Newbie, need help, please.

[kristopher_d]

I picked up a RadioShack Pro-97 about a month ago and have been racking my brain trying to figure all this out. I can hit the scan button and occasionally here something that sounds like official talk, but I can't seem to figure out how to stay on top of it to tell.

The biggest trouble I'm having is figuring out the differences between frequency listings and RadioShack's terminology. Right now it's really nifty way to check the weather whenever I want. Unfortunately, before I got this, I never really cared what Mother Nature had planned.

 

[lowboy654]

how about some more info like what system you are trying to listen to.

 

[kristopher_d]

Well that's just it. If I could figure out how to read the references (has no one ever heard of a key, placing a letter next to some numbers = data, not info) I'd be happy as a clam in mud.

I guess, for starters, I'd like to be able to tune in Redmond PD so I know why they've got the whole darned city shut down next time, instead of waiting for the 10 o' clock news and learning nothing. Plus being in downtown Redmond, that would give me something semi-reliable to practice against.

 

[fmon]

Welcome to the forum.

When searching for Redmond in my Streets & Maps program, 6 cities in the US came up and one from Western Australia. I will take a chance on the first to come up on the list which is Redmond in King County WA.

If so the PD and Fire/EMS talkgroups can be programed as follow:

18352  	Redmond CITYWIDE 
18384  	Redmond Police TAC2 
18416  	Redmond Police TAC/CAR-CA 
18512  	Redmond PD TRAFFIC 
18544  	Redmond Police 
18576  	Redmond Fire command 
18608  	Redmond Fire prevention

These were copied from http://www.radioreference.com/modules.php?name=RR&sid=604 . To program them into a bank,
1. Press PGM TRUNK
2. Press MODE until MOT is indicated.
3. Enter the 1st 5 digit number in the list above. Add Text by pressing TEXT and use the keyboard number associated with the correct letters of text.
4. Press ENTER.
5. Press UP and repeat steps 3 and 4 until all are entered.

After the last ENTER, select the site nearest your location from the above link for your frequencies. Note, only program the Red and Blue frequencies as follows.

1. Press PGM
2. Using the numbered & decimal keys, enter the first frequency (Blue or Red) from the site listing. If you need to give it a name Press TEXT and key in the info as noted previously.
3. Press ENTER
4. Press UP
5 repeat steps 2, 3 & 4 until all freqs are entered.

Note, you can program other nearby sites into the same bank using Red and Blue freqs from that site.

 

[fmon]

kristopher_d, your forum identified the correct Redmond.

This comment was unneccessary.
"When searching for Redmond in my Streets & Maps program, 6 cities in the US came up and one from Western Australia. I will take a chance on the first to come up on the list which is Redmond in King County WA."

Sorry

 

[AuntBee09]

this may be alittle off topic, but the trunk-frequencies radioshack gave me a while ago were way off for the king county area. radioreference.com has much better data.

 

[lowboy654]

No for once you are not off track, the people at the rat shack are clueless these days as far as scanners go

 

[midnightcaller]

or try www.northwestradio.com

 

[kristopher_d]

Thanks for the help. I lost the bookmark for this site, and for whatever reason, it took me this long to hit on the keyword combination that brought it back up.

I do have some more questions.

Does the "Dec" column indicate the DECimal form of the Talk Group ID?

 

[fmon]

Does the "Dec" column indicate the DECimal form of the Talk Group ID?

Yes it does. The DEC # and Alpha Tag (up to 16 charactors) to discribe the talkgroup is all you need for each. If programmed, the Alpha tag will appear on line 4 of the display during transmission for that talkgroup. If tag is not programmed, the ID number will be on line 4.

 

[kristopher_d]

Okay, so I programmed in the Redmond Talk Groups, and the Education Hill tower frequency (It's less than 10 mi from my apartment), and I definitely am picking something up, but it sounds like machine talk. The bottom line of the display shows "control" followed by a constantly changing percentage value.

I'm going to play with some more Freq's and TG's, but I'm really wondering what I missed.

Edit: Is there a Primer or Tutorial I might refer to? I'm largely self-educated any way, and I think I may just be having trouble wrapping my head around what the scanner is doing, and there for what it needs from me.

 

[fmon]

by kristopher "The bottom line of the display shows "control" followed by a constantly changing percentage value."

You are manually on the control channel during the above condition.

I wrote this Programming shortcut for the Pro-96 which programs similar. And this Tutorial for the 97 is from Mark's Scanners.

 

[kristopher_d]

...select the site nearest your location from the above link for your frequencies. Note, only program the Red and Blue frequencies...

Well, the red Frequency is not only a control frequency, but the only one listed for Education Hill. Obviously, I'm still missing something.

 

[fmon]

Turn the scanner off and back on, then press SCAN.

 

[kristopher_d]

Just for information's sake, the scanner has been off and back on several times since programming the control freq and TG's. Scanning did nothing. Note: I did clear the memory so I could start fresh, hoping to have some idea what I was getting. However, as soon as I entered the two non-control frequencies for Education Hill, I started hearing police chatter.

So my next steps will be
1) Try removing the control frequency and see if I still receive the transmissions I want
2) try adding in voice frequencies listed for other King County towers.

I think I'm starting to figure out what I'm doing. At least enough that I don't feel like hurling the radio out onto the highway every 5 minutes.

 

[kristopher_d]

All right. I'm still trying to get my head around Redmond, but I think I'm getting the hang of it.

Now, When I look up the State Patrol, I see Tone and Channel Columns
For Tacoma (top of list, easiest place to start) it has 151.4 PL listed under tone for all freqs. Channel's are F-4, F-11, F-19, & F31. I'm not sure what these are referring to. I'm guessing the WSP, uses a different trunking system, or is it a non trunking system and I'm confusing myself?

 

[gmclam]

All right. I'm still trying to get my head around Redmond, but I think I'm getting the hang of it.

Now, When I look up the State Patrol, I see Tone and Channel Columns
For Tacoma (top of list, easiest place to start) it has 151.4 PL listed under tone for all freqs. Channel's are F-4, F-11, F-19, & F31. I'm not sure what these are referring to. I'm guessing the WSP, uses a different trunking system, or is it a non trunking system and I'm confusing myself?

1. If your scanner is locking on a control channel when in SCAN mode, it sounds like you have the individual channel set to FM instead of MO. Make sure all frequencies for a trunked system are set to MO (if it is a Motorola type trunk).

2. Program each trunked system into its own bank. You can mix "conventional" channels with a trunked system, but I'd keep it simple for now. Use 1 bank for King County TRS and use another for non trunked channels.

3. If you ONLY want to hear the talkgroups you've programmed for a trunked system, set the bank to CLOSED. Leaving the bank OPEN will let you hear any talkgroup.

Note: CT and PL have the same meaning, except that PL is a Motorola trademark.
DC and DPL have the same meaning, except that DPL is a Motorola trademark.

4. What you have quoted above are "PL" or "CT" frequencies for "conventional" channels. All you need to program is the transmission frequency (such as 155.52000), with the mode set to FM, to hear the State Patrol. Next you can set the mode to "CT" (it will display Search) and the scanner will identify the CT frequency of the transmission (displayed on the 4th line). If you are receiving multiple agencies/etc on a frequency (which use different CT frequencies) you can further set the CT value (such as 151.4) so that only a transmission with that PL tone will be heard/received.

Good luck.

 

[kristopher_d]

Thanks so very much guys, I'm now reliably getting what I expect out of this. I think I'll have to write some Linux SW to do this crap in the future, but I couldn't even begin that without a basic understanding.