Bham/JeffCo System
Steve,
The Control Channels for Bham/JeffCo are as follows:
867.6125 - Ch 2
868.2750 - Ch 3
860.2125 - Ch 4
857.2375, 858.2375, 859.2375 and 860.2375 are all Ch 10.
The 857, 858, 859 and 860 frequencies have been used and it may move from one of them to another (usually around midnight).
As for the TGID's, RadioReference has a list of all/most of the TGID's used by Bham/JeffCo. I have my Bham/JeffCo System organized as follows:
Group 1 - County Fire
Group 2 - County Police/Sheriff
Group 3 - County Services
Group 4 - County Unknowns
Group 5 - Bham Fire
Group 6 - Bham Police
Group 7 - Bham Services
Group 8 - Bham Unknowns
You can organize your system to listen to whatever your main interests are. I like to listen to ALL the Bham/JeffCo TGID's.
The "SERVICES" groups include anything that is not Police or Fire. In my county Group I have the MAX Transit, Roads & Transportation, Building Inspectors, Airport, etc. The "UNKNOWNS" are for any TGID's that either I or others have not identified. This group also has unknown I-Call id's as well. The 396 has a setting under "SYSTEM OPTIONS" called "SET I-CALL". I have this setting turned "ON". My understanding of I-Call is that it is a type of Direct Unit-to-Unit channel. I believe I have even heard Dispatchers talking with Mobile units and using it as a type of "DISCRETE" channel when they don't want the traffic to be on the regular AREA-WIDE channel.
I don't know if you are aware of this, but there is at least one Computer Software package that will load the Systems into the 396 and help control it as well. It is put out by BUTEL and is called ARC396 (price of about $70 for the PRO version - check on the Internet for the butel.nl) l. I have the PRO version and it includes a VIRTUAL CONTROL feature that allows you to LOG the Systems/Groups/Frequencies,TGID's and CTSS/DCS information as well as counting the number of "HITS" for each System/Group/User. I am keeping track of what I hear and maintaining a log of the information an a record of the number of "HITS" I have gotten for each System/Group/User. This program makes loading system information easy. Once you have all the information for your system(s) loaded into the program, it only takes as little as 1 minute to 10 to 15 minutes for several sytems to load, depending on whether the system is Conventional or Trunked, how many entries for each system and how many systems you're loading at a time. It is a lot less time consuming than loading the manually!
Wayne
