Monitor P25 trunking from a conventional P25 channel?

[ElroyJetson]

I thought I knew this, but upon careful reflection, I don't. So I'm asking.

There is a federal P25 phase 1 trunking system in my area.
I have no wish to attempt to program up an xts5000 to listen to that system, not in trunking mode.

The system has a VERY low activity rate. Previously, before they moved to P25, hearing all traffic just by scanning them in conventional mode worked as well as having the radio in trunking. The system is just that quiet.

I can scan the individual system channels in P25 conventional mode.

I have not attempted this yet.

Will this allow me to receive system traffic?

I would presume I would use the CSQ equivalent NAC code.

I confess, I'm really surprised that I haven't attempted this before. Oh well!


Which is F7E, as I recall.

 

[riveter]

Yes, if you F7E all the receive NACs it'll unsquelch to any NAC. If the system's really low-activity, conventional scan will work just fine to hear traffic.

Continuing that thought (for getting correct TG identification) I'm not sure about using conventional talkgroups in that setup, I've never explored that properly. I think you'd have to create all combinations of frequency and talkgroup to get that to scan properly... easy if you only want to monitor one TG ever, but functionally ineffective for more than perhaps two TGs.

That's if you want talkgroup identification with transmissions though. If not, just don't use conventional talkgroup mode, F7E all your NACs, and scan the lot and you should be good.

 

[ElroyJetson]

I am going to ASSUME that if the talkgroup ID is, for example, A1E, then programming that talkgroup in P25 conventional would cause the radio to unmute when the trunking talkgroup A1E is active.

I could certainly do that, too.

But there's so little activity on the system I'll just monitor in CSQ, at least at first. Keep things simple.

All my radio profiles start out very simple. After a while they're very full featured. I add on things and keep revising my files.

 

[riveter]

Yes that would be correct for TG A1E, but that personality will not unmute to anything but A1E. If you want to simultaneously scan for TGs A1E and A1F on a single member frequency, you'll need two personalities assigned to two different channel positions with the same frequency.

 

[ElroyJetson]

Yes, of course. Soon this becomes complicated, as I may be scanning for maybe 8 talkgroups on each of 8 different channels, and now it's getting more complex than I want to mess with today.

7FE conventional scanning is by far the better option for what I want to do right now.

 

[ElroyJetson]

I programmed it up, it runs great. P25 conventional hearing voice traffic on a P25 phase 1 trunking system. Sounds just perfect. Now I just need to add in the other sites....

 

[KE4SZT]

It's also a good idea to run your scan resume time down to 0.

 

[ElroyJetson]

Of course. Hang time is at zero.

Since the number of channels per site is LESS than the number of slots in any given scan list, in this instance, this method of listening works great. All I'm missing is talkgroup identification information, and frankly I don't really care.