BCD 996T digital decoding question HELP!!

[Northcountry]

Hi all my apologies if this is an inappropriate thread but I have done a little homework on this subject before posting. I am interested in listening to two frequencies. (Border Patrol) here in Northern NY. They sounded like digital channels so I bought the 996 becasue I knew it did digital.. Now bear with me...

When I hooked the scanner up and listened to the frequencies I noted that audio would go silent then I would hear short segments of garbeled communication. Somtimes I would see the LNK symbol and at others I would get a flashing LNK symbol. I have tried:

1. adjusting the individual channel characteristics to Digital and All. (no help)
2. also tried adjusting threshold limits (all ranges). (this seems to make no difference)

any suggestions. The actual frequencies I am listening to are: 163.625 (St. Larence Co New York)
and 163.725 (St. Lawrence County, Northern New York)

I am womdering if the scanner is not functioning correctly. ANY help would be greatly appreciated. P.S. there are no other digital transmissions in the area to verify functionality.

 

[n2deep]

Those freqs could be encrypted. Border Patrol is known to use encryption, for most of there communication these days

 

[Northcountry]

Thanks

Those freqs could be encrypted. Border Patrol is known to use encryption, for most of there communication these days

Interesting this is what I was thinking. Too bad there is no way to check to see if the APCO 25 decode is functioning on the unit. There do not seem to be any other digital transmissions in my area!

I suspected that this may have been the case due to the >ENC< that would flash at times when I would get a hit on this frequency but then at other times I would get >LNK< without the >ENC< message yet still be unable to hear the transmission. I would get little blips and blurbs but thats all..

any thoughts on this? P.S. Thanks so much for taking the time to reply!

 

[DaveNF2G]

LNK means that other data besides voice are being transmitted. Maybe the ratio of "other" to voice is too high and the scanner is having trouble recovering the voice traffic.

ENC means encrypted. Of course, the voice traffic cannot be recovered in this case.

 

[jimlawrence]

Border Patrol's Swanton sector is almost entirely encrypted. There are only very isolated instances when they will switch to either analog or P-25 encoded voice. A friend of mine who lives in Watertown NY also says that the Buffalo sector in Watertown has gone digital but couldn't tell me if they're completely encrypted or not.

Edit: If you can receive the OPP system, they're running P-25 encoded voice on it and you can verify with that system that your receiver is decoding P-25 encoded voice properly. I've monitoring them numerous times and they're relatively easy to program into the 396/996 series of receivers. See the Eastern Canada forum for instructions on programming the 996 for the OPP's system.

 

[Northcountry]

Thanks again for helping out..

Being the overly nit picky person that I am i want to be sure the 996T IS doing its job decoding p25 traffic.

The more I listen to this channel the stranger it gets

sometimes I hear data bursts that the radio doesent seem to decode. Other times the radio will go full quieting and act as if it is trying to decode stuff very strange.. about the only thing I haven't investigated or checked if the firmware revision of the unit. Not sure how to do this but will look into it.. any suggestions?

 

[Northcountry]

Border Patrol's Swanton sector is almost entirely encrypted. There are only very isolated instances when they will switch to either analog or P-25 encoded voice. A friend of mine who lives in Watertown NY also says that the Buffalo sector in Watertown has gone digital but couldn't tell me if they're completely encrypted or not.

Edit: If you can receive the OPP system, they're running P-25 encoded voice on it and you can verify with that system that your receiver is decoding P-25 encoded voice properly. I've monitoring them numerous times and they're relatively easy to program into the 396/996 series of receivers. See the Eastern Canada forum for instructions on programming the 996 for the OPP's system.

Just wanted to say a BIG THANKYOU! I did a scan in the opp range and the reciever landed on several P25 frequencies and decoded them!

PS: the quality was a bit choppy but oh well at least I know I am in the running!

Thanks again!

 

[Freqed]

This is what I don't like about the 996, is when it hits enc traffic it will not lock on or let your hear the garbled transmissions. The 796D lets me listen as long as I can stand, and here we have a user that is enc, but his cronies are not.

 

[rdale]

That's a good thing... It will mute the ENC part, but if someone responds in the clear you will hear that.

 

[Northcountry]

analog woes in a digital world

Must admit though.. I am not to sure I like the sound of the digital modes... voices seem to be "choppy" even with about half signal strength. ometimes the rig wont even decode a digital signal that is very weak although I can hear it and it breaks squelch. Strange.. Oh well. I must admit the analog sounds way better.