New To Digital Voice

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korruptangel

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Sep 14, 2018
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Please forgive me if this topic is posted already.

Recently (its been a couple weeks now) my home towns local PD made the switch to digital voice comms and now i believe my radio to be incapable of receiving their transmissions (now i just get a garbled machine sounding interference). I'm a trained storm spotter and in general enjoy listening to the scanner whenever i happen to be in my vehicle.

My question is on radio reference, the tone setting listed for the frequency i want to listen to is listed as:

CC 5
TG 9100
SL 1

What does all that mean? The little menu that pops up when you hover your mouse says "CC = DMR / TRBO Color Code" and that's it. Could someone explain this tone setting or provide a link to an article that might explain it for a noob ?

Also the Mode is listed as "DMR", what is that?

My current mobile is a Yaesu FT-2900r. I am thinking about making the upgrade to a 2 meter / 440 C4FM Digital Dual Band Transceiver... only i'm not sure if that is even capable of listening in on digital law enforcement frequencies. So i want to understand better so that i can make an informed and educated decision before buying another radio. If anyone has some radio's they could suggest that would be appreciated.

Thank you in advance for any information.
 
D

DaveNF2G

Guest
You need a digital receiver to monitor digital traffic. I recommend browsing the other forums regarding digital modes because there is already a ton of information here on RR alone that answers your questions. Also, it seems your post is off-topic for this forum as your application is not ham radio but police monitoring.
 

N4KVE

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PALM BEACH, FLORIDA
On a DMR radio, you would enter the frequency. Next you would enter color code 5, then talk group 9100, & finally time slot 1. This would all be where you set the frequency for the channel you want to monitor.
 

SteveSimpkin

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This is a DMR (or Motorola Mototrbo) digital system. In a DMR system you need to specify the Color Code (CC), Time Slot (SL or TS) and Talk Group (TG) to listen to a particular agency.

No radios made by Yaesu will receive DMR systems. Assuming this system is not encrypted, you will need a scanner capable of receiving DMR to hear them. The following site shows more information about DMR and lists the models of scanners that can receive it. Note all of the Uniden models and some of the discontinued Whistler/RS models also require a paid upgrade to receive DMR.
https://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/DMR
 

Ubbe

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Stockholm, Sweden
As you are familiar with radios you could get a $100 DMR portable radio like a TYT MD380 and program it with the information you already have. It's easy to program more talkgroups and channels to scan and the MD380 have excellent sensitivity and receives much better than any scanner and all DMR radios also do analog and CTCSS/DCS if you want to access amateur repeaters. Usually you can add and edit frequencies from the radios keypad if you for example would like to add a repeater when you are travelling without access to a computer.

If you also want to monitor DMR digital transmissions in the 400MHz band there are $150 dual band versions MD390 or a $250 mobile version MD9600 with 50 watt output power. Getting a $500 scanner to monitor just a few channels in the 160 and 400MHz bands seems a bit expensive.

/Ubbe
 

CrabbyMilton

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Jul 28, 2008
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I have noticed in regard to DMR. Often times DMR transmissions pop up on the MURS channels. If you set your scanner to receive them in both analog and digital, the color code and other info will show up.
Perhaps this is old news but you can take it FWIW.
 

korruptangel

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Sep 14, 2018
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Thank you everyone for your input. I will take the information you've given me and see what i want to do. Also it was said my topic was off topic... i don't think so. I'm trying to learn in general about the digital voice or DMR so that i can make educated decisions before buying another radio. The police frequency is just one great example for me to refer to as there are no other DMR systems near my location that i know of. I am enlisting in the Air National Guard soon and i am actually considering the RF Transmission Specialist job, i'm sure i would get to learn all about this in that career field.

Thanks again everyone.
 
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