WS1080: Monitoring Dayton, Ohio

[dwayne0564]

Hello,

Wondering if anyone has a issue monitoring Dayton from the Greene County Area, HP 436 and HP 1 work sometimes but Can't get Whistler's to pick up anything, I know that Montgomery County and Dayton combined last year, and went Digital. but I'm picking up other Digital counties from my location.

 

[W8RMH]

Montgomery County / Dayton doesn't have the range on MARCS like they had on their old system. I get Greene, Clark, Champaign, Ross, and some other counties from 2 counties away, but with Dayton I have to be real close, usually within Montgomery County.

Also, the Whistlers don't decode MARCS as well as the Unidens.

 

[sopranosno1]

The trx-1 that tom had a monix meeting sounded real good on montgomery county Marcs ip. Could be a setting needs adjustment or better or less antenna. Location??

 

[dwayne0564]

Just outside Xenia, Ohio.

 

[dbsar]

It’s not just you, I live in Greene County and have a hard time picking up any Montgomery county traffic. I wonder if the MARCS towers are directional? I also wonder if a directional external antenna would Help. Sure wish I could improve my western reception.

 

[wa8pyr]

It’s not just you, I live in Greene County and have a hard time picking up any Montgomery county traffic. I wonder if the MARCS towers are directional? I also wonder if a directional external antenna would Help. Sure wish I could improve my western reception.

The tower sites aren't directional; they're configured to cover only the necessary area plus a little more, and that's it.

You're only going to hear Montgomery County/Dayton traffic in Greene County if you're A) monitoring the MontCo tower site or B) someone on one of the MontCo talkgroups roams over to the Greene County tower site. However, on my visits to the area it appears that most MontCo talkgroups don't roam outside the county much. I suspect that very few of their talkgroups are configured to roam away from the MontCo site, which is as it should be.

Your Whistler scanner doesn't scan all sites like the Uniden models; it grabs the best tower it can hear and stays there. Yours has probably grabbed the Greene County tower. Your Uniden scanners are probably picking up the MontCo site from time to time, which is why you occasionally hear something on those radios.

A directional antenna pointed toward Dayton might help, but if you're just outside Xenia it's going to take a pretty serious antenna outside and in the air.

 

[TailGator911]

I live in Fairborn and use a directional yagi pointed a the Nutter Center tower for local Fairborn and Greene County, using the Whistler ws1065 and a Pro-2006 for conventional but the 1065 didn't fare so well with Montgomery so I use a BCD536 and a Diamond discone for monitoring Montgomery and it now does very well. I aim for Germantown (have a nephew on the PD there) and stay on South Dispatch and I hear it all down there, Mburg, West Carrollton, etc. I listen to West side sometimes for Trotwood, Englewood and Union and it comes in nice with the 536 on the discone. It's almost 20-ft high on a simple 3-section steel mast from Ace Hardware. It does the job. I have additional coax feedlines for other scanners, SDR# and the TRX-1 if I ever get it working lol