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Monitoring Trunked System

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motoguy

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Nov 12, 2012
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There is a bit of confusion when I read "monitoring a trunked system". If I program a conventional personality to a frequency the control channel may chose, is this monitoring a trunked system.

Can you simply scan receive only personality's, each programmed with the system's frequencies (less the control channel) to eliminate any affiliation. I suppose then you lose talkgroups? Or, at worst can the radio still be instructed to affiliate upon remote command.

Thanks
 
RBMTS

RBMTS

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Messages
1,095
Hello Motoguy
Welcome to Radio Reference.

You can listen to a trunked radio system in conventional mode but it will be very difficult. It the system were very small (say a 5 to 10 channel system for town or county), then you can program in the frequencies in conventional personalities and then scan the channels (locking out the data control channel). However depending on the traffic activity of the talk groups, you will not be able to reliably track a talk group conversation during peak radio traffic times due to all the other activity on the system. IF the system is large encompassing a large area with multi-jurisdictional users (multiple towns, counties, or statewide), it will be next to impossible to listen to the system. First reason being that you'd need to program in too many frequencies to track and your XTS will only scan 12 channels at a time (I believe is the maximum allowed in a scan list). Second reason being that there would be literally dozens of conversations going on at any given time. So you will quickly find that trying to listen to a trunk system in a conventional mode will be frustrating and not effective.

To answer your other question, programming in the frequencies of a trunk system into conventional modes to attempt listening will not perform an affiliation. The affiliation only occurs when the radio is programmed specifically for a trunking system utilizing all of the parameters required to access that system.

As stated in many other topic threads, get yourself a trunking scanner. It will be much easier to listen to system and you will enjoy it much more.

Hope this helps you.
 
M

motoguy

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Nov 12, 2012
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Randy, That answers my question inside and out, thank you very much.

The only reason I asked is I got my hands on a free "written off" XTS 3000 to play with at work. We have 5000s with a service contract that I would never use off our system.

I soon discovered that entering a correct network ID enabled me to listen on other systems. I was monitoring a trunked system for a couple days like I asked about. I then became curious if a "generic" ID would allow more access to the talkgroups I was hearing. Before I even bothered with that I decided to plug that "generic" ID in on one of our channels and simply key up a radio too see if we were "vulernable". Long story short, as I was programing the radio a dozen times I got sloppy/impatient and either bumped the cable or closed CPS when it was "locked up". I corrupted the codeplug. In my weak attempts to fix this issue using MTSX Lab, I made things wrose, overwrote everything to the point the radio barley does much except hold papers on the desk. I somehow managed to dump an entirely wrong codeplug in for a UHF 3000, moreso it changed the Flashcode and system package (the only values I can read from the radio). I cant even read it without unpacking without a "No ACK/NAK" error. That's my story, I think its toast.

In terms of scanners there doesn't seem to be much choice between 2 portables. Seems like I have one option the Bearcat BCD396XT. Hard to justify when I had something for free that did a wonderful job even with its limited capability. The area isn't too overloaded with conversations, I got almost everything.

Thanks again
 
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cabletech

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Apr 22, 2012
Messages
871
Location
Puget Sound
Everyone one of us learned the hard way some where about programing and working on radios. It is to bad you got your shot on that expenseive of a radio.

Good luck
 
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motoguy

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Nov 12, 2012
Messages
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Location
Canada
Reflecting back I think what has happened now is I wrote a MTS2000 code plug to the radio, internal and external. What im guessing is it thinks its another radio, and that loud error tone is the fingerprint mismatch. Is there a way of erasing the code plug from the radio? I'm not sure that the radio would even accept a good code plug due to the Request not ACKed/NAKed error.
 
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