Well
 

Well, I got my new scanner antenna up down south today. Works
great only had one small problem.
I was testing away and thinking how great I had done when my
girlfriend came out and asked why the lights were not
working in the front of the trailer.
I guess I use a little longer screw then was needed. I
changed the screws out on the mass support and put a new
fuse in and the lights work.

The new antenna sure beats the rubber ducky I have been using
on my BC245. I had to lockout a lot of freq.'s!!

Burr

Burr ...

^ The new antenna sure beats the rubber ducky I have been using
^ on my BC245. I had to lockout a lot of freq.'s!!

Receiving too much is a very annoying problem. In some cases setting
attenuation on those channels is enough. In other cases I've had to move the
frequency to a radio that has tone squelch, then I permit only the applicable
tone. Another option would be to put those frequencies on another radio with
the rubber ducky again.

Frank

Morning,
There is so much to listen to in the east LA area that I
could Lock Out half of the know freq.'s and still be covered up.
I am going to rewrite my freq. list today if I have time and
think I will enjoy things a lot more. Just need to get time.

Burr

Frank wrote:

Burr ...

^ The new antenna sure beats the rubber ducky I have been using
^ on my BC245. I had to lockout a lot of freq.'s!!

Receiving too much is a very annoying problem. In some cases setting
attenuation on those channels is enough. In other cases I've had to move the
frequency to a radio that has tone squelch, then I permit only the applicable
tone. Another option would be to put those frequencies on another radio with
the rubber ducky again.

Frank

"Frank" wrote in
news:01c3802c$00d94060$0125250a@ijujqtfjlxdptwlr:

Ah, if only the tone squelch was that easy for me. Pittsburgh, my city of
residence, has deigned to use the same tone on virtually all their 12
active police channels. Often, with my Yaesu VX-5R, the adjacent channels
erroneously open the squelch, so I get to listen to very weak signals
from the wrong channel. Also, with my VX-5R, once the squelch opens, and
the legitimate signal is dropped, there is a delay until the squelch
circuit realizes that the requisite tone is gone, so I get to listen to
more gibberish between legitimate calls.

http://www.wpascanner.com/pa/pghdps.htm

For the police:

453.100
453.250
453.400
453.550
453.700
etc.

For the local Port Authority Bus:

453.050
453.200
453.300
453.500
453.600
453.750


As the legitimate tone is dropped, say for police channel 453.250 from
above, I get serenaded with a cacophony from the bus radio at 453.200 (or
453.300, I don't know which)

Was this very bright for the police radios to have been configured so
that the tones are identical on so many frequencies, is there a reason
for this?

Unfortunately the VX-5R has no Attenuation option, so that in some areas
of Pittsburgh, the radio is virtually useless.

Regards.



Burr ...

^ The new antenna sure beats the rubber ducky I have been using
^ on my BC245. I had to lockout a lot of freq.'s!!

Receiving too much is a very annoying problem. In some cases setting
attenuation on those channels is enough. In other cases I've had to
move the frequency to a radio that has tone squelch, then I permit
only the applicable tone. Another option would be to put those
frequencies on another radio with the rubber ducky again.

Frank




--
Never say never.
Nothing is absolute.

Soliloquy .. .

^ Pittsburgh, my city of residence, has deigned to use the
^ same tone on virtually all their 12 active police channels.

^ Was this very bright for the police radios to have been
^ configured so that the tones are identical on so many
^ frequencies, is there a reason for this?

It isn't un-bright. They probably did it that way out of convenience, or
perhaps through local area coordination. In their application I can't see
that using the same tone on all their frequencies would be a problem. Their
radios aren't designed to receive a wide range of frequencies as your
"wide-range radio receiver" is (I don't like the term scanner), so they
probably don't have the trouble that you are. Their traffic is separated
through frequency channelization so they probably use a CTCSS tone only to
avoid confusion from distant stations on the same frequency and, perhaps, to
make jamming slightly more difficult.

Frank

"Frank" wrote in
news:01c3910f$6b160cd0$0125250a@lxzumthvplpcztmv:


Thanks for the well said reply. I suspected that might be the case.

Do you know anything of Motorola Handhelds, I believe it's an HT-100?

Though it would be more capable, I believe, in listening to the
Pittsburgh Police, I would need to be assured that there was a Transmit
block available. I would not want to posses a radio that other could
inadvertently or intentionally JAM police calls. I suspect that there is
no block available, so I have avoided additional interest in the radio.
It is in the UHF range, originally very near the frequencies I need for
listening to the police. Also, it requires special programming software,
which I don't have.

Regards.


Soliloquy .. .

^ Pittsburgh, my city of residence, has deigned to use the
^ same tone on virtually all their 12 active police channels.

^ Was this very bright for the police radios to have been
^ configured so that the tones are identical on so many
^ frequencies, is there a reason for this?

It isn't un-bright. They probably did it that way out of convenience,
or perhaps through local area coordination. In their application I
can't see that using the same tone on all their frequencies would be a
problem. Their radios aren't designed to receive a wide range of
frequencies as your "wide-range radio receiver" is (I don't like the
term scanner), so they probably don't have the trouble that you are.
Their traffic is separated through frequency channelization so they
probably use a CTCSS tone only to avoid confusion from distant
stations on the same frequency and, perhaps, to make jamming slightly
more difficult.

Frank



--
Never say never.
Nothing is absolute.

Soliloquy .. .

^ Do you know anything of Motorola Handhelds, I believe it's
^ an HT-100?

The only Motorola I'm familiar with is the Motorola Saber. The software
permitted a great deal of control over assignments to each channel, including
the PL, power output, squelch level, etc. With the Saber you would be able to
assign the lowest power level to the channels you didn't want to transmit on.
I'm not certain I remember correctly (it's been 10 years) but it might also
permit assigning receive-only channels.

If the HT-100 is newer than the Saber it might have those abilities plus
more.

The Saber also required a programming interface, which consisted of a black
box with a switch on top, a lead to the computer's RS232 port and another to
the radio, and electronic components and a 9VDC battery inside.

Frank