That is what has me confuse,, talk groups,, trunk system frequencies I put the information in where it says truck system and then when I try to transfer it to my scanner is says that no talk group has been assigned and then it puts the alpha tag in where the frequencies go and then it will just have a star in the first column. I am really confused,, I'm use to the old scanners where you just put the frequencies in and it runs,,lol...Gues it is hard to teach old dogs new tricks...
It's easier if you understand that trunk frequencies and trunk talk groups are two totally different components of the same system. What I tell people, with both Uniden and GRE/RS scanners is once you have the frequencies programmed in, you can forget about them. It's the talk groups that correlated to "channels" in a non trunked radio system.
If you've figured out how to enter frequencies, you're good on that part so I won't tell you again.
Talk Groups go under "Talk Groups" in the "Scanable Objects" section of ARC500. You'll want to enter the talk group number, an Alpha Tag, and assign that Talk Group to at least one Scan List.
Think of Scan Lists as banks in older scanners. The advantage here is that frequencies in non trunked systems and Talk Groups in trunked systems can be assigned to multiple lists.
If you are using the RR database to download, you can do all of that automatically. System frequencies are in the left window. Talk Groups are in the right window. Scan lists are assigned by using the Scan List tab.
Once you understand the concept of Talk Groups versus frequencies, the scanner is very easy to program.
Don't be intimidated by the scanner or the software. Play around with it until you get it the way you like it. I've lost count of how many times I reprogrammed my 996XT scanner until I got it the way I want it. In fact, I'm not sure I ever will get exactly as I want it. That's what's great about these scanners, you can reprogram them at will.
