Can a regular scanner be used to recieved trunked radio transmissions?

[phdad]

I live in Morris County NJ and would like to receive Dover Police and Fire frequencies which are now trunked. Can I use my bearcat scanner to do this or do I need to purchase a scanner with trunked radio capabilities. Can someone recommend a good trunked radio scanner.

 

[gmclam]

You can program in the (voice) frequencies and scan them. What typically happens is that you hear pieces of each conversation. This is because virtually every time a radio starts transmitting, it is assigned a different voice frequency. So as each party in a conversation transmits, the freq changes. Also, you will not know (other than your own ability to recognize) who you are hearing.

What scanner to get depends (to me) on whether the system you want to monitor is analog, digital or both. It's tough to justify a new analog scanner these days with so much LE going digital. But then again analog will cost under $200 and digital is ~$400 and that does not count accessories and programming software.

 

[RadioDaze]

You can program in the (voice) frequencies and scan them. What typically happens is that you hear pieces of each conversation. This is because virtually every time a radio starts transmitting, it is assigned a different voice frequency. So as each party in a conversation transmits, the freq changes.

And because of this, if you go this route, you would not want to have any scan delay entered. That will increase your chance of resuming scan in time to catch the next snippet of conversation.

 

[rwier]

............................... Can I use my bearcat scanner to do this ..................... .....................................................................

Very confusing question...Are you saying you own a scanner and don't know its specifications/capabilities?

 

[captclint]

I live in Morris County NJ and would like to receive Dover Police and Fire frequencies which are now trunked. Can I use my bearcat scanner to do this or do I need to purchase a scanner with trunked radio capabilities. Can someone recommend a good trunked radio scanner.

Welcome to RR.The short answer is NO.Dover has migrrated to Morris County Trunking System, This is primarily digital. Depending on whether you want a portable or base, we can make some recommendations. You might also want to ask on the New Jersey Radio Discussion Forum - to see which units they recommend from people monitoring this system.

 

[hiegtx]

I live in Morris County NJ and would like to receive Dover Police and Fire frequencies which are now trunked. Can I use my bearcat scanner to do this or do I need to purchase a scanner with trunked radio capabilities. Can someone recommend a good trunked radio scanner.

Looking at the Morris county database page, it notes that Dover moved over to the county trunk system:
Morris County Trunking System, Morris County, New Jersey - Scanner Frequencies
That's a Motorola Type II system, but it's also mixed-mode, analog and digital, with the majority of the transmissions in digital format (that's noted by the D in the mode column by the talkgroup ID). (Clint already noted that.)

Unless the current scanner you have is digital, you would not be able to monitor anything labeled with a D in the mode column. You're going to need a digital trunk-tracker to successfully hear the traffic on this system.

Currently, Radio Shack has the Pro-106 and Pro-197 on sale for $299.99 (I believe today is the last day, but these have been coming up for sale, around this price, fairly often.) These are made by GRE for Radio Shack. GRE makes basically the same scanners (with minor cosmetic differences) as the PSR-500 and PSR-600. These are sold through dealers such as ScannerMaster. While the 500 is more expensive, at first glance, than the sale price of the Pro-106, that's a bit misleading. GRE includes the PC interface cable and ac adapter with the handheld PSR-500. Radio Shack does not with the equivalent Pro-106; they're about $30 each, sold separately, though they have been showing a 50% discount on the cable if bought at the same time as the scanner.

There are other digital scanners that would work as well, including Uniden's BCD396XT or BCD996XT, or the previous models BCD396T or BCD99T. I would also encourage you to check down in the New Jersey state forum for more localized input on what might work best in your specific area. I would also steer away from the older digital scanners such as the Pro-96 or Pro-2096. This state system, which shows a site in your county. uses 700MHz frequencies. The older digital scanners, such as the 96 or 2096, or Uniden's BC296D or BC796D won't work for that. Note that this system also indicates some possible use of a talkgroup type (X2) that only the PSR-800 will receive.