Help - Programming Scanner

[herbthefireman]

Got a new Uniden Bearcat 898T for Christmas. I am good with programming 100 and 400 frequencies because of older models I have owned. I am having trouble programming 800 frequencies. I went to radioreference.com and printed off the list of frequencies for Prince William County, VA. It is a Motorola Type II system which I select in the scanner in a different bank that is also labeled as trunked. I enter the 800 primary control channel and the 3 alternate control channels and all I get is constant feedback when I scan on the primary control channel. Am I missing something here? I got this scanner with the hopes of being able to listen to the fire response channels in my county which are an 800 frequency not just the dispatch channel which is a 100 frequency. I would appreciate some help. Thanks.

 

[Bucko]

The Prince William County system is a mix of analog and digital, of course the apco 25 (digital) you will be out of luck hearing with the 898T. I would guess you may not have the bank set for motorola, push manual to stop scanning.To check this Push and hold your trunk button till it beeps, it will bring the banks A thru J asking you which bank, push the bank that has your Mot trunk system in. (page 41 of your manual has info on this) This then will bring up a menu asking for type of trunk system, use your up and down arrows ( or knob if set for chan) and select E2-800 and hit enter(hit scan to resume). Make sure you have trunk enabled (it will be displayed right blow your bank display) by pushing once till it is on.I programmed my 898T by hand but later bought ARC898 which highly recommend, it makes things very easy.

 

[herbthefireman]

Thanks for the response. Looks like you're right I'm not going to be able to listen to anything unless I upgrade to a digital scanner because prince william uses the APCO-25 voice. You referenced ARC898 in your post. Is that software that helps you program?