Hello all,
I got a BC125AT for Christmas last year and I've loved it. However, later this summer, I will be continuing my education at Michigan State University. I'm not 100% familiar with the capabilities of my scanner and I am interested in programming it with the Ingham County-area public safety frequencies. During my research, I discovered that the Ingham area uses a system called EDACS. I'm not sure what that means or if my scanner can support it.
Will the 125AT support the system, or will I need to invest in a different scanner in the future?
Thanks,
-NSC
Hi NSC
Welcome to RadioReference.
Your 125AT is not a trunking scanner, and as such cannot properly receive the Ingham County EDACS system.
Looking at that
system, there are some talkgroups that are encrypted, which no scanner can handle. Those are labeled with an
E in the Mode column.
While the majority of the talkgroups listed are analog (look for an
A in the mode column), which a number of trunking scanners can handle, a few are ProVoice. Those are labeled with a
D in the mode column, The only scanners that can handle ProVoice are four Uniden models, with an upgrade that costs $60.00. These are the BCD325P2, BCD996P2, BCD436HP, and BCD536HP. The 325P2 & 436HP are both handhelds (as is your 125AT); the other two are base/mobile mobiles, which are generally used as a desktop or mounted in a vehicle. I have the ProVoice upgrade on one of my 436HP's, and it works very well on the
DFW Airport system in my area. However, bear in mind that support for EDACS systems is ending from the manufacturer, and agencies using that system will need to transition to a different system style over the next couple of years. So, unless there is one of the ProVoice talkgroups that you feel you must have, I believe I'd skip that paid upgrade if I were in your position. I did the upgrade last year, and so have gotten a good bit of use from it, so in my situation, it was worth it.
I also see notes in the county's database page that a few of their talkgroups are patched to TGID's on Michigan's statewide system.
MPSCS. That is a P25 (digital) Phase I system, so you would need a digital trunking scanner for it. Any of that scanner type currently, both discontinued models that are available in the used market (there may be a few new, but discontinued ones available from vendors), as well as current production digital trunking scanners, would handle both the EDACS system (remember that only the Uniden models listed earlier would handle ProVoice, but the others would handle the analog talkgroups on the county system). See this
page for a listing of models.
