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I could use some help scanning local police/fire frequencies for Kirkland, Wa. I am not getting any traffic on what I thought are local channels.
I recently bought a Uniden 800 MHz 300-Channel Base Mobile Scanner (BC355N).

I have 2 problems.

1) I cant pick up any local traffic.
I programmed in the Kirkland police frequencies found here -
http://www.interceptradio.com/fcc.php?z=1&cue=1&cfreq=1&ccity=1&ccall=1&cpl=1&cmaplink=1&cskipn=1&ssort=1&sstate=WA&scounty=King&scity=KIRKLAND

Only one of them ever picks up anything and it seems to be coming from Federal Way and/or Tacoma.

2) My scanner has a Close Call feature that should pick up anything within line of site.
I followed the instructions to turn on all bands. No traffic is ever picked up while scanning on Close Call only.
This morning there were no less than 5 fire trucks and several police cars within 200ft of my house and I picked up nothing.

I would appreciate any help given.
Thanks.

Okay, time for some reading. See our Wiki on the King County Trunked System. I don't think your hardware is capable of following any trunked systems :(

None of the frequencies you're looking for are actually in Kirkland, so the list you have is irrelevant (though might be interesting to wade through later). When you have a compatible scanner, you'll want to program the EPSCA simulcast portion of the KC system: 851.4375 852.8875 854.2375 856.7875, as a Motorola Type2 800 MHz system. The scanner will take care of the rest - it will bring up all sorts of talkgroups with seemingly random numberic IDs. You can then program a list of the IDs you care about into the scanner, and label them accordingly to protect your sanity.

Unfortunately, the days where public safety was on a single frequency ended about 15 (or was it 20?) years ago. The scanner you purchased will not work for this area. You will not pick up any public safety or state patrol on that scanner.

The first question you need to decide is how much money you're willing to spend. Aside from the used marketplace, the cheapest scanner to consider is something like the Uniden 346xtc:

http://www.amazon.com/Uniden-BC346XTC-T ... B00E3QHN7A

It's a good little compact scanner but as Flash implied in his post, times have changed and you'll need to learn how trunked systems work. For Kirkland, you'll need to program in just a few frequencies and the scanner can do the rest. Then, as you learn the "system" you can program in the relevant channels to what you'll want to monitor. It's not overly difficult but there's a learning curve involved.

PS. If you purchase this scanner, then also pick up that recommend white USB converter cable. This will let you program the scanner from your computer which saves a lot of time. It's not required but it's far easier. There is free software (Freescan) that you can download.

Note: The above scanner is not a "digital" scanner in any way. So you won't be able to hear Wash St Patrol or any digital systems. In King County, there are none really worth monitoring. (The ones that do exist are 98% encrypted and it won't be very exciting.) King County Metro Transit uses a particular digital format that requires a newer type of scanner.

Warning: King County will be upgrading the trunked system in a couple of years time to a specific digital format. If you are interested in scanning public safety long term, then you may want to consider buying a digital scanner. Just know that these are a little more complicated and require more patience than say the Uniden 346xt. So you may want to go for the 346xt for now and if you get hooked on the hobby, then you can always upgrade to a digital scanner later. Basically it boils down to how much you want to spend.

Warning #2: You may see users on 2-way digital radios but today's scanner's can't necessarily monitor those radios. Digital has really changed how things work in the radio world.

Hope this helps,
-Nick

Bummer. Thanks for the detailed responses.
I'll return what I have and look into other options.

I ended up buying the BC346XTC. The FreeScan download contains a virus unfortunately.
Is there a another recommended software either free or not?

Nah it's a false positive.

Here I have the binary here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/axc2l2so86ukj ... .exe?raw=1

You can scan it again if you wish and it'll come back negative. It's something to do with his zip files. I've emailed the author about it.

Give me until later tonight and I'll upload my save file and you can get an idea of how things work.

Thanks, that worked. I created a Site and Group with the Talk Group ID's I care about.
I think I did it somewhat correctly. I just need to play around with it a little.

I am getting traffic but it seems like I am missing full conversations.
I programmed in all Kirkland police TGID's. That's all I really care about.
19376 - Tactical 1
19408 - Car to Car
19472 - Dispatch
19440 - Tactical 2

I only get a hit on Dispatch while scanning. When I do I hear something I hear the dispatcher and maybe an officer respond.
For example the dispatcher sends the officer somewhere to check on a disturbance and the officer responds that he's in the area. Then that's it and I never hear another thing about it.
Then it's quiet for several minutes until a different conversation of the same nature takes place. I never hear what happens when the office arrives to his destination.

Is this normal?

Also for Close Call I cant find anything to program except enabling bands of interest, 800 Mhz+ for example. Is that all you need to do?
I never get any hits on CC and I have every band enabled. I dont know how close I need to be. I know a car got pulled over 6 blocks from my house last night and that didnt trigger the close call.

Thanks for the help.

Most agencies have computers in their vehicles, so "I've arrived" is just a push button. So long as you're using the EPSCA frequencies (display 3d1c-003), you should be hearing most everything. I don't know which tacs they use, it won't hurt to add a few more as they'll be pretty quiet.

CloseCall is more likely to pick up transmissions within a block or two, less likely the farther away you get. It really depends on how much background RF there is - the scanner needs to find a strong spike above the noise level. Just leave it enabled and you should eventually hear things. I recommend setting it to 'auto store' so you can review the frequencies and adjust; the reciever often locks a little high or low from the exact value.

19472 should be Kirkland and Mercer Island PD dispatch
19408 I have as a tac channel
19440 as car 2 car

Tac1 should be bellevue PD.

Make sure you have all the right control channels in. For EPSCA, I have:
851.437500
851.137500
852.887500
853.650000
853.900000
854.237500
856.787500

Did you set up the custom band plan for rebanding? As Flash said, a lot of their communication is via their laptops now so only the necessary communication is over the radio. You don't hear the idle chit-chat like you use to back in the day...

Close Call is only for REALLY close signals. It's actually kind of flakey at times. I've been next to a flag crew using GMRS and they were transmitting and my 996P2 didn't pick up anything. And yet, I've been a few blocks away and will get multiple hits of other crews..?? It's hit or miss some times...

I have all but the last two. I will add them. The only one that gets any traffic is the first one - 851.43750.



I believe I saw it in the FreeScan software but didn't specifically do anything to change it. I am not sure I have a full understanding of what to do with it.

He should only need 851.4375, 852.8875, 854.2375, 856.7875... and possibly 853.65, 853.9 but that site (Education Hill) might be a bit scratchy depending on his location.

Not sure where you got 851.1375 from... it's not an alternate.

BTW, you don't want multiple control channels in only one site. So make sure you've properly grouped your site control channels and their alternates into separate folders.

Well that is your problem then. You need to put in a custom band plan for each site.

http://www.utahradio.org/mediawiki/inde ... Band_Plans

Look at the 3rd box. Put in those values and you should be good.

Re: Rebanding

https://www.fcc.gov/general/800-mhz-spectrum

In the 800 MHz band, channel numbers have changed. The system controller sends out a message saying "Anyone interested in hearing audio on TAC-1 tune to channel 9". It doesn't say "tune to 851.2125". After these frequencies moved, the channel numbers don't always refer to the same frequency. Setting up a custom band plan will tell the scanner how to map the channel numbers to the correct "new" frequencies.

If you didn't set up the custom band plan correctly, the scanner will get the notice to tune to the other channel but it ends up tuning to a different frequency and then moves on because there's no signal. This is what I suspect is happening since you're only hearing bits and pieces.

You can also upload a copy of your FreeSCAN file and one of the trunking/rebanding experts can critique it.