Beyond Passive Listening

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KF4JZY

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Jul 11, 2009
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Wake Forest, N.C.
Hi group,
I am a new owner of a 396XT and am really enjoying it along with learning about the SmartZone system infrastructure in Wake County and beyond. Using Freescan (which is a great app) I programmed in all that I want to listen to in my area for now. However, I see that many people in this forum seem do more than just listen to what they have programmed--they are trying to "discover" other TGIDs and/or different trunked systems all together.

My question is what process do you use to "hunt" these down? Do you run in ID SEARCH mode and see what TGIDs pop-up that do not show up in the DB for a particular system? Do you monitor the 800MHz band for frequencies not familar? Do you leave your scanner hooked up for a day letting a program like Trunk88 log all the data?

I'm just wanting to move beyond passive listening in this hobby and really find what's out there. What's your process for accomplishing that?

Thanks in advance!

Brent
 

KE4ZNR

Radio Geek
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Jan 21, 2002
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7,254
Location
Raleigh, NC
Brent,
My response is a little bit of all of the ways you mentioned. Freescan gives the ability to log system activity and of course Trunk88 also keeps a log. I also tend to use 2 radios with Trunk88: One is hooked up to the laptop & Trunk88 and is decoding the CC, while the other is simply following the same system. That way I can match users to activity I see on Trunk88.
I think you are headed in the right direction.
Thanks for being a part of RR.com!
Marshall KE4ZNR




Hi group,
I am a new owner of a 396XT and am really enjoying it along with learning about the SmartZone system infrastructure in Wake County and beyond. Using Freescan (which is a great app) I programmed in all that I want to listen to in my area for now. However, I see that many people in this forum seem do more than just listen to what they have programmed--they are trying to "discover" other TGIDs and/or different trunked systems all together.

My question is what process do you use to "hunt" these down? Do you run in ID SEARCH mode and see what TGIDs pop-up that do not show up in the DB for a particular system? Do you monitor the 800MHz band for frequencies not familar? Do you leave your scanner hooked up for a day letting a program like Trunk88 log all the data?

I'm just wanting to move beyond passive listening in this hobby and really find what's out there. What's your process for accomplishing that?

Thanks in advance!

Brent
 

bonus1331

Member
Joined
Dec 19, 2002
Messages
979
Location
Newnan, Ga
Marshall,
No attempt to hijack but....
Any reason why you prefer Trunk88 over UT?
Benefits to 88 over UT?
 

KE4ZNR

Radio Geek
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Jan 21, 2002
Messages
7,254
Location
Raleigh, NC
Marshall,
No attempt to hijack but....
Any reason why you prefer Trunk88 over UT?
Benefits to 88 over UT?

T88= Works with Uniden XTs.
Unitrunker= Does not work with Uniden XTs.
:D
That's about it. Once Rick gets Unitrunker working with the XTs I will give it a shot. I know you can select XT as a model in Unitrunker but no one has been able to get it to work with the CC output stream from the XTs yet.
Almost forgot: just for added info: I am using T88 with my XTs (396xt & 996xt) to monitor 3600 baud systems (Wake 800Mhz, Cary, Durham) NOT 9600 baud.
Marshall KE4ZNR
 

KF4JZY

Member
Joined
Jul 11, 2009
Messages
23
Location
Wake Forest, N.C.
Marshall,
I tried monitoring (ID SEARCH mode) the Wake county control channel using Freescan (latest version) and was getting what seemed to be a lot of trash data. Is that normal, or should I be getting a nice sane log output?

Also, when using Trunk88 monitoring another site (WFOREST) I am seeing where radios are affiliating to TGIDs that I suspect are not real. Furthermore, I do not see the TGIDs in Trunk88 that I see popping up in the display of the 396XT while in Search mode. Everything else makes ense though--it does show zone information, neighbors, radios, etc.

Also, I'm running the port speed at max of 115k. I tried slowing it down with same results, so I do not suspect a HW comm issue.

Thanks,
Brent

(hopefully this is not getting out of the scope of this forum; if so, please move accordingly)
 

KF4JZY

Member
Joined
Jul 11, 2009
Messages
23
Location
Wake Forest, N.C.
Just a follow-up on the problems I described above in case anyone else has the same issues.

As far as Freescan giving me garbage--I had C-CH output turned on. Be sure that is turned off when using Freescan trying to log hits.

As far as Trunk88 not giving me TGID's I'm used to seeing--Make sure you set the Talkgroup Display Format to 4 in your .ctl files. This makes the TGID's that show up in Trunk88 match those on the RR DB and what shows up on the scanner display. Also, when using Trunk88, use the RR2T88 program to populate your .ctl files with the TGID names.

Just wanted to briefly share some of the things I learned from trial and error.

Brent
 
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