Hello sorry for not knowing too much aboour programming kinda new at scanners. I was able to import the talkgoups from RR database, however i only needed one LOB FD-701 so others were deleted. I noticed you mentioned control channel, is there place in the freescan program to tag a frequency to be a control channel? Thank you again.
Have you looked at the
Easier to Read BCD996P2/XT Digital Scanner Manual for your scanner? This is a much more concise and far easier to understand manual than the original one from the manufacturer! It also makes an excellent reference when you need to look things up!
That said, the BCD996P2 is a great scanner to own as long as you don’t have to deal with simulcast distortion, but it’s also a quantum leap from basic analog scanners regarding functionality. It’s not very
“beginner friendly” as it comes as a blank slate, and has a plethora of features that you will need to learn and understand. Fortunately, I personally feel that none of those features are particularly difficult, but there’s just
a lot of new concepts to grasp. This could actually be a very good thing because it’ll give you a strong foundation in digital scanning! The handheld version of your scanner, the BCD325P2, was my own gateway into digital scanning after only ever owning basic analog scanners in the past. The digital factor was different and so I had to understand
trunking and
digital scanning overall to get what I paid for.
Now, you’ll definitely have to checkout the
easier to read manual that I recommended above, but it sounds like you just need to understand some basic logical grouping for how trunking systems work. This will help you all around going forward! Here’s how I’d best break it down for your scanner, but I welcome anyone else to chime-in and offer advice. You need to understand four levels:
System — This is where it all begins for a particular system that could be owned by a county, city, university, or whatever. Just look at it as the
“header” for a particular
“wireless network” and everything else falls under it. I’ll give you an example in my case, my county has an EDACS system, so that would be a “system,” so I may call it something like
“HC EDACS” for
“Hillsborough County EDACS” as space is limited. I also have a system calked
“HC P25” and
“HC Federal,” you get the idea!
Site(s) — These are
logical sites as they generally contain a group of towers that are clustered together logically. So, in my case, Tampa has both
“East” and
“West” sites where each one covers a certain area using the towers grouped within it. So, to keep it simple, the west side of the city may be called something like
“HC P25 West” and the east side
“HC P25 East.” Next, those towers have frequencies assigned to them, so whatever towers in the east will need to be associated with the east side of the city, and those towers in the west will need to be associated with the west side. You
generally will need to enter two kinds of frequencies, the control channels as well as non-control channels. In most cases, like with a P25 system, you’ll actually only need to enter the control channels and they will
“program” the remaining information for you! You’ll see an option in sites for a
“Band Plan” when using P25, however the vast majority of the time you won’t even have to touch this as the
control channels will populate it for you upon first use! I’m hoping you’re with me because this was probably the hardest part to digest, so if you’re getting it, you are starting to grasp digital trunking!
Group(s) — These fall under the
system, but are
not specific to any
sites. They will basically allow you to organize the structure of the
system. So, the county may have a handful of police and fire departments, each one will get a
group assigned to it. You may need to add a
group for the Sheriff’s Department or Public Works or whatever! So, I have my county sheriff as a
group called “HCSO” and my local police department is “TTPD.” Likewise, my local fire department has a
group named “TTFD.” And, there are other police departments in the county on the same
system, I have
groups for them too, so Tampa PD is just that “Tampa PD,” and so on.
Channel(s) — Each
group will have one or more
channels associated with it, and these are usually entered into a digital system by talk group codes that are unique to each channel. Unlike analog scanners, the frequencies are only associated with sites because the whole point of trunking is to get a lot more traffic onto the same small number of dedicated frequencies! So, when communication goes through the system, the control channel directs everything subsequent to it which is invisible to you. There’s digital data that tells the
system who is speaking and who they need to speak to, but that’s
invisible to the end user. All they know is that they push a button and it works! Having these codes for each
channel could allow 1,000+ departments or units to all share the same 5, 10, or whatever physical connections or frequencies! So, as an example, let’s just say that a
group named “Tampa FD” could have channels under it named “TFD Dispatch,” “TFD Admin,” “TFD EMS,” “TFD Hazmat,” “TFD Training,” etc. On the police side, the “Police Records” division even had their own
channel!
Channels simply group divisions or departments under groups in a way that will allow for many more users to use the same number of frequencies!
I know this is
a lot, but if you understand this basic structure, you could apply it to the different types of digital systems on your scanner! The different systems may have slight differences as far as your scanner is concerned, but it’s all roughly the same structure when it cones to digital trunking! Hopefully, this is a good primer for you moving forward!
