If you get a paid subscription to this website you can get access to the entire Radio Reference database which can be downloaded into the ARC XT Pro software and then uploaded into the scanner - that would take care of pretty much everything necessary, for the most part (and for most casual listeners).
It sounds to me (no pun intended given your listening issues) like maybe that scanner is a bit more complicated than you may realize. Because of it being so complex, and the owner's manual being somewhat easier to
not understand, someone out there wrote a nice "easier to read" guide to using the BCT-15X and you can find that guide here:
Easier to Read BCT15-X Scanner Manual
As for the control channel data, when using a modern scanner that supports control channel decoding, all you really end up having to tell the scanner is two things:
1) The control channel (aka CC in this usage, and I don't mean CC for CloseCall, the frequency detecting mode of operation) frequency or frequencies (which you get from the info here in the database or some other source for that info)
2) Enable the setting or option in the scanner to do what's typically referred to as "CC only" or whatever the specific option is which tells the scanner "Hey, you know that control channel frequency or frequencies I just programmed into you? Well just listen to those and decode what you need to be able to switch around to all those voice frequencies as required."
The control channel data stream carries all the necessary info for the scanner to "know" when to switch to the voice frequencies so you can actually monitor the comms. If you're only hearing the control channel itself, more than likely you've got a system programmed with at least the CC and that's all it's able to scan until you tell the scanner to decode it as necessary which is the "CC Only" option iirc.
If you're so inclined, there's a wiki page about Control Channel Only operation as well:
http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Control_Channel_Only
When you end up having some incredibly complex trunked systems, it's nice to know this feature exists nowadays and instead of having to punch in hundreds if not thousands of frequencies manually, you just input the CC frequency or frequencies and the scanner does the rest - that is if "CC Only" decoding is enabled.