EDACS System and Dynamic(?) TG's w/ 436hp

I am monitoring Harrisonburg-Rockingham County Public Safety Trunking System, Harrisonburg, Virginia - Scanner Frequencies with a bcd436hp (which does a fantastic job on the system). I am finding when dispatches are made across multiple TG's there is a single TG used that (at least in my mind) transmits the voice information to all of the TG's involved.

Example: A fire/rescue call is dispatched on Tac 1 (County fire & rescue) and HFD 1 (City Fire), and Tac 8 is assigned as the operational channel. After the units respond on Tac 8, the ECC will broadcast call information on all three TG's. However, I am only hearing the call information in "ID Search mode"- and on a different TG. So far I am estimating I have found around 30 "new" TG's calls are broadcast on. Another example would be a law enforcement BOLO on the City PD and County Sheriff TG. When they are broadcast together, a separate TG displays.

I understand this is done to cut down the use of frequencies in the system. When a system has 11 frequencies, 2, 3 or even as many as 4 frequencies do not need to be tied up with the same voice traffic on multiple TG's. I asked some familiar with this system about the multiple TG's and was told they were "Dynamic TG's". My question is, is there a way for the bcdx36hp scanners to receive these TG's without the ID Search mode, or programming in each one, individually? It would be great if Uniden has a feature I am missing that would allow voice traffic designated for the TG's monitored to show up in this mode.

On a side note, I was a system user but am no longer active. I was often frustrated when using a radio on the system in the scan mode. If a call was broadcast on Tac 1, and your radio was selected to Tac 2 (or any channel other than Tac 1), you would only hear the pre alert tone and station tones... no voice. So this is obviously not a Uniden problem... just wondering if Uniden had a solution to dealing with the "dynamic TG's", multi-broadcasting- or whatever the correct term is.

I guess I'm bumping this thread. My basic question is, is there a selection for receiving talk groups when they are patched?

I too have noticed this "dynamic" talkgroup setup while monitoring the system. I am guessing it happens as a result of the multiple simulcast transmissions with RCFD and HFD. Definately occurs on every call dispatch and sometimes on operations talkgroups as well. The tones are broadcast on the main TG's but the audio comes through on various dynamic groups which appear to be randomly assigned by the system with no consistant pattern. My first guess is that it would be hard for Uniden to implement the necessary software update to track this activity. I have simply input the entire range of dynamic groups that I have encountered into each department (Rockingham and Hburg) and labeled them as such so I can keep the 436 on SCAN instead of SEARCH. There are a LOT of random talkgroups on the system, many still unidentified/confirmed, that I keep encountering in SEARCH mode so simply adding the talkgroups to the system was the easiest fix for me.

I also noticed that on the fire side, both Rockingham and Harrisonburg traffic has a lot of radio static on many TG's and almost sounds like an analog patch of sorts. Never hear this on any other TG's on the system. I would be curious to find out more about exactly how the system is setup. I am sure with all of the UHF patches to existing paging and mutual aid neighboring counties, it's a convaluted setup for sure.

hdralleiii said:

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I also noticed that on the fire side, both Rockingham and Harrisonburg traffic has a lot of radio static on many TG's and almost sounds like an analog patch of sorts. Never hear this on any other TG's on the system. I would be curious to find out more about exactly how the system is setup. I am sure with all of the UHF patches to existing paging and mutual aid neighboring counties, it's a convaluted setup for sure.

Click to expand...

Are you referring to some of the mutual aid patches- such as Shenandoah Co. Deerehead, Augusta County 1 & Page County being patched to the TRS? Some of those sound bad... I've locked them out. I am not sure if these are timing issues. The SIRS patch is interesting. Some of the traffic is pretty clear, while other dispatch centers audio are poor.

tglendye said:

Are you referring to some of the mutual aid patches- such as Shenandoah Co. Deerehead, Augusta County 1 & Page County being patched to the TRS? Some of those sound bad... I've locked them out. I am not sure if these are timing issues. The SIRS patch is interesting. Some of the traffic is pretty clear, while other dispatch centers audio are poor.

Click to expand...

I was referring to the standard, non patched dispatch channels for County and City Fire. They are not digital ProVoice, but rather analog trunking talkgroups. I assume this is due to the fact they are patched to the UHF paging channel when in use. The "dynamic" talkgroups are only present when the analog relay patch to the UHF frequency is used. When it is not used, disapatch comes through on the normal talkgroups. Interesting setup indeed.