Mass State PD Question

[skierp20]

Hi, everyone. I programmed in a bunch of the preloaded talk groups into my scanner, and somehow I included one of the prisoner transport frequencies. This got me thinking though:

Are all of the talkgroups on the trunked network broadcasted state wide? That is to say, if I'm in Western MA in Springfield and I put in a TG for one of the Boston troops, will I hear their transmissions?

I'm not completely new to the hobby, but I'm new to trunked systems, so any help that people could give me would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Scott

[ecps92]

Some T/G's are Statewide use.
Prisoner Transport, Statewide [Airwing], SOPS 1-8, DLE 1 & 2 [Fish Cops]
are a few examples

Others are specific to the Zone and ONLY the Adjacent Zone
ie: B Troop is heard on B & C Troop Zones, but not A, H or D Zones

Originally Posted by skierp20

Hi, everyone. I programmed in a bunch of the preloaded talk groups into my scanner, and somehow I included one of the prisoner transport frequencies. This got me thinking though:

Are all of the talkgroups on the trunked network broadcasted state wide? That is to say, if I'm in Western MA in Springfield and I put in a TG for one of the Boston troops, will I hear their transmissions?

I'm not completely new to the hobby, but I'm new to trunked systems, so any help that people could give me would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Scott

[RKG]

To amplify Bill's response:

You may assume that talkgroups fall into three "tenors".

A "home" talkgroup will be carried only on one Zone (its "home" zone).

A "statewide" talkgroup will be carried on all Zones, regardless of affiliation.

A "SmartZoned" talkgroup will be carried on any Zone for which both (a) the talkgroup is enabled and (b) there is at least one subscriber who is both (i) currently affiliated on that Zone and (ii) currently selected on that talkgroup.

What this means, for intance, is that if you are a non-affiliated listener on, say, the D-Troop Bristol system, you will usually hear traffic on H PTL 2 (because there is almost always at least one H7 cruiser whose radio has jumped to the Bristol affiliation) and you will sometimes hear H PTL 1 and sometimes not.

Because it is quite consumptive of limited system resources, SmartZoning of talkgroups is usually limited to situations involving adjacent systems. For instance, C PTL 1 is SmartZoned into the A/H Zone and A PTL 1 is SmartZoned into the C Wide Zone because of issues along Route 2. Likewise, H PTL 1 and 2 are SmartZoned into D Briston and D PTL 1 is SmartZoned into A/H because of issues along Route 24 north and south of Route 27.

For special events or circumstances, the status of a talkgroup can be easily modified via the system controllers. For instance, during the Worcester Fire aftermath in 1999, when a number of Cape fire companies spent extended time covering Worcester companies, their local talkgroups were temporarily SmartZoned into the C Wide system so that they could "call home" via a C Wide affiliation.