This
post is somewhat geographically specific. For those seeking information on a police scanner for Green Bay/ Brown County. But I figured it was time to
share as folks in other areas are still having issues monitoring simulcast systems.
Shortly
after the new Brown County Radio System was put in place in 2013, I
discovered all the scanners on the market at the time could not deal
with simulcast as the county transmits from 8 towers at the same time.
Since
that time scanners with APCO 25 Phase 2 support have started to appear.
One would suspect a totally different receiver design for TDMA/Phase
2. I have heard reports that the Uniden BCD436 does handle simulcast pretty
well. (Yet the BCD996P2 does not)
Linear
Simulcast Modulation (LSM) is a trademarked term for a form of CQPSK
that provides a way for receivers to properly handle multiple identical
transmissions. It's just different enough that the regular C4FM
processing doesn't work correctly.
A
friend of mine has been able to successful listen using a Pro-106 using
an attenuator/ yagi combo. He lives in close proximity to one of the
towers with a line of site view. He effectively can listen to just one
tower with this approach. I was not successful with this method as I am
more centrally located and probably more importantly is that I do not
have a line-of-site path to any one site. So I have multipath
compounding the simulcast problem which is all too much for a C4FM
receiver design to handle.
Another possibility that I only briefly explored in early 2015 was trying to listen using a RTL SDR:
I ran into many headaches and never got it working correctly so I gave up. But I encourage others to give it a try. As time goes on, I am sure the software will be more refined and easier to get going. It would sure be the cheapest way to listen; a RTL dongle coupled with a Raspberry Pi micro computer would be ideal.
In
late 2015 I learned that local two-way dealer is selling XTS5000 radios
programmed as scanner for $900. He also can sell transmitting radios
to authorized users. Out of my price range but at least it's an option.
--
So
at the time (2013) the answer seemed to be to look into using a
commercial radio as a scanner. I choose the XTS-2500 as my radio based
on price and availability. Other capable radios include the XTS1500 and
XTS5000. From what I have seen the XTS1500 is usually comparable in
price to the XTS2500. However the chances of finding a used XTS1500
with the desired/required feature set is less common. Whereas the
XTS5000 is more common than both, but is typically more expensive.
I
totally lucked out and bought a refurbed demo radio from a Hong Kong
ebay seller that had little feedback for $250. Others have picked up
XTS2500’s for around $300.
There are a few different hardware models of the XTS2500.
Model 1: Basic, with no display
Model 15: Large bitmap display (a display is needed if you want to see what talk group it has stopped on)
Model
2: Large bitmap display and navigation buttons (the navigation buttons
are nice if you want to manipulate the scan list on the fly)
Model 3: Large bitmap display and full keypad (the full keypad has no advantage as a scanner)
There are two main features required for the XTS2500 to work on the Brown County System.
1.) First is has to be 700 MHz capable.
Rebanding support in the Astro25 platform was introduced in Host R07. - 1/3/06
The
model number theoretically dictates if the radio is rebanded of not. If
the model number ends in a "2BN" in the codeplug the radio will not do
700 nor will it be able to do any digital features!
If
the radio was flashed up to a "7BN" then it will be a standard xts2500
that will allow for 700 and all of the available flashcodes for that
particular model line.
However,
going by the model number on label as the radio, doesn’t necessarily
mean it’s not capable. If someone later updated the firmware/flashkey
to Host 07 or above, it will work
2.)
Second is must support a 9600 baud. If it supports this is will
obviously support digital, and the type needed for Brown County’s system
To determine this, as well as other features you need to look up the radio's flashcode"
http://www.radioreference.com/apps/flash/
