BCT8 Trunking Mode ID Scan

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RangerPro520

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I have a problem with my BCT8 scanner I have. See I'm tryin to be able to listen to the sheriff's department in the county I live in, so I found all the primary frequencies for Hinds County Public safety, programmed those frequencies into bank 1 on my scanner, then went in and programmed the specific talkgroup IDs for the sheriff's departments' patrol, car to car, etc. So I get through programming all that, go to run ID Scan, and it will lock in on a couple of the ids i programmed, but its not talking thats coming through, its just like a bunch of distortion- no voices or anything! Does anybody know why I'm not picking up people talking on these ids???

Need help with this!
 

hiegtx

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RangerPro520 said:
I have a problem with my BCT8 scanner I have. See I'm tryin to be able to listen to the sheriff's department in the county I live in, so I found all the primary frequencies for Hinds County Public safety, programmed those frequencies into bank 1 on my scanner, then went in and programmed the specific talkgroup IDs for the sheriff's departments' patrol, car to car, etc. So I get through programming all that, go to run ID Scan, and it will lock in on a couple of the ids i programmed, but its not talking thats coming through, its just like a bunch of distortion- no voices or anything! Does anybody know why I'm not picking up people talking on these ids???

Need help with this!
If this is the system you are refering to (Hinds County, Mississippi), the BCT-8 is not going to do you much good for the sheriff''s or PD talkgroups. If you'll look at the system voice description, you'll see this:
System Voice:Analog and APCO-25 Common Air Interface
That means at least some of the talkgroups are digital, which are beyond the capability of your BCT-8. Those talkgroups, mostly sheriff & PD, are labeled as "D" in the mode column. The ones marked as "A", for analog, can be received by the BCT-8, but those appear to be mostly EOC fireground groups on this system.

To get the digital groups, you'd need to upgrade to a digital scanner: Pro-2096 (base/mobile) or Pro-96 (handheld) from Radio Shack. Or, in the Uniden line, BCD996T or BC796D (base/mobile) , or BCD396T or BC296D (handhelds). The 296 & 796 are discontinued, but still available from some dealers, new, or used on Ebay & occasionally in the for sale forums here & elsewhere. There are some older digital Uniden scanners that would also work for now, like the BC250D or BC785D (both of which would also require the optional digital card to work), but those will not survive the long delayed, but still upcoming rebanding process.
 

MississippiPI

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Hinds County

I have a BCT-8 and Hinds County S.O. operates on digital. I can and do have the volunteer fire dept talkgroups as well as the primary high band used for paging. Kinda sux but that's the way it is for now.



Be safe
 
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