Anne Arundel Police

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baydog

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They are on the Anne Arundel County system.They are not on FIRST.

Check the entry for the Anne Arundel County system in the RR database
 

K3EP

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taspener - The link you refer to is the FIRST tower site located within Anne Arundel County. As baydog stated, Anne Arundel is not on FIRST. So that's not an indication of whether they are trunked or not.

But it just so happens Anne Arundel has been trunked since circa 1990. Troymail provided the link to the County page. And he's right ... any digital trunked scanner made in the last 10 years should work fine.
 

taspencer

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Thanks all. A follow-up: On the scanner I now have (analog), I can pick up most of the frequencies used by AA Police trunked. At the link troymail provides above, some of the frequencies are 854.18750, 854.51250, etc. I assume all of these are still avail. on a regular analog scanner, just won't be able to tell what is what exactly, or hear both sides of a conversation. Assumption correct?

Thanks,

Tim
 

troymail

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The key is the control frequencies (normally 854.3375 but changes once in a while) and have a trunking (and digital) scanner. AA and Annapolis police are ALL trunked digital -- so other than control channel frequencies really don't do much for you. Fire and some other services are trunked analog.
 

maus92

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Thanks all. A follow-up: On the scanner I now have (analog), I can pick up most of the frequencies used by AA Police trunked. At the link troymail provides above, some of the frequencies are 854.18750, 854.51250, etc. I assume all of these are still avail. on a regular analog scanner, just won't be able to tell what is what exactly, or hear both sides of a conversation. Assumption correct?

Thanks,

Tim

To be clear, your analog scanner will not decode the P-25 digital audio used by the AACo Police, therefore all you will hear on their channels is digital noise (un-decoded audio.). You will be able to hear AACo Fire TGs, as well as MSP Glen Burnie, and misc. AACo government services because the use analog audio.
 

taspencer

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Troy and Maus - thanks again! I appreciate the info. I've done a bunch of reading on trunked systems - the only thing that is not clear to me is - to get P-25, do I need a Trunk III or IV scanner?
 

maus92

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Troy and Maus - thanks again! I appreciate the info. I've done a bunch of reading on trunked systems - the only thing that is not clear to me is - to get P-25, do I need a Trunk III or IV scanner?

Two things that need to be understood if you are attempting to scan trunked radio systems (TRS) in Maryland. One, if the trunked radio system that you want to monitor is analog or P-25 digital; and two, if it is P-25 digital, is it Phase 1 or Phase 2.

A TrunkTracker III ("TrunkTracker" is a Uniden trademark) scanner can only receive analog TRSs (no P-25,) which makes it almost obsolete to use in Anne Arundel County, and most of Maryland. It will be able to monitor some non-police TGs on the Anne Arundel TRS.

P-25 Phase 1 digital (and analog) can be monitored with a TrunkTracker IV scanner. Anne Arundel County's TRS is a mixed system using both analog and P-25 Phase 1 digital, therefore any Uniden TrunkTracker IV model scanner will work.

P-25 Phase 2 digital (backwards compatible with analog, P-25 Phase 1 digital) requires a Trunk Tracker V (BCD x36HP series) scanner to decode the newest P-25 Phase 2 TRSs now being installed statewide and in various counties. The Maryland FiRST TRS is a system active in Anne Arundel County that can only be heard using these scanners.
 
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troymail

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The key to understanding what you needs comes down to three things:

- what do you want to listen to (Anne Arundel police -- anything else)?
- handheld or base/mobile?
- what is the line as far as cost?

You don't need the most expensive but if you limit yourself to hearing Anne Arunde police, you may end up unhappy. Anne Arundel County has one of the oldest radio systems around - probably only Calvert and Carroll are older (all are fully or partially analog). Carroll County is about to go full P25 digital.

There are many radios that can handle the above systems -- but I'd recommend a GRE PSR500 or PSR800. I've never been happy with the digital decode for Anne Arundel and other non-P25 systems on any Uniden radio. (Fair warning: GRE is out of business - for these you might want to wait for the reintroduction of the same radios - under different model numbers - from Whistler).

You may not need (yet) it but in order to get a radio that will receive the most these days, you'lll want a P25/Phase 2 (and X2-TDMA) capable radio. Mayland State and Prince George County are using this format. That's limited to these radios:

GRE PSR-800 (GRE is no longer in business)
Uniden BCD436HP (handheld @ $500) or BCD536HP (base/mobile @ $600)

I've helped alot of different folks determine what to purchase based on their needs and limits on how much they wanted to spend. The most recent person in Anne Arundel only want to listen to AA Fire (99% analog) so we got him a Uniden BC346 in February for about $230
 
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