Radio Shack Pro-107 "iScan"

[reserve161]

I went out on a limb to try this new scanner. I am pretty pleased with how easy it is to
update and program it.

I have one issue, though.

I listen to Lewisville's Public Safety system (Motorola Type II Hybrid) and only the fire department talkgroups.

The Fire Dispatch channel won't play the Tone Out transmissions - no tones, and no audio. It's like it totally ignores those.

It does play transmissions on the dispatch channel like apparatus checking back in the station and such.

Unfortunately, I really need those tones to (hopefully) wake me up...

Is there some setting I am missing?

Thanks!
Bryan

 

[mikey60]

Are the tone sent over the voice frequency on the trunked system? Maybe you need to add a conventional frequency that has the paging tones...

Mike

 

[reserve161]

Thanks for the reply, Mike -
Yes, the tones are sent over the voice channel of the dispatch talk group.
Years ago they would simulcast the tones on their high-band channel, but I don't
know if they do that any more...

I wonder if there is a guard tone I need to set, or something like that?

Thanks!
Bryan

 

[mikey60]

Typically not on a trunked system. PL tones usually aren't important on trunked systems as far as scanners are concerned.

Mike

 

[KC5EIB]

I went out on a limb to try this new scanner. I am pretty pleased with how easy it is to
update and program it.

I have one issue, though.

I listen to Lewisville's Public Safety system (Motorola Type II Hybrid) and only the fire department talkgroups.

The Fire Dispatch channel won't play the Tone Out transmissions - no tones, and no audio. It's like it totally ignores those.

It does play transmissions on the dispatch channel like apparatus checking back in the station and such.

Unfortunately, I really need those tones to (hopefully) wake me up...

Is there some setting I am missing?

Thanks!
Bryan

Which departments are you monitoring on the Lewisville system?

Flower Mound just switched from toning out the stations on 154.145 to TGID 28912. I have not had my 107 on for a while to see is it is passing the tones. I normally do not listen to the other departments but will monitor their FD's to check what the radio passes.

 

[KC5EIB]

Been monitoring the LSVL TRS on my 107 and 164. Both the 107 and 164 pass the DTMF tones used to dispatch the Flower Mound FD but only the 164 will pass the tones for Lewisville. The 107 does not even stop on the talkgroup. Once the talk group is released and the radio starts scanning, it will stop on the talkgroup when dispatch or unites in the field do talk.

 

[KC5EIB]

Using WIN-500 on my pro-106, Here is what I found:

Normal voice communications:
19:48:27.50:M36:T0000:115 1 63F0:T2CG:TG-25584 S-0 Ch-0277 VC- 857.937500

Transmission where paging tones were sent:
19:56:47.54:M36:T0000:0ED 1 63F7:T2CG:TG-25584 S-7 Ch-0237 VC- 856.937500

Is the S-0 no status bit set and the S-7 the status bit is set?

 

[reserve161]

Yes, it has to do with the status bit.

What I had to do was to create a new talkgroup by adding 7 to the LFD dispatch talkgroup
which apparently creates a talkgroup that receives only the toneouts.

In this particular case, the LFD Dispatch talkgroup ID is 25584 so I created a talkgroup at 25591
and now the radio works just like I desire.

If you want to listen to ONLY toneouts, you could disable all other talkgroups except that "fake"
one and then that would be all you hear.

Thanks CJ for the help figuring this out!

 

[reserve161]

Oh, and a definitions update (great... AFTER all is said and done...) The toneouts I
am referring to for Lewisville Fire are tones sent to open Motorola Plectrons (accompanied then
by voice instructions of what the emergency is and what apparatus are assigned).
These "tones" are a pair of tones that open the radio up for transmissions when they are received.
When the plectron is on alert, the radio is silent until it receives the combination of tones it is
programmed for. It lets the firemen sleep at night even if another station has a call.

 

[KC5EIB]

I found the talkgroup 25591 by putting in a wildcard and then looking at the scanner when the dispatch was being sent. Now I know what to do if Flower Mound decides to do the same thing with their FD dispatch. Thanks for the education.

 

[jenlk1207]

Help!

Can you all explain what you did to get the tones to work? I'm fairly new to scanning, and I am having the same problem with Perris Dispatch in Riverside County, Southern California. It's programmed in the scanner, but nothing comes though at all when it is on that channel. I have no idea how to fix it. Any help would be greatly appreciated. It's the one channel I need to do my job.

 

[Ed_Seedhouse]

If you are in an area with few inter-modulation problems you can just turn the tones off and it will open the squelch for any signal. If you do turn the tones on for a channel then the squelch will open only if the radio detects that tone, so if you have the wrong tone programmed you will hear nothing.

Many radios will detect the tone for you if you set it off, and display it on the screen. If so then you can write down that frequency and program it in. I live in an area with a lot of strong signals that cause interference especially on the two meter ham bands, so I took the time to find the right tone and program it in. Makes scanning much more peaceful. There are a few repeaters around that don't send a tone and when they are transmitting because of intermod it makes scanning a noisy experience.

They call them "subaudible" tones and that may be so when you are listening with your scanner's speaker, but I pipe mine into a wide range set of speakers and the tones are definitely audible very audible!

 

[siksika]

Hello my name is Chris and just recently purchased a iscan pro 107, I'm from alberta Canada ansd wondering if anyone would know if there is sd iscan cards available for Canada for this particular model??? i'm fairly new to this type of trunking scanner system.