

[Randyk4661]

I'm not getting anything on 154.370 here in Orange county.
Listening to the ICI trunked system, I'm getting most transmissions quite clear but there are a few that have been unreadable, as you were saying very garbled. Could be just my location.
That's the problem with digital miss a couple of bits of data and you lose the conversation.
Hopefully someone closer can shed some light on whats happening.

 

[cmdrwill]

Verdugo Fire Red one VHF is ok now loud and clear on my Vertex VX 261.

 

[ElevatorsAndRadios]

I actually listened to Verdugo 154.370 yesterday for a long while, which I usually do not to haha. I noticed nothing out of the ordinary.

 

[SuperHotLarry]

I actually listened to Verdugo 154.370 yesterday for a long while, which I usually do not to haha. I noticed nothing out of the ordinary.

Hello and thank you for your feedback! Very interesting that you mention listening to it. I held the Verdugo channel for a good long while yesterday while driving around the foothill cities such as through Burbank, Monrovia, and Pasadena to see if the intelligibility would improve. Most of the time dialogue was quite clear. However, there were still unreadable, mumbled dispatches/voice interactions.

It's not so much a case of if something is wrong with Verdugo itself, I'm just wondering why there is such a stark difference on my end between a dispatch such as the (nearly) crystal-clear Blue 5 LACoFD dispatch and the (sometimes) clear Vergudo Dispatch.

 

[cmdrwill]

The VHF Red One transmitter is a patch to the ICI P25 UHF receiver and some times the audio gets funky.

I could be a repeater Rx ICI P25 UHF and TX on VHF.

Not sure where the Red One VHF transmitter is anymore. Used to be on St Katherine north west of the Rose bowl.

 

[betito1954]

I'm not getting anything on 154.370 here in Orange county.
Listening to the ICI trunked system, I'm getting most transmissions quite clear but there are a few that have been unreadable, as you were saying very garbled. Could be just my location.
That's the problem with digital miss a couple of bits of data and you lose the conversation.
Hopefully someone closer can shed some light on whats happening.

Most of Orange County is encrypted

 

[Randyk4661]

Most of Orange County is encrypted

There's more to Orange County than just police & fire

 

[betito1954]

Based on Radio References database. Most of OC is.