Newbie Questions

[pcFixr]

Hello, I am new to the Raleigh Area and to Trunked scanning. My famaily and I just moved here from Florida . We are all (but 1) amateur radio operators. I have a couple of questions I would like to throw out to see if there is someone out there who can help me.

1. What is the amateur community like here? We are all technician class operators, are the best 2 meter repeaters and any in Raleigh and what is the info to contact the owner / operators for permission to use?

2. The VIPER system. I have a uniden trunk traker iii (BC246t). While I have had the unit for a while, I programmed it once and never needed to mess with it after that. I have input the frequencies Wake County, and after locking out several ids that sounded like pager traffic, I am recieving some Raleigh Traffic. However I can plug into an online scanner and hear much more. Any clue what I am missing? I know when I went to add the talk group ids found on another post, my scanner replied to me with an error. Will this scanner not work for the bulk of the area traffic?

Thanks so much for your time,
Terry
K4HNT

 

[KE4ZNR]

Terry,
Welcome to RR.com and the Triangle Area.

To answer your questions:

1) The Raleigh Amateur Radio Society (or RARS) is the main Ham Group
in Raleigh. On their website they have a list of local repeaters.
I would suggest stopping by one of their meetings as they are always open to having new people visit.
2) I have some bad news for you. While the 246t is a good analog only scanner, Public Safety in Wake County uses a digital voice format on VIPER. Which means you would need to acquire a digital capable scanner to be able to monitor Police/Fire/EMS in Raleigh/Wake County.
Yes, NCSHP (NC Highway Patrol) is still analog for the time being but that will also soon change. Everyone else is digital in Wake County.
Again, welcome to the area and hope this helps you out.
Happy Monitoring
Marshall KE4ZNR