I-Call Only on 396T

[Skud]

From my understanding an I-Call is for two units to talk to each other and no one else can hear them. Does it go from unit to unit or does it still have to go thru a tower?

 

[Sac916]

From my understanding an I-Call is for two units to talk to each other and no one else can hear them. Does it go from unit to unit or does it still have to go thru a tower?

It goes through the same radio network of towers.

Don't confuse this with the other type of ICALL listed here.....

http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Common_Public_Safety





.

 

[Skud]

is that because that link is ones that are not trunked?

 

[Dewey]

The "ICALLS" listed at the aforementioned link are more just channel designations rather than a description of the way i-call works. The best plain english way I can think of to describe an i-call is like switching to a channel that only the two radio involved have. Yes, they still go through a tower, and are repeated. One radio calls directly (through the network/towers) to the other radio similar to one cell phone calling another cell phone.

Transmissions that don't go through towers are called simplex (both radios on same frequency) or duplex (radio on one frequency and base on another, but no repeater involved). Here in DC in the old conventional days, a lot of officers thought that the surveillance channels were private and couldn't be monitored by a scanner. This is because the conventional surveillance channels were simplex, and just don't travel that far. So even when the simplex frequencies "got out", most people never heard or rarely heard anything leading the officers to think that they were private. They weren't private, just SHORT RANGE. I-call on the other hand goes through the towers, and can cover the entire network's range.

Dewey