Try this.
Hidden Talkgroup No Affiliate Trunked Scanning - 3600 Baud Analog and Digital Systems and 9600 Baud Astro25 Systems
Instead of taking the approach explained in the first post, you can use "hidden talkgroups" so that the trunking system is not easily accessible. If you use the approach explained in the first post, and do not "hide" the talkgroups from normal access, you run the risk of affiliating if you actually select a talkgroup. This approach keeps the trunking system out of reach, even when the zone containing talkgroup is selected - that is, so long as you do not program the radio buttons for channel up / down. All channels should be accessible only from the 16 position channel selector.
The following approach was developed as a flexible and safe way to monitor a trunked system with an XTS2500 / XTS5000 series radio but can also be used with other Motorola trunking radios as well.
The examples below are for 16 talkgroups since the channel selector has 16 positions, and assume that your radio is limited to 10 talkgroups in a scanlist.
A. Individual Talkgroup Selection Plus Scanning.
1. Create the trunking system.
2. Create a trunking personality with the 16 talkgroups that you want.
3. Create 16 scanlists.
4. Create 16 receive-only conventional personalities, assign a corresponding scanlist to each conventional personality, and set each personality for automatic scan.
5. Create a zone (Z1) with 32 channels.
(a) In the first 16 channels of Z1, enter the 16 conventional personalities and a frequency that you know is unused.
(b) In the second 16 channels (17-32) of Z1, enter the16 talkgroups.
6. Go back to your scanlists and enter 1 talkgroup from 5(b) into each scanlist.
Now, when you select the a channel in Z1, you will be selecting a receive-only channel that is mapped to a corresponding talkgroup. This way you can select specific talkgroups to monitor. Because the talkgroups are in channels 17-32, they are "hidden" from your channel selector. As long as you do not use your keypad to select a higher channel, you are protected from affiliation.
If you want to scan multiple talkgroups, you need to do more. Again, assuming that your radio is limited to 10 talkgroups per scanlist, you would now do the following.
7. Create a new zone (Z2), a 17th conventional personality and a 17th scanlist that is automatically scanned by that personality. Add the 17th conventional personality to Z2. In the 17th scanlist, enter a "bank" of talkgroups that you want to scan (up to 10) selected from channels 17-32 in Z1. If you want to scan the remaining talkgroups or a different combination, create an 18th conventional personality and corresponding 18th scanlist and repeat the above.
B. Scanning Only.
Now, if you only want to scan talkgroups and not be able to select talkgroups, you can follow the instructions in the first post. Just make sure that you don't select the zone that contains the talkgroups or you run the risk of affiliating. Alternatively, you can use a modified version of the "hidden talkgroup" approach outlined above for scanning only.
1. Create the trunking system.
2. Create a trunking personality with the 16 talkgroups that you want.
3. Create a scanlist for each "bank" of talkgroups that you want to scan.
4. Create a receive-only conventional personality for each scanlist, assign a corresponding scanlist to each conventional personality, and set each personality for automatic scan.
5. Create a zone (Z1) with 32 channels.
(a) In the first 16 channels of Z1, enter the conventional personalities that you created and a frequency that you know is unused.
(b) In the second 16 channels (17-32) of Z1, enter the16 talkgroups.
6. Go back to your scanlists and enter the "banks" of talkgroups that you want to scan.
Now, when you select a channel in Z1, you will be selecting a receive-only channel that is mapped to a corresponding "bank" of talkgroups that will automatically be scanned.
C. Sample XTS2500 / XTS5000 Codeplug.
Attached is a demo codeplug for Astro25 Portable radios. This codeplug has a fictitious trunking system and 16 fictitious talkgroups. You do not need to pay attention to anything in the trunking section of the codeplug, other than the single trunking personality that contains the 16 talkgroups. In this example, I am using talkgroups 101 through 116 in this example.
There are 18 conventional receive-only personalities and 18 corresponding scanlists. Each conventional personality is linked to a corresponding scanlist and is set for automatically scanning the scanlist.
There are two zones. The first zone contains 32 channels. The first 16 channels (1-16) contain the first 16 conventional personalities. These channels are accessible by the channel selector switch. The second 16 channels (16-32), which are not accessible by the channel selector switch, contain the 16 trunking talkgroups.
Each scanlist in the first 16 scanlists contains only 1 channel corresponding to one of "hidden" channels 17-32 in the first zone. These channels map to a single corresponding talkgroup.
The second zone contains 2 channels, corresponding to conventional personalities 17 and 18. Those channels are linked to scanlists 17 and 18, respectively. Each of those scanlists contains an arbitrary group or "bank" of 10 channels selected from "hidden" channels 17-32 in the first zone.
Selecting a channel from the first zone will park the radio on the corresponding trunked talkgroup. Selecting a channel from the second zone will scan the "bank" of talkgroups in the scanlist associated with that channel.
Attached Files Attach