Help Figuring out Trunking

[dcisive]

I'm new to the whole Trunking thing with a 536. When I go to Sentinel and try to set up a Favorites list of the following:


DEC HEX Mode Alpha Tag Description Tag
224 00e A UPD Tac 1 Unified Police Tactical 1 Law Tac
256 010 A UPD West Unified Police Oquirrh Division (West) Law Dispatch
288 012 A UPD SpeSrv Unified Police Special Services, Taylorsville Dispatch Law Talk
320 014 A UPD East Unified Police Wasatch Division (East) Law Dispatch
352 016 A UPD Req 1 Unified Police Request 1 Law Talk
384 018 A UPD Tac 2 Unified Police Tactical 2 Law Tac
416 01a A UPD Car Unified Police Car to Car Law Talk
544 022 A UPD Midvaley Unified Police Midvalley Law Dispatch
1152 048 A SLC APB Salt Lake City Police APB (link to AC33) Law Dispatch

it loads fine and all, BUT it also loads more than 60 mountain sites associated with this grouping. I've tried to limit the sites to several that sound familiar I know are in my immediate area and such, but I also know that the more sites like this the slower the scanning. Also I'm not absolutely SURE that the proper frequencies are being used necessarily. Is there SOME way to confirm why it loads this tone of sites associated with just this group of frequencies? I tried eliminating ALL but one that is listed as "Salt Lake Simulcast" which had at least a dozen frequencies on it. It kind of works but doesn't provide the level of traffic I'm expecting. I am not looking to complicate things thats for sure. Any easy way to make SURE I have the proper frequencies to be getting the above listed frequencies to properly Trunk scan them? Thanks

 

[UPMan]

If you put in your location and set Range to a low value (like 0) it will only select sites to scan that are in your immediate area.

 

[sparklehorse]

That's a large, statewide system, hence the many transmit sites. In the RR database, the county where each site is located is listed, so you can simply avoid (lock out) all but the sites in your local county, and perhaps sites in a few neighboring counties. You can also assign each site a unique Quick Key, and then enable or disable each site individually using the QK rather than locking/unlocking it. Or you can just delete the distant sites, but then if you someday drive to another part of the state you might wish you still had them available. Either way, doing this will distill your list of scanned sites down to just your local ones, which will be much more manageable. At that point it's a matter of further figuring out which of those sites you are actually getting a good signal from, and if it is carrying any talk groups that are of interest to you. You can try enabling just one or two sites at a time to help figure this out. You can also run your system in ID-Search mode instead of ID-Scan to get a better idea of what all traffic is carried on each site. You can also add an alert tone to each of the talkgroups you are primarily interested in so you'll be made aware when they become active amidst all the other traffic.

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[dcisive]

Yes indeed Sparklehorse, that's somewhat of what I did. I made up 10 Favorites now. Assigned them their own number of course. I did a bit of research and indeed RadioReference shows one the coverage of each of the "Sites". I chose just 2 sites for my entire Salt Lake County coverage to add to each of the things I added for a Favorite. Such as VECC/EMS and Unified Police etc. Only Nelson Mountain and Simulcast sites make up pretty much the entire grouping. So I used only those two for each Favorite I set up, and thus far it seems to be working well. Reception on this 536 is exceptional indeed. Little by little I'm figure more of this stuff out. I'd like to do a ID Search. I've not investigated how to do that yet. I'll have to do some more reading I guess

 

[dcisive]

OK Sparklehorse. I've now tried out the IS Search mode. Guess what........it is NON STOP activity where as in ID Scan mode it's maybe 1/20th of that activity. The drag is I get the TGID number shown but it is "Unknown" in the display so I have NO idea what I'm hearing. It sounds like police and or fire type of activity. I was on the the VECC/EMS channel when I started this. But man this is like unreal constant activity and without that mode it's pretty quiet overall. What am I supposed to make of this? Each of the Favorites is pulling from the 2 primary sites of my area. Is there something I'm missing somehow?

 

[phask]

Look up those unknown TGID in RR - see if it's just out of your area, service type not selected, or a true unknown.

You'll probably see a pattern, it might be better to add a "bunch" mor that you don't want but avoid .

In essence - if you did NOT place it in your favorite list and it receives it , it's an unknown.

OK Sparklehorse. I've now tried out the IS Search mode. Guess what........it is NON STOP activity where as in ID Scan mode it's maybe 1/20th of that activity. The drag is I get the TGID number shown but it is "Unknown" in the display so I have NO idea what I'm hearing. It sounds like police and or fire type of activity. I was on the the VECC/EMS channel when I started this. But man this is like unreal constant activity and without that mode it's pretty quiet overall. What am I supposed to make of this? Each of the Favorites is pulling from the 2 primary sites of my area. Is there something I'm missing somehow?

 

[hiegtx]

OK Sparklehorse. I've now tried out the IS Search mode. Guess what........it is NON STOP activity where as in ID Scan mode it's maybe 1/20th of that activity. The drag is I get the TGID number shown but it is "Unknown" in the display so I have NO idea what I'm hearing. It sounds like police and or fire type of activity. I was on the the VECC/EMS channel when I started this. But man this is like unreal constant activity and without that mode it's pretty quiet overall. What am I supposed to make of this? Each of the Favorites is pulling from the 2 primary sites of my area. Is there something I'm missing somehow?

If you are not hearing as much in ID Scan mode as you are in ID Search, make sure that you have all the desired service types active. By default, the scanner has only the dispatch channel service types enabled (Law Dispatch, Fire Dispatch, EMS Dispatch, etc.). But a lot of activity is on channels flagged as 'Tac' or 'Talk'. that would include, among others, a service type of 'Fire Tac' (common for Fireground usage), 'Law Talk', "Multi Tac" (like where more than one agency shares the same channel, such as a county that provides dispatch services for smaller departments).

Go to the database web page for the system. Up at the top of the talkgroup ID's that are listed, click on the link for "List all in one table". That will show all the talkroups for the system in numerical order. The ones you are seeing as "unknown" likely are in the database, but since you do not have then entered, the text tag only comes up as 'unknown'. For the ones that you do have in the department, you would see the text tag.

 

[dcisive]

It sounds like it would result in a TON of manual additions of the ID information. I can't help but wonder if it would change anything if I had NOT messed with eliminating the sites that weren't in my immediate area when adding the Favorites. I didn't think eliminating 98% of them would change anything as they are far from me. But if it alters the way the scanner picks up the valuable information of the trunking then that would be an issue I guess. I'm just way confused on this subject I must admit. I love the level of activity when it's in search mode.....bummed most are not reveled as to what they are. Just says "unknown" I thought this and other advanced scanners would simply reveal what was on the screen. Oh well.........

 

[phask]

Thay can't be revealed as you do not have them in tour favorite... It's that simple. No idea how you created it, but until you can figure out a pattern they will be unknown.

example - you did not put a large highway dept. in, or the dog catcher, transit bus, etc. Ant of those TG will be unknown.

I run 2 full time with similar data, avoids, etc. 1 runs in id search and 1 in idscan, I'll occasionally get a out of area or even a new TG - and that's what it's really good for.

 

[dcisive]

So if I understand what you're saying, I simply didn't submit ALL of the possible channels listed in the heading into my Favorites, and as a result not all will be revealed IF I place it in IS Search mode. So perhaps it is picking up channels I didn't submit or omitted from my Favorites list? If that's the case it would be easy to just grasp the entire listing and load it and let it go. But I don't want to do that if there's no guarantee THAT is what's going on here. I'm still a little fuzzy on the understanding of the Trunking. I did in fact omit a good number of those things listed as I was just segregating out Police and leaving all other services listed there. But is THAT what you're talking about or is it something else?

 

[dcisive]

OK so I just tried an experiment. I took the database from Sentinel in 10 different types. All in the Salt Lake Valley. I removed all but ONE "Site" which covers the Salt Lake Valley. I wanted to see if the regular ID Scanning would capture much activity. Well......no. It doesn't I'm getting a Ton (which is making me envious) in the ID Search mode. yes I understand it's picking up unassigned Trunking. But this is annoying as obviously I've got nearly everything of possible interest loaded and it's NOT picking that up in ID Scan mode. It's the same "type" of stuff I'm hearing. Police mainly and some Fire. It is in Salt Lake as they call out addresses involved. BUT I do NOT know how I can take a TGID number and FIND out who the heck it is! This is all my screen shows me when it keeps stopping on a trunked group channel. Can you please inform me HOW I can find out who it is I'm listening to without a root canal? I wish there was a little search engine where all you had to do is put in the Salt Lake County and then the TGID:# and it would simply tell me who the heck it IS. Is this possible? Once again my screen shows me nothing more, like I wish a frequency or anything else. They are ALL for example under the Utah Communications Authority system if that helps.

 

[hiegtx]

Can you please inform me HOW I can find out who it is I'm listening to without a root canal? I wish there was a little search engine where all you had to do is put in the Salt Lake County and then the TGID:# and it would simply tell me who the heck it IS. Is this possible? Once again my screen shows me nothing more, like I wish a frequency or anything else. They are ALL for example under the Utah Communications Authority system if that helps.

See my previous post, copied again here below.

Go to the database web page for the system. Up at the top of the talkgroup ID's that are listed, click on the link for "List all in one table". That will show all the talkgroups for the system in numerical order. The ones you are seeing as "unknown" likely are in the database, but since you do not have then entered, the text tag only comes up as 'unknown'. For the ones that you do have in the department, you would see the text tag.

Once you click the 'list all in one table', you'll see every talkgroup for the system, in a long list, sorted by the talkgroup ID. I suspect you'll find most of them are already there, but simply were not programmed in your Favorites list. As phask has noted previously, the ones coming up as "Unknown" are not programmed in your Favorites list, whether it is because you did not enter them at all, or because they have a Service Type that you do not have enabled.

 

[sparklehorse]

When you create a Favorite List for this system, try importing ALL of the talkgroups, but only the few sites that are close by. Add just your desired talkgroups to a Department, so you can scan only those when you want. The rest of the talk groups you don't have to assign to anything, but when in ID-Search mode their Alpha Tag will be displayed when they're active so you'll know who it is. Hear the Sewer Repair Crew? Hit 'Avoid' twice quickly to permanently lock them out when in ID-Search mode. Hear something interesting? Add them to another Department of your creation. Also, yeah, as mentioned make sure all your Service Types are enabled.

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[sparklehorse]

<snip> BUT I do NOT know how I can take a TGID number and FIND out who the heck it is! <snip>

Go to the RR database page for that system, then in Internet Explorer hit (I think) Control + F, type in the TGID in the search field that appears, and Explorer should take you to that TGID entry on the page. Can't recall at the moment how to do it in Safari, but I know you can.

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[phask]

Without quoting how to use a browser that is exactly what I said previously.

I have my main statewide system bookmarked and in my bookmark bar for quick access.

Cntrl-F works in every browser.

I also have my state comment thred bookmarked as well for fast access.

Go to the RR database page for that system, then in Internet Explorer hit (I think) Control + F, type in the TGID in the search field that appears, and Explorer should take you to that TGID entry on the page. Can't recall at the moment how to do it in Safari, but I know you can.

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