Calgary & Area Trunk Updates 091603

[Jay911]

I've once again done some updates to some systems in the Calgary/Alberta section. Mainly adding talkgroups I've picked up off my T4Win operation.

There are three systems - Nextcom, TAC Mobility (ex Nucell), and PDL Mobility - which appear to be type IIi or I systems. My trunking experience lies in a Type II Smartzone system, so I know next to nothing about the systems that use Type I style talkgroup notation. I know (or I think I know) that talkgroup and radio ID are intermixed in the one ID presented. If anyone can figure out the fleet map, and/or help me (or tell me how to) convert the Type II IDs I gained from T4Win into appropriate Type I/IIi IDs, please please please chime in!

 

[mciupa]

From the homepage of this site is a link for Type I fleetmapping.

Does this help you?

http://www.radioreference.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=22

 

[RBerezowski]

The information in that link is good. It is a good reference to use for this exercise. By the way, I had the same troubles when I had to sort out the old Regina Police trunked system.

In a nutshell, Type I systems have the Prefix or Block number, fleet id, subfleet id (same as talkgroup), and radio id all combined into one id number. When setting up the system it allows the installer to set different fleet and subfleet sizes, depending on the number of radios in each group. Public safety systems with large numbers of radios would have large subfleet sizes, while RCC type systems with many small users would have smaller subfleet sizes, but of course many more subfleets. Each block is set for a certain subfleet size, and each block can be different.

The key is to listen to the radio conversations and write down the radio ids. Each radio would come up with a different and unique Type II id, as recorded by T4WIN. Watch for two or more ids fairly close together. If you can confirm they are talking to each other, then they are in the same subfleet. By continuing to do this, you should eventually build up a table of id ranges for each subfleet. That should tell you the size of the subfleet. Of course some intuition would help when looking at the ids.

If you can print out the list of ids logged by T4WIN, that might also help to set the subfleet size. You may notice clusters of ids, spaced a certain number apart. If that's the case, then that's probably your subfleet size.

It also really helps if you hear a radio change channels or subfleets. The same radio will show up as a different id when the radio moves to a different subfleet. If you can positively link the two ids, then the difference between the two ids will be some multiple of the subfleet size. If it is the adjacent subfleet, then the difference will be the subfleet size (multiple is one).

I hope this makes sense.

Rob

 

[Jay911]

All the advice helps greatly. Thanks, guys. I'll do what I can with what I got. I was hoping that there was something like this to make things easier, but I'd never explored it well enough.

 

[mciupa]

Jay, you're the man out in Calgary.

Lots of stuff in the Alberta database I see. You have been busy !


Those of us lucky enough to go out that way, should have lots to listen to.

Thanks.

 

[peteman]

Yes when it comes to alberta freqs Jay is indeed the man.

 

[DaveH]

XNY 556

A for apple.

 

[Jay911]

Thanks for the kind words guys. I am having a good time this week, remembering how fun sleuthing out frequencies and talkgroups can be.

I worked in the city the past 4 days, and had at least 8 hours each day with my laptop and BC250 running ID Tracker, on:

- CoC EDACS
- NextCom IIi
- PDL IIi
- TAC IIi
- NextCom LTR
- Sekom LTR
- Caltronics LTR
- Sundance LTR

I've come up with a bunch of possibilties for a number of the talkgroups on each system. Plus, the tips above about determining Type I info is going to come in very handy!

I really like this ID Tracker program. I have it set up to track the IDs and number of hits, and save each ID's traffic to a separate .wav file. Then, when I have time, I listen to enough of each .wav file to determine what they do, and if they have any "other" IDs (at least in the Motorola Type II signalling format).

If you have a lot of disk space, you can let this thing run for a good long time. I have a bunch of old computers I've pieced together over the years, and got more than a few gigs space ready to be filled up. I'm going to run ID Tracker on at least one - maybe two computers, if I can make it work with my BC245 satisfactorily. Running ID Tracker overnight last night on the above-mentioned talkgroups used up 104 megs of space. So I have a long time before I will have to worry