$ means the alpha NAC code is in HEXIDECIMAL format.
The following information on the zone setup mainly applies to VHF aviation units which cover a much broader area than ground units, but still ground unit radios are similar in their zone setup loads.
There is a semi standard CPB load for the radios consisting of 9 standard zones and depending on the region the radios may be used in, there may be more extra added zones in a radio.
Each of these zones can have from 2 to 16 channels in them.
All of the channels labeled/designated as CBP (TAC-X channels) are using voting scan and are the same around the country, most if not all of the local CBP channels also use voting scan setup.
All of the other federal non CBP enties such as FBI, BLM, SS and the state/local channels typically do not use voting scan.
However, all of the CBP and some of the other Federal entries are using AES-256 encryption with OTAR.
In some regions the extra zones are setup for P25 Trunking systems but so far in the southwest voting scan setup is dominant while areas such as Portland OR and Northern MI are more trunking VHF setup along with the standard voting scan CBP zones.
Also in the above zone setup description, by semi standard I mean that the regular 9 zones are typically the same around the country while other zones have more or less local CBP, FBI, BLM, SS and other Federal, State and local PD frequencies in them, a mix of analog, P25 conventional and P25 trunking.
Also due to the nature of airborne Ops radios, at times you may hear an aviation unit, be it a regular CBP unit or a Ntl. Guard RAID unit that forgets to enable encryption on a P25 channel and then you'll hear one side of the xmissions in the clear.
M
