We are going through the same growing pains here in Rural Western New York. The problems with the NON-TRUNKING SCANNERS, is they will not go out to 12.5 KHz or even lower of a split. Here is an example; one of our frequencies, 155.0475. Now if you try to put that in your BC-895XLT it will round off. Another problem is that on the narrow band frequencies, they use a deviation of about 3 KHz. The scanners, even the new TRUNKING SCANNERS that will go out to the new narrow band frequencies will NOT consistently decode the lower generated PL Tones below about 4 KHz. I called Uniden and told them that I wanted a list of scanners that would do the new narrow band frequencies BUT DID NOT NEED TRUNKING. He told me that the only scanners they have capable of narrow band are the TRUNKING UNITS. Now if you are close to the transmitter, you can sometimes hear the rounded off frequency OK without distortion. And if the PL don't decode, use carrier squelch. Hopes this helps. Join the crowd of the new Narrow Band Generation.
_____ From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, February 17, 2008 12:09 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [Repeater-Builder] Wide Band / Narrow Band Our local fire, police and ambulance departments are going to Narrow Band per the FCC. I was told by one fire department that their pagers will only work one narrow band. Now this guy must be talking about the tones for the pagers? But to me wide or narrow the tones are the same. Right? Going narrow just means that they are taking up less of the band width for their frequency? He also said that scanners will not be able to listen to them unless the scanner is set up for narrow band. His wife gave me her nice Uniden BC-895XLT scanner because her husband told her the same thing. Some one who is in the know would like to fill us in on the topic. All EMS departments will be narrow band by April, in our area; from what he said. Rod
