Do you "unit identify?"

[RedPenguin]

I know that people here sometimes (at times always) record, but it always seems like it's because their either is very little traffic so it seems easier to just listen to it recorded or some seem to like to go back and listen to a major event if they missed it earlier due to maybe not being able to use their scanner at said time like maybe at work or something.

My question is, does anyone here actually record so that they can "map" out the Unit IDs?

I have done this a couple times when I ran across agencies that no list at all seemed to be online, even at RR, but I never met anyone personally who does this.

So do you do the above and if I may ask, what agencies and why? I've already stated my reason above.

 

[INDY72]

I use recorded audio off my feed for catching things I missed while away from the scanner and PC, for judging quality of the feed,.. and YES for unit IDing in conjunction with usage of Universal Trunker and Trunk88 software while working out various aspects of trunked radio systems.... It is useful to say ID which RID's are which dispatch terminals...etc... And which RID's are special ops etc....

 

[RedPenguin]

Yes

I use recorded audio off my feed for catching things I missed while away from the scanner and PC, for judging quality of the feed,.. and YES for unit IDing in conjunction with usage of Universal Trunker and Trunk88 software while working out various aspects of trunked radio systems.... It is useful to say ID which RID's are which dispatch terminals...etc... And which RID's are special ops etc....

I'm always amazed how often you have to unit ID before anything at all makes sense.

I remember when I first started listening to my college, I thought it was just security and maintenance talking and it would be a breeze to know who is who.

Before I knew it, they had Financial Aid, IT, Vice-Presidents, Registration, Admissions, Purchasing, and a few more.

I had to listen a while until I knew who actually was talking to who.

Though luckily, the provide a list on their website of who is who, so it's basically just matching up units with jobs.

Too bad every agency didn't make it that simple, like my local transit, who one unit still escapes me, because every person I know who works there from Director to Maintenance workers, are all covered, don't know of any job left out, but I know another unit exists.

 

[linkinpark9812]

Well out here all the locals (just about) are on a Hi-VHF Conventional system with MDC for unit IDs (Munster uses, say 19, which means it is badge number 19's radio, or C24 for Car 24 radio) and most departments out here use Quick Call II or single tone.

I record only Munster PD, FD (actually all Division 24 Fire), PW, PD CH2, and FG. I use a separate older computer for recording. I run WinMDCD. After I got home from wherever, I would look through the IDs and see if any FD IDs were detected to see about the pages (Munster uses 22xx). Now I run TwoToneDetect to tell me about Munster, as well as Lansing FD and a couple others.

When recording those above channels, my recording software is set up to not record silence (3 seconds max of silence between audio breaks). So in 24 hours, I get about on average 2 hours of audio, which is too much to listen to all of it, so I just use the above method for FD.

For PD, I usually just wait for the Police report summary I get every week and it tells you time and day and I go to look back at it. If you really wanted to see if you could find police activity by ID, you can see if one officer ID'ed many times in a short period of time, such as what would happen in a foot or vehicle pursuit.

 

[RedPenguin]

A system to crack.....

I don't know if anyone else feels this way about unit lists, but sometimes when I can't figure out a unit list for the life of me, it kinda bugs me and makes me want to figure it out.

There are a few agencies in my area like the above, so I figure I have a scanner and have the time, so might as well see if I can figure out who is who.

Nothing is really lost if I can't figure anyone out, but it actually is kinda fun when I actually do figure people out, because it's one of those things where you know you figured it out, and as far as you can tell, no one else has.

Only problem with my area is, no one I know in my area seems to care about unit numbers. Even when it comes to public safety.

Anyone else do the above?

 

[jlanfn]

Anyone else do the above?

I've been doing that quite a bit as of late, as my school year still has not started. I actually started IDing about a year and a half ago when I started using Unitrunker. I listen to my local PD's FD's and SO's on the local Moto Smartnet 800 MHz system. I like to take things a step further and actually try to identify the specific callsign used for each radio. Of course, for law enforcement, this only works if two things are true about the department's policies:

• The department's callsign assignments must be shift independent (each officer is assigned a unique, permanent callsign)
• The officer will always use the same radio (usually the case with take-home radios)

Fortunately both of these are true of my local PD, so I have the vast majority of their portables correctly identified. I can't say the same about vehicle radios, for obvious reasons. It's actually kinda fun because the dispatchers sometimes rely on the radio ID to identify the unit because they weren't able to copy the unit's voice transmission, and now I can tell who's transmitting just as well as the dispatchers.

Unfortunately the SO does not follow either of the above criteria, so I'm limited in that respect.

As far as sharing the info with other scanner users, I never thought anyone else would be nearly as interested in the radio IDs as I would be. I would be happy to share, as long as it's not made public or put on the web.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that doing this has forced me to pay more attention to callsigns and what each callsign is used for. In this way I have learned a lot about the way my local agencies operate.

 

[aharry]

I am working on a program now that is similar to unitrunker, trunk88, etc.. but will focus more on Unit tracking rather than system tracking. I am most interested in what's going on with each PD/FD unit in each division/sector then all of the radios in the system. My local municipality runs its own electric and water utility, airport, and golf course. They have dozens of radios that transmit short data signals every 20-30 mins 27/7 and a lot of other radios (ie sanitation) that are constantly flashing on Unitrunker/Trunk88 that I have no interest in. What I want is to only track the radios that are on certain talkgroups (police/fire) and Unit Identify/track those transmissions. I now have a working Motorola control channel decoder and I am currently working on the display/user interface. I would love any input on what an end-user would like in such a system. Right now I am modeling it as a dispatch tracking type system, to track which units are on-duty, in which sector, and what type of call they are on.

 

[RedPenguin]

I agree with your post completely.

That's basically what happened to me somewhat.

Had the time, scanner. computer (to record and remove junk if necessary), plus obviously units to identify.

Often, I thought I had a good idea how various agencies run in my area, but when I actually hear the on the scanner, the whole picture is shown and many of the previous questions go away.

Only problem is, sometimes more questions come up, if I hear units I never heard of before, but usually they get solved quickly.

I've been doing that quite a bit as of late, as my school year still has not started. I actually started IDing about a year and a half ago when I started using Unitrunker. I listen to my local PD's FD's and SO's on the local Moto Smartnet 800 MHz system. I like to take things a step further and actually try to identify the specific callsign used for each radio. Of course, for law enforcement, this only works if two things are true about the department's policies:

• The department's callsign assignments must be shift independent (each officer is assigned a unique, permanent callsign)
• The officer will always use the same radio (usually the case with take-home radios)

Fortunately both of these are true of my local PD, so I have the vast majority of their portables correctly identified. I can't say the same about vehicle radios, for obvious reasons. It's actually kinda fun because the dispatchers sometimes rely on the radio ID to identify the unit because they weren't able to copy the unit's voice transmission, and now I can tell who's transmitting just as well as the dispatchers.

Unfortunately the SO does not follow either of the above criteria, so I'm limited in that respect.

As far as sharing the info with other scanner users, I never thought anyone else would be nearly as interested in the radio IDs as I would be. I would be happy to share, as long as it's not made public or put on the web.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that doing this has forced me to pay more attention to callsigns and what each callsign is used for. In this way I have learned a lot about the way my local agencies operate.