VSP in Hampton Roads

[ModSquad3613]

Good afternoon everyone,

Long time lurker, first time poster. I have a question I'm hoping someone from the Hampton Roads area could assist me with.

I've had a Homepatrol-1 for a couple of years and have recently decided to use it more in my truck. I'm upgrading my antenna and I've been rebuilding my favorites using Sentinel. So far I've had no problems with Chesapeake, Virginia Beach or Norfolk Fire/EMS/PD.

The problem comes in when I try to listen to Virginia State Police. I get nothing. I live 10 minutes from the barracks in Chesapeake and I can't hear anything.

My firmware and database are current, squelch is mid-range, attenuation is off, and range is set to 30 miles. All my service types are enabled in the full database mode but when I select my VSP favorite list I've noticed that when you select the edit channel feature the Law Dispatch service type is disabled. This leads me to believe I missed a group when I built the favorite in Sentinel.

I've researched previous threads back to a couple of years but can't quite find the problem. Is the STARS database in a different area?
My apologies for the long winded question. Any assistance anyone could provide would be appreciated. Thanks

 

[Dafe1er]

Here is a map of the STARS towers in Va.
http://forums.radioreference.com/virginia-radio-discussion-forum/275080-updated-stars-map.html

I would create a new VSP favorites folder then go in through the main database and select the STARS for Va and append it to the newly created folder. After doing that, I would edit the favorite folder and turn all other tower sites off EXCEPT the following:
Richmond
Franklin
Chesapeake
Hampton

Then watch the scanner and see which one of those towers work best for you.

 

[kc4jgc]

Depending on where you travel, I'd include Waverly, Williamsburg, Emporia, Eastville & Accomac to the list. I wouldn't add Richmond unless you're going that way. You can hear Richmond, Chesapeake, Culpeper & Appomattox off the Richmond site.

 

[ModSquad3613]

Good To Go

Thanks for the info. I rebuilt my favorites for the VSP and everything seems to work. I also went through and manually avoided sites not in my area. Thanks again.