It pays to use 'ID Searching' here in Utah (SDS200)

[mortoma61]

I have a newer favorite I'm listening to with just a few sites. Mostly police and fire of course. After changing from ID scanning to ID searching I find I'm missing a lot less local stuff because of the unidentified TGIDs. I find a lot of them are unknown police, many are even dispatch!! Very hard to identify the departments though. Listening to ID 18592 in Utah county right now and it sound's like two police are conducting a surveillance, watching what a guy is doing at some Harmon's grocery store parking lot.
So anyway, just seems smarter to do the ID searching since to get the regular identified stuff as you would with ID scanning. Plus a good bit more.

 

[mortoma61]

Now I just noticed that with a SDS200, if you don't have a certain department in a given favorite on the site you are listening to and they transmit, their TGID will show up in your scan as an unknown TG (in ID search mode). For example, I have almost all of Utah county (all I want to listen to) in a favorite and if some department from Salt Lake county shows up on a site I'm scanning (for example Salt Lake county TG 320 on LAKE IR site, then it will show up as an unknown TG if I'm using ID search. If I were then to stick in Salt Lake county in that favorite, then TG 320 will identify correctly it as 'Unified Police East Wasatch Division'. So I think I have found some unidentified TGID but I have not. So most of the unknowns TGs I have written down on a piece of paper are really known after all. I wasted a lot of time writing down known TGIDs. So maybe turning on ID search is not such a good idea because I'm wanting to scan Utah county but I get a lot chat from Salt Lake county that I really don't want in the first place in the form of "unknown TGIDs" that are just from somewhere else and are far from "unknown".

 

[Ubbe]

One way to scan could be to use ID Scan when you only want to scan known TG's in your local department but when you want to use ID Search you enable all TG departments. It wont be any performance hit including all departments in a system and to make it easier you could set the same quick key to all non local departments so you can switch them on and off with the same quick key when you go between ID Scan and ID Search.

/Ubbe

 

[mortoma61]

Okay Ubbe, I'll try that. Only thing though is Utah communication Authority is a pretty massive system. Not sure how to go about it.

 

[enosjones]

18592 is an event 6 Channel for utah County

 

[bneilson]

@mortoma61 What is unknown about 18592? It's currently listed in the public DB as @enosjones called out. I do agree that finding unknown talk groups is a fun part of the hobby. When the new system starts to come online there will be a lot of that for all of us.

 

[KD7DDC]

Now I just noticed that with a SDS200, if you don't have a certain department in a given favorite on the site you are listening to and they transmit, their TGID will show up in your scan as an unknown TG (in ID search mode). For example, I have almost all of Utah county (all I want to listen to) in a favorite and if some department from Salt Lake county shows up on a site I'm scanning (for example Salt Lake county TG 320 on LAKE IR site, then it will show up as an unknown TG if I'm using ID search. If I were then to stick in Salt Lake county in that favorite, then TG 320 will identify correctly it as 'Unified Police East Wasatch Division'. So I think I have found some unidentified TGID but I have not. So most of the unknowns TGs I have written down on a piece of paper are really known after all. I wasted a lot of time writing down known TGIDs. So maybe turning on ID search is not such a good idea because I'm wanting to scan Utah county but I get a lot chat from Salt Lake county that I really don't want in the first place in the form of "unknown TGIDs" that are just from somewhere else and are far from "unknown".

To make things even more confusing the UCAN system is statewide essentially. You may think that you only will hear things that are close but that may not always be the case. The key thing to understand about this system is affiliation. UCAN has a few modes for that, below are a couple of them and examples.

Full Time: TG is available on most all towers regardless of location. Ex= LZ1 for landing zone works on almost every tower in the state and will simulcast carry the transmission to all of them.

Local: TG Is only available on a select or single tower. Ex=ADC Jail is generally only available on the ADA site and does not carry even onto the Salt Lake SIMO that is located nearby.

Next is where things get the craziest...

Roaming: TG will be active on any tower that the radio connects to and affiliates to his WVPD TG and carry that traffic to the tower. To explain better here is the example: EX= A West Valley City police officer is on vacation in St. George and turns on his radio. It now affiliates with that area's tower. By doing so he now can hear all the WVPD traffic while in St. George. This happened but on a large scale once when there was a Law Enforcement conference in St. George and everyone had their radios on.... it brought so much unplanned traffic to the St. George towers that it locked them up. They had to tell the out-of-town officers to turn their radios off as it was swamping the system.

In other words using TG search on the UCAN system its possible you could end up getting any TG active from the state if that tower has an affiliated radio on it.

 

[enosjones]

To make things even more confusing the UCAN system is statewide essentially. You may think that you only will hear things that are close but that may not always be the case. The key thing to understand about this system is affiliation. UCAN has a few modes for that, below are a couple of them and examples.

Full Time: TG is available on most all towers regardless of location. Ex= LZ1 for landing zone works on almost every tower in the state and will simulcast carry the transmission to all of them.

Local: TG Is only available on a select or single tower. Ex=ADC Jail is generally only available on the ADA site and does not carry even onto the Salt Lake SIMO that is located nearby.

Next is where things get the craziest...

Roaming: TG will be active on any tower that the radio connects to and affiliates to his WVPD TG and carry that traffic to the tower. To explain better here is the example: EX= A West Valley City police officer is on vacation in St. George and turns on his radio. It now affiliates with that area's tower. By doing so he now can hear all the WVPD traffic while in St. George. This happened but on a large scale once when there was a Law Enforcement conference in St. George and everyone had their radios on.... it brought so much unplanned traffic to the St. George towers that it locked them up. They had to tell the out-of-town officers to turn their radios off as it was swamping the system.

In other words using TG search on the UCAN system its possible you could end up getting any TG active from the state if that tower has an affiliated radio on it.

Being on unitrunker its amazing how many radios join a certain tower, like Ford ridge for example gets alot of salt lakes and Utah County officers joining therefore thats what u hear...

 

[dave3825]

I have a newer favorite I'm listening to with just a few sites.

Listening to ID 18592 in Utah county

18592 is an event 6 Channel for utah County

If that favorites list is new and your seeing 18592 as an unknown talk group, it was either added to the database after you created the list, or, when you created the favorite list, your database in Sentinel was out of date.

 

[mortoma61]

@mortoma61 What is unknown about 18592? It's currently listed in the public DB as @enosjones called out. I do agree that finding unknown talk groups is a fun part of the hobby. When the new system starts to come online there will be a lot of that for all of us.

Okay, now I'm going to have to check out all of this stuff really closely again! Thanks for calling this to my attention! Dad blast it anyway! I think I still have an old database even after thinking I had downloaded the latest one, after being away from the hobby for a year and therefore away from my SDS200. First thing I did was attempt to update the firmware and then immediately try to update the master database. I found out much later, a few days ago, that the latest firmware for the SDS200 only works if you have the latest update for the Sentinel software itself. I then updated my Sentinel to the latest version, and then I tried to update my SDS200 firmware again. And then yet again the entire master database. But maybe that did not work? So I'll have to check out everything once again.

I don't have a 18592 ID in any Utah County Group in UCA. So I guess I still have an old database!! Problem is, every time I do an update in Sentinel, I have to log into my router and reduce its firewall to "low", when I normally have it on "high". This is not only a pain to do but I also forgot to switch the setting back to high one time and left it on low and got hacked by a predator. I then got al sorts of malware and viruses and had to wipe my Windows 10 and start all over. All because of Sentinel not going well through firewalls. But I'll have to try to update the master again as I have no such 18592 TGID.....

 

[mortoma61]

18592 is an event 6 Channel for utah County

Okay, I found it, it's listed in the 'Utah Events' group but not in any of the 'Utah county' groups. Much interesting in there? I'd think these would be mostly silent unless something big happens.

 

[Ubbe]

I'd think these would be mostly silent unless something big happens.

Have that department always enabled and do alert and light indication for them and check when they are used. Maybe it's just for spectator events like a fair or kids performing on a stage in the park. Just some extra TG's to be used that doesn't disturb anyone else.

/Ubbe

 

[522]

You "found it" in Sentinel or here: Utah Communications Authority TG Category: Utah Events
So were you able to program that into your scanner?

 

[W1KNE]

I don't know if you know this or not, but while scanning or searching on a trunked system, pressing Function followed by Enter is the fast way to toggle between ID Scan and ID Search.

 

[MotoTRK]

Those "Event" TG's are the hidden gem in most counties, all counties have an "assigned" TGID of the 16 and those that do not are easily able to be requested and used for planned events throughout the state. You may even hear the UCA techs doing radio checks with dispatch centers and other officers as it is an easy way to have a known good TG and keep the unnecessary traffic off the main TG.