The lines on the map indicate that we know the sites are communicating with one another - doesn't have any bearing on simulcast.
The only sites in the system which are simulcast are within the Edmonton Metro region. All the others are "normal" 700 MHz sites.
Here's how to test if your scanner is receiving the system. On your 536, do this:
Hit
MENU
Scroll to
Analyze and hit
E
Scroll to
System Analyze if you have to (it might already be highlighted) and hit
E
The radio will ask you to "Input System Name". You don't have to; just hit
E.
You will see a list of all the trunk systems in range in your radio. Scroll to AFRRCS and hit
E.
Scroll to the site of your choice and hit
E.
You should see a screen that looks something like this:
where "AFRRCS" is the system name and "Cochrane" is the site name. (The display is from my 436, so obviously your display will be slightly different.)
The bar above
S is the signal strength. You'll notice in my image that even though it seems like I have virtually no signal, I'm still getting site info (below the
S,
Q, and
A bars).
Note that if you are monitoring a site that has a site number higher than 99, you won't see the site number after the
005Bh- (or
005Ah-) part. Uniden radios have a bug where they won't show site numbers that are three digits long.
S stands for Signal Strength,
Q stands for Quality of Decode (how well you're decoding the system control channel), and
A stands for Activity (how busy the system is).
If you're receiving the system at all, you will get some bars for
S and
Q and most likely at least some data in the section below that.
To check another site, hit
FUNC and then
MENU to go back to the "Input System Name" screen and start over from there. To get out of this section entirely and go back to scanning, hit
FUNC and then
SYSTEM.