LONG POST Warning...BCT8 programming...
I have been doing some experimenting on my daily 1.5hr commute, and i think i have some things figured out. Throughout, i am talking about a Motorola type II system. Also, talk group = id. And please, dont feel offended if it seems i am over explaining something. I am posting with the assumption that everyone is as new as i am to scanning, though i know this isnt true.
1) You can only have one system per trunking bank. this is from the manual. As far as I can tell, a system is 1 (and only 1) control frq and as many other frq's as you have space for as long as they are from the same system as the control frq. I know this is common sense, but I have more than once programed in frq's obtained online, that were listed together as a single system, and ended up with nothing but a normal non-trunking scan through the frequency list. I think sometimes they arent grouped right when given online. It seems that more than one system may be grouped together. I can tell you how i checked this if anyone is interested.
2) The manual's description of programming trunking frequencies and id's is adequate as-is. This will get your freq's and id's in properly.
3) When programming id's, the id's in slots 1-1 thru 1-0 comprise list 1. similar for lists 2-5. Each bank has its own 5 lists. So trunking bank 1, list 1, is different than trunking bank 2, list 1. I hope you guys are smarter than I was, but this sure confused me for a while.
4) Be sure to turn on the lists that have id's. This is done while in the trunking programming menu.
Once you have all your frq's and id's entered, and your lists turned on/off, you can exit the trunking programing menu. Make sure you are in trunking mode, and cycle through the private scan modes until you are _only_ in private trunking scan mode. Make sure you arent holding.
For simplicity, have only one private bank selected for the next part.
Now the moment of truth. _If_ you are in range of the control frq and it is coming in loud and clear with no interruptions in reception, you will see "B-X id scan" in the diplay. If you momentarily lose the control frq signal, you will see a normal non-trunked scan start through the frq's in the bank you are in. Anytime you lose the control signal, this seems to happen. Similarly, if you start out with bad reception of the control frq, you will never see an id scan start ("B-X id scan" in display). You will scan, but it wont be a trunking scan. When the scanner gets the control signal clearly again, it will start trunk scanning (id scanning) again. So you might see the "B-X" indication flicker periodically as it goes into and out of id scan mode.
Hope this makes as much sense to you as it did to me writing it. I left out lots of what i did to figure this out for the sake of brevity. If you want something cleared up, just post.