what SITE do I use ???

[llwade]

I am not sure I am at the right Forum ........ I appoligize if I am not

I live in Peoria (Chillicothe) but want to listen to McLean County and ISP districts, other than Peoria.
I have always listed the SITE, on all digital stations, as "PEORIA COUNTY"
How do I find out if the Peoria Tower covers the Bloomington-Normal Tower transmissions
if not the Peoria SITE, what site do I use

radio BCD996XT
software ACT - XT
antenna discone on the roof

appreciate the help

 

[cubn]

McLean County Sheriff is carried on sites 207, 229, and 231. I doubt you'll hear them on the Peoria or Metamora site very often.

If you want to hear ISU PD, Normal PD, Normal Fire, and Bloomington PD's simulcast, you'll need to monitor site 229. They aren't heard on the neighboring sites. Note that BPD had switched to 453.925 today and they weren't being heard on Starcom21 as of this afternoon.

You can listen to McLean County online:
McLean County, Illinois (IL) Live Police, Fire, and EMS Scanners on RadioReference.com

As for the ISP districts you'll hear, you'll just have to try and see. I hear D6, D8, and D9 on Normal's site 229. On Champaign's site 203 I hear D6, D10 and D21.

 

[llwade]

CUBN

going to Radio Reference, they list:
1. DEC, HEX, & Mode

my software, ARC-XT list:
1. system I want to listen to
2. city's Latitude & longatude information

I do not see the site reference you list ( 207, 229, & 231 )
& if I did see this information, how do I use it ???

if I wanted to do as you suggest, and go to RR and listen to someone else's re-transmitted FEED
I could have saved myself, the $500.00, I paid for a radio.

 

[gewecke]

McLean County Sheriff is carried on sites 207, 229, and 231. I doubt you'll hear them on the Peoria or Metamora site very often.

If you want to hear ISU PD, Normal PD, Normal Fire, and Bloomington PD's simulcast, you'll need to monitor site 229. They aren't heard on the neighboring sites. Note that BPD had switched to 453.925 today and they weren't being heard on Starcom21 as of this afternoon.

You can listen to McLean County online:
McLean County, Illinois (IL) Live Police, Fire, and EMS Scanners on RadioReference.com

As for the ISP districts you'll hear, you'll just have to try and see. I hear D6, D8, and D9 on Normal's site 229. On Champaign's site 203 I hear D6, D10 and D21.

...Then drive here or move here and you can listen all you want! The starcom21 site you listen to in peoria, will only allow you to hear what motorola has designated for it. If mclean county is not in that sites menu then you are SOL.

I can not listen to knox,lee,dekalb or whiteside counties,even though I would like to because they are not in site 2-29's menu so I am content with this county or other illinois tg's which this site carries.
I hope this helps. :wink:

n9zas

 

[llwade]

how do I choose the correct SITE location?????

Then drive here or move here and you can listen all you want! The starcom21 site you listen to in peoria, will only allow you to hear what motorola has designated for it. If mclean county is not in that sites menu then you are SOL.

Hey great answer to my question gewecke .....I am trying to understand how to hear a digital signal and you tell me I need to drive to Bloomington & I am SOL.

My question is how do I determine which tower/location do I use to match up with a location I want to listen to. I can hear stations that are not DIGITAL so I know my antena is working.

I don't know where you guys are getting these site numbers and how I use that site number data. I have had a scanner since the late 60s but have never even heard of DIGITAl until last month. I dont have a clue how Digital works. using the ARC-XT software I select what digital package I want to listen to and use PEORIA as my SITE location. my question is if I don't use Peoria, HOW DO I CHOOSE THE RIGHT ONE TO USE .

 

[N9JIG]

Perhaps you don't understand how a networked trunked system like StarCom21 works. There are tower sites spread over a large area. Each tower site has a set of frequencies. Users affiliate with the tower site in their area with their talkgroups ID and only the tower site that has radios affiliated with it broadcasts that talkgroup's traffic.

If no McLean County units are affiliated with your local tower then you will not hear their traffic on that tower.

If you are close enough to hear a McLean County tower then you would need to program it into your radio. If you are not close enough to hear it then you can get a better antenna, or move closer to the area.

The reason systems like StarCom21 only transmit information on local towers is to conserve channels and capacity. This allows them to reuse frequencies at other locations and helps ensure that channels are available for other users. If they rebroadcast all traffic on all towers then they would need hundreds of channels at each tower and that just isn't practical or possible.

 

[llwade]

Thank You

Rich, I appreciate your reply, but I still must go back to my original question. How do I know if
SITE "ABC" is using the tower located at "123" . I have not seen anything at RR that answers this question nor can anyone get the answer thru this thick head of mine.

 

[kraziebill]

Site 229 is shown in the RR database as 2-029. If that helps

 

[queso5280]

Rich, I appreciate your reply, but I still must go back to my original question. How do I know if
SITE "ABC" is using the tower located at "123" . I have not seen anything at RR that answers this question nor can anyone get the answer thru this thick head of mine.

To help here is the freqs that you need for McLean County or site 229 otherwise known as 2-029, Starcom21 is a very large system and can be very confusing, once you understand one thing the rest will come soon.

2-029 2-1D Normal [McLean] 852.87500, 853.40000c, 854.28750, 856.76250, 857.76250a, 858.76250, 859.76250.

Oh, and if your wondering the "c" after a frequency means this is the control channel that you have to have programmed or you will not be able to listen. The "a" means alternate control channel.

 

[N9JIG]

Rich, I appreciate your reply, but I still must go back to my original question. How do I know if
SITE "ABC" is using the tower located at "123" . I have not seen anything at RR that answers this question nor can anyone get the answer thru this thick head of mine.

Kind of a semantics things. In most of our discussions, "Sites" and "Towers" are interchangeable. Site 229 is the same as Tower 229 for example. It gets weird for simulcast areas, in which there are several Towers used for a single Site Number, but since each of these sets will always use identical channels and have identical traffic they can be considered as one. Peoria, Rockford, the St. Louis area and several sets in the Chicago area are simulcast, the rest have a single Tower per Site.