BCT15x capability clarification

[flippyflopper]

I'm a little fuzzy on the different systems and in turn what this scanner will do.

the BCT15x It says it covers:
•Motorola Type I
•Motorola Type II
•Motorola Type IIi Hybrid
•Motorola Type II Smartnet
•Motorola Type II Smartzone
•Motorola Type II Smartzone Omnilink
•Motorola Type II VOC
•LTR Standard
•EDACS Standard (Wide)
•EDACS Narrowband (Narrow)
•EDACS Networked (Wide/Narrow)
•EDACS SCAT
•EDACS ESK On the following frequencies: (25-512 MHz) (758-960 MHz) (excluding cellular telephone bands) (1.24-1.3 GHz) "

NJSP says its

System Type: Motorola Type II SmartZone Omnilink
System Voice: Analog and APCO-25 Common Air Interface

New Jersey State Police Trunking System, Statewide, Multi-State

New Jersey State Police Trunking System Profile

www.radioreference.com

It would seem since it falls in the Motorola Type II SmartZone Omnilink it would cover it but from what i can tell APCO-25 in general refers to digital which i know it does not cover.

Whats the story? Thanks!

 

[N4DJC]

It won't cover any digital mode. Some sites are digital simulcast which poses another issue, the SDS100 and SDS200 are the only scanners that were designed to handle simulcast transmissions. There may be other less expensive options if you are at a fixed location.

Click the Report link in the bottom left hand corner of the post and ask a mod to move the the thread to the New Jersey forum. I'm sure you will get a more informed answer there.

 

[W4ELL]

If the database is accurate, the BCT15X should receive the analog talkgroups (those that are designated as Mode A) without issue. Any talkgroup with modes other than A (ie. D or De) can NOT be monitored on the BCT15X.

 

[flippyflopper]

It won't cover any digital mode. Some sites are digital simulcast which poses another issue, the SDS100 and SDS200 are the only scanners that were designed to handle simulcast transmissions. There may be other less expensive options if you are at a fixed location.

Click the Report link in the bottom left hand corner of the post and ask a mod to move the the thread to the New Jersey forum. I'm sure you will get a more informed answer there.

Thanks. But it seems like a bunch of those groups are listed as analog? would it not pick them up? My question wasn't really specific to NJ but rather the technologies. It was just the example that demonstrated the confusion. I'm aware it wont cover digital. I wasn't aware that parts of Motorola Type II SmartZone Omnilink are digital (?).

I'm still learning the ropes. I've got an RTL-SDR and SDRTrunk doing some other P25 Ph II scanning. how it seems it works is listening to a control channel and that tells it where else to listen. But in this scenario I dont have a grasp of what here is digital and what here would be compatible with the BCT15X unit. It looks like a bunch of the talk groups (analog) are fine but are the control channels?

sorry if I'm asking poor questions. trying to wrap my head around A) how the system works and B) what parts of this list would and wouldn't the BCT15X be able to scan.

If the database is accurate, the BCT15X should receive the analog talkgroups (those that are designated as Mode A) without issue. Any talkgroup with modes other than A (ie. D or De) can NOT be monitored on the BCT15X.

Ah i totally missed the "mode" designator. Looks like only a few of the talk groups are Digital and most are Analog. Are the 'System Frequencies' a digital mode? if so what does that mean in terms of scanning the analog talk groups without having the control channels.


I might be wholly misunderstanding these charts.


Thanks for chiming in!

 

[StoliRaz]

The system is an analong trunk with digital channels patched in. Any digital transmission will just sound like buzzing/repeater noise to the 15x. I'd set it up in closed mode with only the analog talk groups programmed in

 

[hiegtx]

Thanks. But it seems like a bunch of those groups are listed as analog? would it not pick them up? My question wasn't really specific to NJ but rather the technologies. It was just the example that demonstrated the confusion. I'm aware it wont cover digital. I wasn't aware that parts of Motorola Type II SmartZone Omnilink are digital (?).

I'm still learning the ropes. I've got an RTL-SDR and SDRTrunk doing some other P25 Ph II scanning. how it seems it works is listening to a control channel and that tells it where else to listen. But in this scenario I dont have a grasp of what here is digital and what here would be compatible with the BCT15X unit. It looks like a bunch of the talk groups (analog) are fine but are the control channels?

sorry if I'm asking poor questions. trying to wrap my head around A) how the system works and B) what parts of this list would and wouldn't the BCT15X be able to scan.





Ah i totally missed the "mode" designator. Looks like only a few of the talk groups are Digital and most are Analog. Are the 'System Frequencies' a digital mode? if so what does that mean in terms of scanning the analog talk groups without having the control channels.


I might be wholly misunderstanding these charts.


Thanks for chiming in!

The "system frequencies" are just that, frequencies. They transmit whatever mode the talkgroup calls for, whether that is analog or digital. Program the site (or sites) that are in range, and that you want to monitor.

Hover your mouse above the Mode column header. You'll see a blue shaded box like in the screenshot below.
Look at the letters in the Mode column beside each talkgroup. Talkgroups labeled as A are Analog, which your 15X can monitor. Anything labeled with a D is Digital, which your scanner cannot decode. If you also see an upper case E next to the letter indicating the mode, that talkgroup is flagged as using full time encryption. No scanner can monitor encrypted transmissions. If, instead, you see a lower case e, then encryption may be in use, but not at all times.

 

[flippyflopper]

I see. So I would program in those frequencies and then only the analog talk groups? Ill probably use radio reference so ill just delete the digital and encrypted ones (or lock them out?).

 

[StoliRaz]

I see. So I would program in those frequencies and then only the analog talk groups? Ill probably use radio reference so ill just delete the digital and encrypted ones (or lock them out?).

What I would do is enter it just as you would an analog moto-trunk, then only include the analog talkgroups. I would just delete out/omit all digital ones,as they'll never work and just eat up memory on your scanner. Running the system in closed mode will basically tell it to ignore any digital users from interfering. If in open mode, they'll show up and give you useless noise. Give that a try, should work.

MA state police has 2 or 3 digital ones mixed in for the radio techs here too. In fact I found a new one about a month ago that unfortunately I couldn't I.D. because I don't have a digital scanner(or it was encrypted) but it came up as "50xxx" (can't remember the rest) and sounded like a machine gun. When I scrolled through the system on here multiple times to ID it, there was nothing that matched it for a TGID. Weird. Probably encrypted anyways. Hope this helps

 

[hiegtx]

I see. So I would program in those frequencies and then only the analog talk groups? Ill probably use radio reference so ill just delete the digital and encrypted ones (or lock them out?).

Program the sites that are near you.

Since you are a Premium subscriber, you can use the web import for programming. FreeSCAN & ProScan both have the option to skip importing encrypted channels. I do not have the ARC software for the 15X, so if that is what you intend to use, look for that feature during the import process.

You can select only the talkgroups that you want, and simply don't accept any that are tagged as Digital. FreeSCAN has the option, when you are writing a program file, to keep the software from sending digital channels to an analog scanner.