Washington 700 MOSWIN Tower

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KA0KDW

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The GPS location is most likely not accurate. If you look at the location section section it shows “exact location not known”. Generally of a site is submitted ajd the submitter puts the city they think it is in/near then the admin’s will get really use the center of the town.

the site is located on a water tower in the area. The photos listed above does not appear to be the correct water tower.
 

rbritton1201

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That water tower in the photos is the quite prominently visible one at Hwy. 47 and Hwy. 100. But, I have no idea about other prospective locations. Does anybody know any others I should investigate?

The GPS location is most likely not accurate. If you look at the location section section it shows “exact location not known”. Generally of a site is submitted ajd the submitter puts the city they think it is in/near then the admin’s will get really use the center of the town.

the site is located on a water tower in the area. The photos listed above does not appear to be the correct water tower.
 

KA0KDW

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That water tower in the photos is the quite prominently visible one at Hwy. 47 and Hwy. 100. But, I have no idea about other prospective locations. Does anybody know any others I should investigate?
You should see a couple of blue fiberglass antennas. On whatever water tower it’s on. Also, directional antennas on moswin are only used within 7 miles of the state line.
 

rbritton1201

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Well, today I was up in Washington, Missouri, with my Uniden BCD436HP portable scanner. I could easily monitor Washington PD via the Washington 700 MOSWIN tower, and the BCD436HP scanner showed full control channel signal deflection. It further confirmed that I had Washington PD programmed properly, and that I wasn't able to receive the Washington 700 tower via my base station scanner setup in Union, Missouri, due to the built-in Washington 700 signal range limitations.

Another anomaly I observed while in Washington trying to monitor MSHP, is that the BCD436HP did not receive the towers I had programmed into the BCD436HP scanner, which are otherwise working well on my base station scanners in Union, Missouri (ie: Weldon Spring, St.Clair 700, Imperial, and Shirley towers). I did not have the Washington 700 tower programmed into the BCD436HP under the MSHP favorite's list, and because the BCD436HP just wasn't receiving control channel transmissions on the BCD436HP while in Washington from these other towers (above), I wasn't receiving any MSHP transmissions on the BCD436HP while I was in Washington. So, range limitations via the factory supplied rubber antenna, and probably also due to already inherent rubber duck limitations, the BCD436HP just doesn't have the reception capability from these other MOSWIN towers that would otherwise be anticipated from a base station elevated Discone antenna setup, such as what I have at my base station in Union, Missouri.

When I was in Washington this morning, and reprogrammed the BCD436HP portable scanner to receive MSHP through the Washington 700 tower, by adding in MSHP talk groups, I began receiving MSHP traffic identified as "Metro," MSHP Channel 1, and "Rural," MSHP Channel 2. After the reprogram, MSHP monitoring was working well. Obviously, I concluded that the MSHP talk groups are programmed into the Washington 700 tower by MOSWIN, thereby allowing me to receive MSHP transmissions via the BCD436HP, as long as I'm within the signal range of the Washington 700 tower. That would stand to reason because MSHP cars in Troop C have jurisdictional responsibilities within the Washington area as well, and use of that tower would be logical for MOSWIN to include MSHP talk groups into the Washington 700 tower.

This prompted me to wonder if perhaps by the Washington PD talk groups not being programmed into my base station scanners via the other MOSWIN towers, it might be why my base station scanners are "unable" to receive Washington PD transmissions. This also prompted me to wonder if I program the Washington PD talk groups into these other MOSWIN tower programming, which are programmed into my base station scanners, I might finally be able to receive transmissions by Washington PD via my base scanners in Union, Missouri, via the other area MOSWIN towers, especially if I reprogram Washington PD talk groups into the St. Clair 700 tower.

I had a commentator on another forum claim he was able to receive Washington PD through the St. Clair 700 tower. It has me wondering if perhaps the reason I'm not receiving Washington PD on my base scanners in Union, Missouri, is because the Washington PD talk groups aren't programmed into the other MOSWIN towers I am receiving via my base station scanners (ie: St. Clair 700, Weldon Spring, Imperial, and Shirley). The St. Clair 700 tower would be the logical choice to program with Washington PD talk groups, since it's closest to my Union, Missouri base station, provided Washington PD talk groups are also programmed into the St. Clair 700 tower by MOSWIN.

So, I'm going to try to reprogram the base station scanners with Washington PDs talk groups, within MOSWIN tower programming, just to see if this Washington PD programming talk group addition allows me to start receiving Washington PD traffic on my base station scanners through other towers in the area in addition to the Washington 700 tower.

If it works, then I'll also be able to effectively monitor Washington PD remotely via my cell phone. This scenario would be significantly more convenient for me than via my BCD436HP, as I always have my cell phone with me, and wouldn't have to tote around the BCD436HP portable scanner in addition to my cell phone to monitor everything I want to routinely listen to. I would then probably dedicate the BCD436HP to roaming outside my routine monitoring area, probably using GPS or zip code searches to monitor agencies as I travel outside my area, etc...

It will all depend on which of the above selection of towers also have Washington PD talk groups programmed into them. It would stand to reason they would set the system up this way..because what PD would only want coverage within their city limits? I mean, municipal patrol cars leave their jurisdictions all the time (ie: pursuits, prisoner pickups, mutual aid, multi-jurisdictional investigations, etc...) If MOSWIN doesn't have Washington talk groups programmed into at least one of these other towers, at least within a reasonable geographical area, then they should!
 
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KA0KDW

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With Washington being in the Franklin County Fleet of talk groups I’d imagine they have the ability to affiliate to any site that is set in the master server as Franklin county available sites. With that being said even if they have the ability to affiliate to St. Clair site there’s no guarantee you’ll hear Wash PD via that site. If Wash PD has a radio with their talk group selected and that radio isn’t affiliated to St. Clair then they won’t be heard.
 

KA0KDW

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Another example. I live in region D we have a 700 site in Buffalo. Rarely do I ever hear any traffic via that site. Reason for that is there are no radios affiliated to that site.
 

rbritton1201

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Yep, it's going to all depend on whether Washington PD has any talk groups affiliated with MOSWIN towers I can receive at my QTH base station. just six miles down the road from the city limits of Washington. But, based on over thirty years of law enforcement experience, five years of which was spent in a major, very large police department's communications division, in a training officer assignment, I would be totally shocked if Washington PD talk groups were not affiliated in adjacent MOSWIN tower programming, other than the limited range capabilities of the Washington 700 tower. Respectfully, if this is not the case, somebody doesn't know what they're doing, or there's some bizzaro police procedural administrative error!

[QUOTE="KA0KDW, post: 3615588, member: 964634"s
Another example. I live in region D we have a 700 site in Buffalo. Rarely do I ever hear any traffic via that site. Reason for that is there are no radios affiliated to that site.
[/QUOTE]
 
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KA0KDW

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Yep, it's going to all depend on whether Washington PD has any talk groups affiliated with MOSWIN towers I can receive at my QTH base station. But, based on over thirty years of law enforcement experience, five years of which was spent in a major very large county police department's communications divisioin, in a training officer assignment, I would be totally shocked if Washington PD talk groups were not affiliated in adjacent MOSWIN tower programming, other than the limited range capabilities of the Washington 700 tower. Respectfully, if this is not the case, somebody doesn't know what they're doing!

Yep, it's going to all depend on whether Washington PD has any talk groups affiliated with MOSWIN towers I can receive at my QTH base station. But, based on over thirty years of law enforcement experience, five years of which was spent in a major very large county police department's communications divisioin, in a training officer assignment, I would be totally shocked if Washington PD talk groups were not affiliated in adjacent MOSWIN tower programming, other than the limited range capabilities of the Washington 700 tower. Respectfully, if this is not the case, somebody doesn't know what they're doing!

[QUOTE="KA0KDW, post: 3615588, member: 964634"
Another example. I live in region D we have a 700 site in Buffalo. Rarely do I ever hear any traffic via that site. Reason for that is there are no radios affiliated to that site.
I wouldn’t at all be surprised if it’s available to affiliate. I’d Imogeneimagine the biggest purpose for the Wash site is optimized for portable coverage. There are also no sites running low power. All the 700 sites run 65 watts out of the combiner. However, in some metros they use electrical down tilt to optimize coverage for portables especially inside infrastructure.
I’d imagine on mobiles they likely roam between sites quite a bit.
 

rbritton1201

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Yeah, that's a good theory with respect to portable optimization, and that would be a very reasonable administrative tactic that I would support wholeheartedly...

With respect to the power output, I can only report that the signal coverage is extremely limited via the Washington 700 tower when monitoring Washington PD, and is virtually isolated to the Washington city limits. I've checked the signal coverage via the BCD436HP, sampling locations that are relatively close to the Washington city limits, and there's no control channel signal present on the BCD436HP for any of the towers.

So, I don't know what's going on with respect to power output adjustments that may be exceptions to the wattage into the combiner rule, but it appears that some kind of exception is in effect. On the other hand, I have not checked the MSHP signal limitations through the Washington 700 towers theoretical signal range that I would anticipate seeing based on the universal wattage rule at the combiner.

That would be an interesting experiment for my investigative agenda, if signal limitations are not also present with respect to MSHP through the Washington 700 tower. I don't understand the technical explanation for how those transmitter adjustments can be made to mitigate signal coverage via Washington PD, while MSHP requires signal coverage well outside Washington city limits by many miles.

I suppose it could be a totally different transmitter working off the Washington 700 tower to accommodate MSHP communications, which has a much larger jurisdictional responsibility than Washington PD. It would seem to require a more robust power output wattage than what I anticipate seeing for MSHP as you travel away from Washington city limits, assuming I receive a more robust signal off the Washington 700 tower with MSHP talk groups programmed into the BCD436HP scanner.

The whole scenario with respect to the Washington 700 tower is confusing...

...optimized for portable coverage...There are also no sites running low power. All the 700 sites run 65 watts out of the combiner. However, in some metros they use electrical down tilt to optimize coverage for portables especially inside infrastructure.
I’d imagine on mobiles they likely roam between sites quite a bit.
 
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KA0KDW

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65 watts is the power level for the 700 sites. Washington site might’ve been placed in service primarily to help in the city of Washington. Not nexisarrly for coverage in outlying areas. If the signal isn’t strong enough for a radio the radios will search for the next strongest signal using a site list of approved sites for whatever talk group tue radio has selected. Water towers aren’t the best for the sites. They work but not very well. Very few MOSWIN sites are on water towers for coverage reasons. But again I somewhat suspect the Washington site was placed in service to primarily help with coverage for Wash PD.
 

rbritton1201

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Well, I programmed the Washington PD talk groups into the St. Clair 700 tower on the BCD536HP scanner installed at the base station in Union, Missouri, which has a Discone antenna up 20 feet, and receives all the previously mentioned tower control signals very well, except Washington 700 tower.

I tried a couple of ways...I locked on the System and Department Keys onto the Washington PD segment of the favorites list, listened for several hours, and nothing was heard out of Washington PD. Then, I entered the Washington talk groups for each of the other towers in the area (ie: Weldon Spring, Imperial, Shirley, and St. Clair towers), in addition to the Washington 700 tower, and the same thing, listened for several hours, and nothing was heard from Washington PD. MSHP traffic was consistently being heard the entire time however, as their talk groups are also programmed into the favorites list.

Seems to me that Washington PD is not subscribed to any other area towers, most of which are miles further away than the St. Clair tower, other than, of course, the Washington 700 tower itself, which only seems to cover the city limits of Washington, Missouri. I can't hardly believe it, but that sure seems to be the case. Frankly, I'm shocked!

The commentator on the other forum must be mistaken in believing he is monitoring Washington PD off of the St. Clair MOSWIN tower. I'm going to inquire as to how he has his gear programmed to see if I'm missing something, but I highly doubt it. Up until just a few weeks ago, Washington PD was still on analog, and I suspect he isn't aware that he used to be able to monitor them because he was programmed onto their analog system. When I was programmed to their analog system using the BCD536HP at the base station, I could easily monitor Washington PD too, but no longer. I'm monitoring Washington Fire/EMS perfectly well however, but they're still on analog.
 

kruser

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Seems to me that Washington PD is not subscribed to any other area towers, most of which are miles further away than the St. Clair tower, other than, of course, the Washington 700 tower itself, which only seems to cover the city limits of Washington, Missouri. I can't hardly believe it, but that sure seems to be the case. Frankly, I'm shocked!
The commentator on the other forum must be mistaken in believing he is monitoring Washington PD off of the St. Clair MOSWIN tower.

As I said earlier, I very often hear Washington PD from the Weldon Spring tower.
Sometimes it's for periods in excess of 24 hours. But... as soon as whatever radio is sitting on the Washington PD talkgroup is turned off or affiliates with a different site other than Weldon Spring, I lose Washington PD.
I also get hits from the Washington City Fire talkgroups from the Weldon Spring tower as well but those are rather rare.

I'm hearing Washington City PD just fine as I type this from the Weldon Spring site.
 

rbritton1201

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Hello Kruser,

Well, I'm picking up the Weldon Spring tower's control channel just fine, even with my Discone antennas situated in my attic space, which is still below the geographical horizon. I'm getting full signal deflection from the Weldon Spring tower, and MSHP transmissions are being received perfectly.

Which frequencies do you have programmed into the Weldon Springs tower for Washington PD?

I have the following frequencies plugged into the Washington PD favorites list under the Weldon Springs Tower:

picture010.jpg


Should I have the frequencies from the Washington 700 tower plugged into the Washington favorites list as well? It's easy to add them in, but if that's the issue, I didn't realize I needed to do so when I get no control channel signal deflection off of the Washington 700 tower at my base station. Unless, maybe, the frequencies for the Washington 700 tower are also plugged into the Weldon Spring tower.

I've got the following talk groups programmed into the Washington PD favorites list, and I'm sure they're correct:
picture011.jpg

I've been monitoring for quite some time without the Washington 700 frequencies plugged into the favorites list for Washington PD, but haven't heard any traffic from Washington PD whatsoever. Got to be a programming issue if you're hearing them currently in Chesterfield.

OHHHH!!! Just now, 18:27pm, I received a Washington PD transmission, just as I have things set up, without the Washington 700 tower frequencies plugged into the Weldon Spring tower. But man, they were dead for at least an hour, nothing heard!

:ROFLMAO:I know, it's too cold, and the cops don't want to get out of the car, other than the brave soul at 18:27pm with a stop on an orange jeep...LOL! It takes a former one to know one...but, 39 degrees, that's not that cold, what gives? :LOL:

As I said earlier, I very often hear Washington PD from the Weldon Spring tower.
Sometimes it's for periods in excess of 24 hours. But... as soon as whatever radio is sitting on the Washington PD talkgroup is turned off or affiliates with a different site other than Weldon Spring, I lose Washington PD.
I also get hits from the Washington City Fire talkgroups from the Weldon Spring tower as well but those are rather rare.

I'm hearing Washington City PD just fine as I type this from the Weldon Spring site.
 

kruser

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I only have the control channel for Weldon programmed in. 154.695.
I also usually have the alternate of 152.660 in as well but have not added it this time.

As long as you are setup for a P25 System and have a decent signal, you really don't need any other frequencies entered as the scanner will be steered to the active voice channel from data sent by the control channel. It also does not hurt to have all the voice channels in there like you have. Either way should work equally well.

I do suspect the radio that's monitoring TG 4803 probably drops its affiliation with the Weldon site or is maybe even powered off. When that happens, you won't hear TG 4803 on Weldon unless another radio is also affiliated with the Weldon site. Not much you can do about that!
From your testing, it sounds like you are just in a bad area for the Washington 700 site. That's really the site you need to hear if you want to hear everything from Washington City.
From your testing again, it sounds like your only option to make that happen is probably an antenna outside of your attic and mounted higher in free space. A 7/800 MHz yagi and low loss coax like LMR-400 may work if you can detect a signal at all from the Washington 700 sites control channel. For that to work though, someone needs to determine if there is a signal at all otherwise it would all likely be a waste of time and money.

I also think @KA0KDW may be correct in his thoughts of them possibly using an electrical downtilt for that site wherever it's antenna's may be.
I know when it was a new site that I heard Washington Cities FD doing a lot of what sounded like in building testing inside of the Mercy Hospital building.
I also think KA0KDW may be correct about electrical downtilt settings due to the good coverage I get from the Washington 700 site north of town down in the Missouri river valley low lands on the north side of the river. I often wonder if that site was really built more to help fill in coverage gaps for the state patrol in those low elevation river bottom areas than it was ever intended to be a site for Washington City.
I know some of the 700 sites they have added since the VHF portion was pretty much complete have been sites added to fill in dead spots in the VHF coverage.
Some 700 sites are also to support a higher number of users than the 5 channel VHF sites can handle but I have no idea which is which.

One other thing, the same thing applies for the 700 sites, you really only need the control channels in your scanner. It's usually advised to add the one marked as an alternate as well but none of the others are needed for a P25 system.

One other thing I've noticed happening with some of the 700 MHz Moswin sites are frequency block changes at various sites. This happened with either the St Clair or Washington site after those sites were discovered and added to the RRDB. So the site info ended up being wrong after the radio techs made changes.
My guess is they were still tuning these somewhat new 700 sites and possibly changing the frequency blocks available to them to avoid interference from or to another site.
That's of course a guess but it does make sense they may make changes after the site is actually on the air.
 

rbritton1201

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What I noticed when listening to Washington PD all last evening between 18:27pm, when I heard my first transmission from Washington PD, after about an hour of total silence, and about 22:30pm when I turned the scanner off, the only radio traffic I heard was between the main base TGID 4803 and only one singular car also on TGID 4803, a female officer. No other car numbers were heard all evening through the Weldon Spring tower.

The very odd thing is, there are many more cars on duty in Washington than a singular officer, and I should be hearing transmissions from more than one car over a period of 4 hours. I don't know, maybe it's just me, but I also noticed that the digital audio quality of those transmissions was not up to a par with respect to what I generally hear from MSHP cars on the same and other MOSWIN towers, even though the control channel signal reception at my base station is excellent with respect to Weldon Spring Tower.

When I was up in Washington with my BCD436HP on Monday, I was up there for about the same period of time as last night, but from about 11am until 2pm on Monday, monitoring through the Washington 700 tower, and I didn't really notice any of these anomalies via the Washington 700 tower that I'm noticing when monitoring through the Weldon Spring Tower.

I seemed to be hearing all the cars on duty on Monday through the Washington 700 tower, except I sometimes perceived a slight garbled kind of audio quality to some transmissions, but sometimes that can be typical of some digital transmissions. It wasn't too bad, but I do sometimes notice it, not that analog is particularly any better with respect to its ocassional static.

I also have TGID 4801 and TGID 4802 programmed into the scanners, which are identified within RR as Multi-Dispatch channels for Washington PD, just so in the event they broadcast via a different TGID number, I wouldn't miss anything. I understand that it is not probably necessary to program all the frequencies listed for different agencies, and that the primary and secondary frequencies is all that's probably necessary.

But, due to my confusion with respect to how the MOSWIN system is sometimes working, whether it's always setup as its intended to work, and whether RR has the accurate information, not to mention the changes that radio techs might be making to the system that never make it into RR, I just add all the data in on RR in order to be on the safe side. The card has only about 1% of space used up for all the data I have programmed into the scanners for the small number agencies I want to listen to. So, I feel that I have the luxury of not having to be sparing with respect to adding in all the frequencies for the towers that are listed in RR that I want to monitor. I guess it can slow down the scanning speed, having excess data that it has to scan through, but it's a compromise I'm willing to endure, and a negligible delay, just so I'm sure not to miss anything.

I speculate that we are all missing a considerable number transmissions through the Weldon Spring Tower when monitoring Washington PD and not through the Washington 700 tower, and that it's most likely due to our not having the frequency ranges necessary to copy all the cars, which may be transmitting on different frequencies than what is published within RR. I believe the main TGID is correct, TGID 4803, but who knows, there may be some data missing from RR there too.

But, if some Washington cars are broadcasting on frequencies that are unknown to us, thereby not programmed into our scanners, it stands to reason that communication between the base station and "ALL" the cars whose frequencies we are unaware of aren't going to be heard. At least that's my theory with respect to my understanding of how P25 is supposed to work, and what I'm experiencing via the Weldon Spring tower and Washington PD.

From your testing again, it sounds like your only option to make that happen is probably an antenna outside of your attic and mounted higher in free space. A 7/800 MHz yagi and low loss coax like LMR-400 may work if you can detect a signal at all from the Washington 700 sites control channel. For that to work though, someone needs to determine if there is a signal at all otherwise it would all likely be a waste of time and money.

Yep, I would probably have to have a tower in the back yard to clear the geographical horizon to achieve line of sight with the Washington 700 tower using a Yagi, and even then, it seems to me they're operating on low power, since I can't even pick them up 1 mile outside of Washington city limits with my BCD436HP when I'm right outside Washington city limits just a short distance South on Highway 47, and on a hill at that. That doesn't explain how you're able to sometimes copy them up all the way up in Chesterfield, but it is what it is.

I am so tempted to get a Yagi up outside to see what it would do for me. But, as you said, it would be quite a hassle to go through, getting it outside, elevating via a mast (a tower is out of the question, LOL!), all the antenna system grounding, cable expense, labor, etc...Just too much when I'm not able to elevate a simple mast sufficiently to achieve line of sight. Plus, I don't think the powers that be around here would take too kindly to my adding more outside antennas, I already have a 30 ft. Vertical, and a Rotatable Dipole for HAM radio use out there.

That's why I keep the Discones in the attic, no grounding necessary, cable runs are relatively short, cable itself isn't too expensive, and the results I seem to be getting out of my current setup is quite acceptable with respect to all the other agencies I want to listen to. It would be quite an investment of money, engineering, and labor just on the off chance I could get a Yagi to work.

Of course, the other issue is, half of what I want to monitor is analog, and then there's MSHP MOSWIN and Washington PD via P25. The Discones are working well with monitoring MSHP through the Discones, but I would have to probably erect a Yagi on the remote chance it could pick up Washington 700 tower from my base station location, which means I would not only have to erect a Yagi, but also feed the scanner with a diplexer to combine the Yagi and the Discones.

But, that all having been said, can you advise which Yagi make and model number are you using?
 
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rbritton1201

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Today's test...I'll be up in Washington again, but for a shorter time today. I'll be able to monitor via my BCD436HP while in Washington, and monitor via the Washington 700 tower while within the city limits of Washington. While at the same time, through my cell phone, I'll be able to remotely monitor the base scanner at my home in Union, Missouri, programmed through the Weldon Spring tower. The object of this test will be to confirm that I'm in-fact receiving only limited transmissions via the Weldon Spring tower versus the Washington 700 tower. I'm sure that will be the case, but this experiment today will confirm it.
 

rbritton1201

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Ok guys, the test went well up in Washington today. I'm consistently receiving transmissions off the St. Clair tower and the Weldon Spring tower when monitoring Washington PD. I sense that I may be missing portable traffic if only monitoring the St. Clair tower and Weldon Spring tower off the remote link to my cell phone, which is tied to my base station scanner that receives well off the Weldon Spring and St. Clair towers, but can not receive transmissions off of the Washington 700 tower, no matter how much I wish it did.

I wasn't up there long enough today to monitor for long periods of time, but it seems that on the few calls I did hear when I was up in Washington, I could hear traffic originating from Washington PDs portable unit transmissions via my BCD436HP portable scanner, which was locked onto the Washington 700 tower exclusively, portable signals that I didn't think I was picking up off the Weldon Spring or St. Clair towers via my base station scanner via remote link to my cell phone.

It seems to me that the Washington 700 tower picks up the transmissions that otherwise slip through the system when monitoring only the St. Clair 700 tower and Weldon Spring tower, perhaps due to portable unit power output constraints? That would also correlate with what was mentioned earlier, that the Washington 700 tower is a stop gap measure for MSHP coverage in the lowlands on the North side of the River, while also benefiting Washington PD with their portable transmissions, and obviously a better situation for the cars as well, as the Washington 700 tower is right there within their city limits.

I came back home, and cleaned up some of the excess programming, deleted the Fire/EMS talk groups, and eventually I'll probably delete all but the main and secondary MOSWIN tower frequencies because it occurs to me that by having those additional frequencies programmed into the scanner, I just may not be catching responses from portable units as the scanner is tied up scanning over unnecessary frequencies and talk groups. I sensed there was a little clipping of signals once in a while via the base scanner reception, which could be related to the above, but may have just as likely been officer operator error, which is not uncommon. But, no matter which, after just having partially cleaned up programming, I'm going to monitor a little more this evening and gauge whether I need to delete all but the main and secondary tower frequencies to improve the continuity of the transmissions as the scanner scans.
 
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scanman1958

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Hey rbritton

Just like most of us you have found out how frustrating it is to learn about trunking radio. It is not as simple as put in a frequency you want to hear and knowing that it will work. Trunking radios also work similar to cell phones in that the mobile radios only affiliate with the closest tower(s) that their signal will reach.

That said....the Washington city PD cars will not always affiliate with Weldon Spring or St Clair sites/towers. That will only happen if the cars are close to them or the signal from the mobile radio is just right to hit that site/tower.

Yes it sounds like the Washington site may be lower power than other sites, not sure.

I feel your frustration with your reception of Washington from your home. I live in southwest St Louis City only a few miles (as the crow flies) from St Clair Co IL. I can't hear a darn thing from them. On rare occasions if the system are aligned and the moon is full ( ha ha) I might hear them for a few minutes at a time. In part because I live in a low spot and the signals from St Clair Co are highly directional to keep their signals inside IL.

Keep working on your home signal. Maybe you can meet up with someone directly to help out some more. Don't get too frustrated.
 

rbritton1201

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Yes, it can be very frustrating, but understanding the anomalies from Washington PD have been especially challenging in my effort to monitor their transmissions via my base station scanners. But, after getting some help from the forum, and after making a few programming changes in the base station scanner, I'm hearing some activity, and what I do hear is loud and clear.

But, I must say, I'm still rather confused by what I'm not hearing. Washington PD seems to go for long periods of time where their voice traffic is totally dead. I mean, 2-3 hours of NO ACTIVITY, then all of a sudden, I abruptly hear transmissions that are relatively normal with respect to signal strength, etc...all the while receiving fully deflected control channel signal strength indicators off of the Weldon Spring and St. Clair 700 towers when Washington PD is otherwise totally dead.

Today, I noticed several times when the dispatcher gave test counts on the air, and that isn't typical unless they're working on the system. So, it's likely the radio techs are making changes, turning things on and off, etc..I was wondering, with these long periods of time, up to 2-3 hours sometimes, when I hear no traffic out of Washington PD, could it be they're sending and receiving traffic via CAD, through their data link to the cars?

I just can't fathom how an agency as large as Washington PD would have no voice traffic over such long periods of time. When I monitor Union PD or St. Clair PD, which are on analog, the amount of their air traffic puts Washington PD to shame. It just doesn't make sense!

Washington city PD cars will not always affiliate with Weldon Spring or St Clair sites/towers. That will only happen if the cars are close to them or the signal from the mobile radio is just right to hit that site/tower.

I understand there could be that issue with respect to the cars being out of range of the Weldon Spring and St. Clair towers. It does seem that most of the time when I do hear the car's transmission locations, they seem to be on the East side of the city limits, up on a high spot by the Hospital's ridgeline, or on the main drag at Highway 100 and Highway 47, which is in a valley. But, even if the cars are in dead spots, that wouldn't really explain why I would not be hearing Washington PD base station traffic. I seem to be only hearing three cars on duty, whose locations are where I indicated above. But, with a city the size of Washington PD, I would expect to be hearing a few more cars. I mean, St. Clair and Union usually have 3-4 cars on at a time, and they're much smaller departments.
 

scanman1958

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I got a couple of questions. Are you saying you can hear Washington PD on both the St Clair and Weldon sites at all times or just some of the time? Also, during those times of complete silence on MOSWIN does Washington PD revert back to their old VHF frequency?
 
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