Help with BC346XT

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Dano32

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Jan 12, 2011
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Montebello, Ca
Hello all,

I just upgraded to a BC346XT. I have an old BC100XLT that I used for many years on and off and recently discovered that it's pretty much useless for scanning the trunked city public safety transmissions for the city I live in (Montebello). I bought the BC346XT for it's trunking capabilities and have entered the control freq (482.0375) and the ID's I want to monitor (36752, 36768). I'm getting nothing. I believe my problem is that these ID's are digital and I have an analog scanner. Can anyone confirm this for me and if
I'm wrong about that what do I need to do to get going here?

I'm a semi noob and think I've got a pretty good grasp of how to program trunking systems in my scanner, at least freq's and ID's anyway. I'm using FreeSCAN to program and got all my info off of RR. Montebello PD is part of ICIS. That could be part of my problem.

Any help would be appreciated.
 

n6ciz

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Hesperia, CA
Unfortunately, you will need a digital scanner as those talkgroups you want to monitor are P25 digital.
 

Dano32

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Jan 12, 2011
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Montebello, Ca
Yeah...I realized that. Shipped BC346XT back today and going to have the BCD396XT sent to me. I hope it's relatively the same to program as the 346. I spent a lot of time learning how to program it.

Thanks for the help.
 

CoolCat

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There may be a few minor differences, but since they are both DMA scanners, basic programing procedures will the same for both models.

If you saved the freescan profile that you used to program your 346XT, you can load that same profile right into your new 396XT.
 

Dano32

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Jan 12, 2011
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Montebello, Ca
Thnx Cat.
I did save the profile. Should be back on track soon.


BTW.....how long does anyone think that it will take till all or most public safety systems will go encrypted? I want to get a few good years out of this $500 scanner.
 

dawntreader

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Haltom City, TX
scanning years

BTW.....how long does anyone think that it will take till all or most public safety systems will go encrypted? I want to get a few good years out of this $500 scanner.

Great question - no one knows the real answer as you have stated it, but for a given community, at least three major factors in answering this question are money, political will, and current operability.

Going encrypted costs more money. Sometimes federal/state grants can offset some of the cost for a community. If your community has a lot of tax revenue, the chances are greater that a decision maker will allocate that money to digital radios depending on the other two factors.

The factor of political will is usually more difficult to determine, unless you know the decision makers. For some community decision makers, the idea of spending more money to alienate a community from their public safety officials with encrypted radio communication is not a viable option. Those communities can be scanned with available scanners well into the future. For other communities where the decision makers are more aligned with protecting public safety officials privacy with encryption while they are in service, the future of scanning is dubious at best.

Finally, if the current operability of the radios is good in a given community, there is a "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality that can be pervasive at the decision level. Of course this is dependent on the budget available, and the political will of the decision makers. If you live in one of these communities, chances are better that your current operational scanner will be in service for longer rather than shorter.

Congrats on the BCD396XT purchase! The BC346XT still works in my community, at least for the next couple years.
 
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