EDACS decoder

[Wilrobnson]

I despise asking for help, but I'm also tired of pulling my hair out here.

I'm looking for a way to decode the control channels of an EDACS system to see what other talkgroups exist that I know nothing of.

I am not looking for Unitrunker. I've tried it multiple times over the years and HATE it. I've never seen a worse designed program...from the "figure it out for yourself" aspect of it to the fact it decides spontaneously to open a new system every 15 seconds of monitoring- while I'm monitoring a system. Tons of extra windows that seemingly do nothing except display what other windows are ALREADY displaying.

Alos, please no "get a cheap laptop and a dongle" replies. I monitor on the go and I'm not driving with a laptop balanced on my dashboard. I have and hate an Airspy and I refuse to use DSD after experiences that oddly echo my Unitrunker issues.

 

[maus92]

I despise asking for help, but I'm also tired of pulling my hair out here.

I'm looking for a way to decode the control channels of an EDACS system to see what other talkgroups exist that I know nothing of.

I am not looking for Unitrunker. I've tried it multiple times over the years and HATE it. I've never seen a worse designed program...from the "figure it out for yourself" aspect of it to the fact it decides spontaneously to open a new system every 15 seconds of monitoring- while I'm monitoring a system. Tons of extra windows that seemingly do nothing except display what other windows are ALREADY displaying.

Alos, please no "get a cheap laptop and a dongle" replies. I monitor on the go and I'm not driving with a laptop balanced on my dashboard. I have and hate an Airspy and I refuse to use DSD after experiences that oddly echo my Unitrunker issues.

Hate is a powerful emotion. Try replacing it with learning because Unitrunker is an excellent program that requires some effort to configure correctly. It does exactly what you want.

 

[Whiskey3JMC]

Alos, please no "get a cheap laptop and a dongle" replies. I monitor on the go and I'm not driving with a laptop balanced on my dashboard.

OK then, get a $350 to $600+ Uniden 325/996p2 or x36HP/SDSx00 & set it to ID Search, it'll do pretty much the exact same thing the "cheap laptop and dongle" will do to identify unknown TGIDs without the extra equipment to lug around with you

 

[Wilrobnson]

Hate is a powerful emotion. Try replacing it with learning because Unitrunker is an excellent program that requires some effort to configure correctly. It does exactly what you want.

I've tried learning it on and off for 10+ years. It has not once worked correctly. I have over 3000 systems on it at this moment and literally all of them are the exact same one. Any time I've tried to use it, it's decoded for a few seconds and then started decoding exactly the same system under a new name.

 

[Wilrobnson]

OK then, get a $350 to $600+ Uniden 325/996p2 or x36HP/SDSx00 & set it to ID Search, it'll do pretty much the exact same thing the "cheap laptop and dongle" will do to identify unknown TGIDs without the extra equipment to lug around with you

I bought, under duress, a 436. ID search does not work on the system I'm using it on due to the extreme number of private calls consisting solely of data. Any time a fire station is alerted, a private call of alert tones is sent to every radio, mobile, base or portable, assigned to that station. In a county of 210,000, that gets old really quick.

 

[CanesFan95]

There's an old DOS-based program called etrunk, which was the EDACS version of its Motorola trunker counterpart. Later on, a Windows version came out, but it only worked on XP. It's hard to set up, but functionally intuitive and easy to use. Maybe try to find it online somewhere, may be tough to find.

 

[LimaZulu]

....
I'm looking for a way to decode the control channels of an EDACS system to see what other talkgroups exist that I know nothing of.
....

Not sure if it will help you with what you want, but DSD-FME claims it does EDACS.

DSD FME

Thought I'd just take a moment to share a project I've begun working on lately. If anybody wanted to give it a try out and see how it works, I'd love to hear any feedback, critique, constructive criticism, ideas, etc. This version of DSD is a flavor blend of szechyjs RTL branch and some of my...

forums.radioreference.com

GitHub - lwvmobile/dsd-fme: Digital Speech Decoder - Florida Man Edition

Digital Speech Decoder - Florida Man Edition. Contribute to lwvmobile/dsd-fme development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

 

[dave3825]

I've tried learning it on and off for 10+ years. It has not once worked correctly.

I have over 3000 systems on it at this moment and literally all of them are the exact same one.

Maybe trunk the newer unitrunker, version 2?

 

[Forts]

Etrunk... ETrunker? I forget... anyways, it worked great, I ran it for many years. The only caveat now is that it's not SDR friendly and you'll need to feed it discriminator audio.

 

[Wilrobnson]

The idea- Try Unitrunker once more. Leave it running on the EDACS system in question for a few days to locate mysteries.

The implementation- Spun it up, deleted all 3032 old copies of the exact same system. Started it decoding, changed the format to AFS, and began tagging known talkgroups.

The result- Walked away for about an hour. Came back and found Unitrunker was now running 25 copies of the same system in 25 separate windows, from Limbo1 through Limbo25. None of the data I'd entered by hand was present anywhere. Not even the system name.

Don't tell me I have signal issues. I'm LOS to a site on the cell I was tracking. "Health" averaged 98 or 100.

E-trunker is too old to work on my computer.

Anyone have any useful input?

 

[Kazzaw]

Care to share any screenshots of your issues? I'm sure there are some people with smarts in this forum... many of who are running Unitrunker (like myself) without issue

 

[Wilrobnson]

Care to share any screenshots of your issues? I'm sure there are some people with smarts in this forum... many of who are running Unitrunker (like myself) without issue

After deleting everything again, I have none. If I decide to give it another go, we'll see.

I'm going to do a fresh installation and see if that solves...anything.

 

[mikewazowski]

When we had a local EDACS system, I had the same problem as you. Unitrunker kept creating new systems ad nauseum. Finally gave up on it.

 

[Wilrobnson]

I did a complete removal and reinstall. The screen shot is from 11 minutes of following the control channel. Sometimes it seems to create a new system every time a talkgroup is active; other times it goes for a few minutes before popping up with a new one.

I was told to check some box called "Site Lock" that doesn't appear in any window or on any tab.

 

[maus92]

Weird that you are using the old version of Unitrunker that is no longer developed or maintained. Perhaps trying the current version 2 might improve your experience. Knowing the exact system that you are attempting to monitor would also be useful.

 

[Wilrobnson]

Well it's weirder that the version I am using is the latest one available FROM UNITRUNKER --> http://www.unitrunker.com/download/

I am not using v2 as, from I've read on here, it's for SDR radios and it's a beta test version to boot.

I am running it on Harrison County, MS ---> Harrison County Public Safety Trunking System, Gulfport, and 4 others., Mississippi

 

[maus92]

In order to get Unitrunker V2, you must join the Unitrunker Google support group. From there, you can find the download thread for the latest version (2.1.105) It is free, and the developer and others can help with esoteric EDACS issues. V2 does require an SDR to run - but most modern software also require SDRs - but SDRs are comparatively cheap. Having the right attitude will help immensely.

As far as the specific system you are trying to track with Unitrunker, assuming your data connection is not piping ratty data, nothing looks particularly unusual. There is a note that this system will be getting replaced with a L3H P25P1 system "in the near future," meaning that EDACS will be going bye-bye.

 

[gmclam]

E-trunker is too old to work on my computer.

Anyone have any useful input?

Then run it on an "older" computer. Hardware doesn't need to be old, just use DOS 6.x or earlier Windows like XP PRO.

 

[GTR8000]

In order to get Unitrunker V2, you must join the Unitrunker Google support group.

That's incorrect. Rick announced v2.1 publicly over half a year ago right here:

Unitrunker - Unitrunker 2.1

Version 2.1 of Unitrunker is available here: Version 2 Release 1 Preview 104 If you're still using version 1 with a discriminator tapped radio or computer controlled scanner - stay where you are. Discriminator oriented decoding isn't supported in version 2+. If you're still using version 1...

forums.radioreference.com

It's also not correct that v2.1 is a "beta test version" anymore, as Rick stated with the release of 2.1.0.105 two months ago in late June:

As the subject line shows, Unitrunker 2.1 is no longer in preview. Hence the "Revision" instead of "Preview" moniker.

This is the 105th version of 2.1, with the first version released in Jun 2019. That doesn't even count the 74 revisions of 2.0 that were released between May 2016 and Aug 2018. That's 7 years and 179 versions of 2.x for those doing the math.

Pro tip: Although the download link at http://www.unitrunker.com/v2/download gets you 2.1.0.104, you can easily get the latest 2.1.0.105 simply by copying that link and changing 104 to 105. But yeah, it's best to join the Google group if you want to keep up on the latest and get direct support.

 

[Wilrobnson]

In order to get Unitrunker V2, you must join the Unitrunker Google support group. From there, you can find the download thread for the latest version (2.1.105) It is free, and the developer and others can help with esoteric EDACS issues. V2 does require an SDR to run - but most modern software also require SDRs - but SDRs are comparatively cheap. Having the right attitude will help immensely.

Again, I have no interest in using an SDR. I have an Airspy but I do not use it and haven't for a few years. I tried DSD+ awhile back for some local DMR stuff and stumbled over everything about it. Pithy responses were unhelpful then and I just shunned the whole idea. I'm sticking to a radio. I also work a lot, and I mean a LOT, and usually barely have time to eat dinner after work before bed. 6 days a week running 0300-1900 doesn't leave a lot of free time for radio play.

As far as the specific system you are trying to track with Unitrunker, assuming your data connection is not piping ratty data, nothing looks particularly unusual. There is a note that this system will be getting replaced with a L3H P25P1 system "in the near future," meaning that EDACS will be going bye-bye.

That note has been there for at least three years and is inaccurate. This county will be joining the MSWIN system and most of what is available on the EDACS system will be AES encrypted, but this is at best a year away. The database for the EDACS system is woefully inaccurate though I have, with the help of an admin, tried to correct some bad errors.