Talkgroups

[Chris52]

Yesterday I was motoring a shooting and had my scanner parked on a certain police talkgroup, while monitoring that talkgroup I heard the fire side come over it and dispatch a call. I took it as the dispatcher on the fire side may have made an ”opps” and clicked on the wrong talkgroup. Today I was monitoring that same police talkgroup and had heard the courthouse security (they have their own talkgroup). Any idea on what could be causing this flip flopping issue ? It doesn’t happen often but it does happen. All of my database is up to day on the scanner as well.

 

[maus92]

What system, and what talkgroup number?

 

[Chris52]

Charles County

I heard 10A1 (17040) on CCSO D1 (16464)

I also heard Court (16688) on 10A1 (17040)

It doesn’t happen often and it doesn’t seem to miss any communications of the talkgroup I‘d be monitoring

 

[Chris52]

And just as I finished typing that I noticed 10A2 (17056) come across CCSO D1 (16464)

 

[maus92]

Possibly they were patching the tgs together for some reason: maybe testing or training? Some software programs will show which tgs are being actively patched together, so you might want to try that route.

 

[Chris52]

I’ll fire up my DSD and see, I just didnt know if it could have been a programming / database glitch. Thanks

 

[druhe]

You wouldn't happen to be in ID search as opposed to ID scan would you ? Just throwing it out there

 

[Chris52]

You wouldn't happen to be in ID search as opposed to ID scan would you ? Just throwing it out there

I’ll check my settings

I don’t see any options for that in my settings

 

[lebrunmn]

Do you have Priority turn on? Even if you're manually parked on one talk group, a priority talk group may come up when there's a transmission on the Priority group. Of course, the Priority feature varies depending on the type of scanner you're using.

 

[Whiskey3JMC]

I don’t see any options for that in my settings

What scanner are you using?

 

[Chris52]

@lebrunmn I do have my priority on and I was thinking that’s what it could be but it was interesting that the screen never switched back or showed it was reverting back to that priority talkgroup meaning it showed as someone was talking on the talkgroup I was monitoring.

@Whiskey3JMC Whistler TX1, I’ve had folks tell me I made a big mistake on buying it but I really like this unit and glad I did.

 

[lebrunmn]

If you're not actually seeing the scanner switch between talk groups, then I'd have to agree with @maus92 about this possibly being a patch. Possibly so the Sheriff can let the responding Fire personnel know when the scene is secure? Just a thought, since it was a shooting.

I'm not familiar enough with DSD, but if you fire up Pro96com, there's a handy Patch tab that shows any patches on the system.

Good luck--I'd like to know what it is, too.

 

[Chris52]

@lebrunmn I’m nor firmiliar with Pro96com, could you provide some insight on it ? Thank you

 

[lebrunmn]

Chris-

Pro06com is a P-25 9600 baud trunking utility. It works with a wide variety of scanners. For the TRX-series, you basically park on a little-used talk group and Pro96com monitors the data stream, showing you all the activity, patches, affiliations, etc. for that particular site. Of course, as the name implies, it's for 9600 baud systems... looking at Charles Co. I see that it's a Moto type II Smartnet system--I think that may mean that it's a 3600 baud system as opposed to 9600. You may have to check with someone who is more familiar with the Charles Co. system about that specification.

If the system turns out to be 9600 baud, the utility is free to download here:

Pro96Com - Control channel decoder for P25 Trunked Radio Systems

Good luck.

 

[maus92]

Charles County is a Smartzone system and uses a 3600 bps control channel. Unitrunker 2 is a similar control channel monitoring software that can decode a 3600 bps cch, and is also actively updated.