Hello, I am new to scanning and was curious how to program my scanner. I’m in Cincinnati oh, Hamilton county and we use the digital trunked system. I currently have a uniden bcd325p2. Can I program other departments other that in the 800+ mghtz range. I see several departments in like the 100 or 400 mghtz range but am unsure what system to program them under, conventional ? I hope this isn’t too confusing. Thanks in advance!
Phase 2 vs. others
- Thread starter Fatty1335
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Welcome to RadioReference
You can program your 325P2 with any of the system types it supports. You just can't mix conventional frequencies in a trunked system. You'd have a trunked system for your statewide MARCS-IP system, and one or more conventional systems for the non-trunked frequencies that are still in use.
tvengr
Well Known Member
If you look at the Radio Reference database, you can select by County or Trunked Systems. If it shows by County with individual frequencies for each channel, it is a Conventional system. It will also tell you if it is on a Trunked system. If you go to the Trunked System tab, anything you see is a Trunked System. Did you program Cincinnati and Hamilton Co from a download or manually program it? Do you have programming software and what kind?
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No I don’t have software. I just manually entered in all the trunked frequencies. I thought trunked systems were in the 800+mghtz. Some stuff I see for more localized specific frequencies (like mt. healthy police) or( Colerain township police) are in the 400 range. Also with conventional, it’s not giving me an option to enter a frequency if I set a conventional system up. It gives me options like lockout and create group and set number tag.
tvengr
Well Known Member
It is a lot easier and faster using software. I use ARC-XT Basic for my 325P2 and 996P2. To enter conventional frequencies using the scanner menu, go to Program System/New System/Conventional/Edit Group/New Group/Edit Channel/New Channel. It will now ask you to Input Frequency. Most of the new public safety trunking systems are P25 and use 700 and 800 MHz frequencies. Some systems use 150 and 450 MHz. Your scanner will cover all of them. There are a few that use DMR or NXDN. Unless there is something you want to monitor using those formats, there is no reason to purchase upgrades. Using software, you can download the systems from Radio Reference, if you subscribe to the service. I prefer to do all of my own programming. It is a lot faster typing alpha tags into software that doing it by rotating a knob character by character on a scanner. Cincinnati and Hamilton Co are large systems. They would be set up as separate trunking systems using the Cincinnati and Hamilton Co sites on the Ohio MARCS system. It would take forever to enter everything manually. If you have any questions, please don't be afraid to ask.
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Adding in to the TRS and freqs... Some Trunking Systems even mix bands depending on what is needed for best coverage etc.. For instance, in MO there is the Statewide MOSWIN system which uses VHF High (150 MHz range) for most sites in rural areas, but also has 700/800 MHz for the cities. Then you have the TACN in TN, mainly 700/800 MHz, but has a few VHF High sites as well. Trunking is used on almost all the bands, except VHF Low (yet). You have analog, mixed analog/digital, and then multiple formats of pure digital trunking systems. And with Very Large Wide Area Trunking Systems such as Statewide Systems... A lot of them fold in Local/Regional systems as those areas join the networks. Cinci/Hamco is one good example of this. That used to be a completely separate system from the MARCS-IP, but they converted it over to be an large cell on the MARCS-IP.
Thank you guys, that helped A LOT. do I have to worry about the tones at all when entering in conventional frequencies. I see on some, it shows a certain tone. I’m unsure how to enter it for each frequency. Maybe I should just download the software and be done lol. Thanks again
That helps a lot, I’m confused on what the “tones” are and when and where to enter them. Also, the alpha tags are just what I want to name the frequencies right ? Sorry for my ignorance
Are talkgroups something I have to set up and figure out which department is on what talkgroup? Or does radio reference/the software figure that out for me ? I think that’s the last question.
On TONES: If you ONLY want to hear a specific user on a frequency, then yes, put the listed tones in. This will mostly prevent you hearing other users of that freq. Exceptions - Tropospheric Ducting (skip on VHF High/UHF), in this instance there could be another user of this freq with the same tones that could be hundreds of miles away, but you will hear them as if they are very close to you. Or, the user you want to hear switches tones in use, in which case you will not hear them any longer, until you find out what the new tones in use are. Or, they switch to an digital format, or another system entirely.
tvengr
Well Known Member
After entering a frequency, go to Set Audio Type. If you select Analog Only, you are given a choice to set the tone to Off, Search, CTCSS, or DCS. CTCSS is a continuous sub-audible tone and is expressed as a number with a decimal point such as 67.0. DCS is a digital coded squelch and is expressed as a whole number (No decimal point). You will only hear signals transmitted with the proper tones. If set to Off (carrier squelch or CSQ), you will hear anything on the frequency. If you set to Search, the transmitted tone will be displayed if one is used. This is similar to NAC (Network Access Code) on a P25 digital frequency.
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