Help with ICIS on BCD996XT with FreeSCAN

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Scanner_Dog

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Hello,

I need a bit of help programming for the ICIS system. I'm using FreeScan on a BCD996XT. I've read a bunch of posts on the same subject, but I'm confused concerning which system to create and where to put freqs once in that system.

I've read that the ICIS is a Motorola Type II Smartzone on the site (and UHF on another), but the system drop down in FreeScan only has Motorola 800Mhz Type I and Motorola Type II / P25. I guessed and used Type II, but the Site that is formed has Mot 800Mhz Standard (Type II), Mot 800Mhz Splinter (Type II), Mot UHF Band, and Mot P25/P25 Standard as possibilities (there are others, but these all had some terminology in common with the original system type—the others didn't seem to). But both Type II's didn't have a band plan in the Site Setup tab (I read that there should be a band plan somewhere), so I guessed Mot UHF Band but didn't know which feqs go where (which are control freqs etc.) as far as the Band Plan, Trunk Frequencies Tab, and the TGID's were concerned.

I got the scanner to kinda scan, but it kept blinking on a single freq.

Needless to say that I'm a bit lost. If I just knew where to put what, it shouldn't be too much of a problem. I got LAPD working great, thanks to Steve and Mike, and since I'm close to Burbank I'd love to hear what's going on over there. Just the other night there was an airship circling and LAPD was called to assist, but they switched to Burbank freqs and I was totally bummed that I couldn't hear the rest of the exchange.

Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to be as specific as possible. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

SD
 

ka3jjz

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I assume this would be the system you're working with...

Interagency Communications Interoperability (ICIS) Trunking System, Various, California - Scanner Frequencies

Now I'm not in California, so hopefully I won't be leading you too far off the mark, but this is not a 800 Mhz system. You would program this as a Type II UHF system, and since I see you're not a premium subscriber (which I would recommend), you might be able to use EZ Grab to get the frequencies. The tricky part here is that evidently each site has its own base/offsets - so whatever site you decide to use, you will probably need to put that in manually. I don't believe FS will be able to discern which base/offset to use for which site. I suspect it will try to import all of them, which in this case, evidently, it's not correct.

So for the trunked system setup screen, you would make the type 'MOT TYPE II/P25' and the site type would be 'MOT UHF BAND'. Immediately you should see a form which has a max of 5 entries for the base/offsets you will need, since this is a mixed mode system. The red/blue system frequencies would go under 'TRUNK FREQUENCIES'. You should also see that FS has allocated one unnamed group called 'TGID GROUP 1'. There's where you can start to put in all the talkgroups, and remember; the XT series scanners can do multi site trunking, but - and it appears this is important - you must allocate each site as Mot UHF Band, and install the correct offsets for that site as shown in the table.

I'm sure someone in the California forum has already built a FS file for this system and you might profit from seeing an example. Don't forget to read the FS user guide, which is hosted in our wiki for all the individual (well most of them anyway) parameters. While you are online, go to Help/Online Help The guide is organized around the top toolbar, left to right.

best regards..Mike
 

Scanner_Dog

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May 28, 2011
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Location
Los Angeles
Mike,

Thanks so much, again. Really appreciate it. Knowing what type of system I'm dealing with and which settings to use is in the drop downs is a great help. I don't mind putting stuff in manually as long as I know where certain things go. I think I'll head on over to the California section and see if I can't find an example for FS floating around out there somewhere. Thanks again.

SD
 

kma371

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Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3GS: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8G4 Safari/6533.18.5)

Or you can import the system from RR using freescan.
 

ka3jjz

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True, but like I mentioned, FS will likely try to associate all the offsets on a single site. Normally that would be correct, but if you read the whole database entry, it's evidently not.

If that isn't correct, then someone should submit a ticket to get that fixed, as it would be misleading, particularly for a newcomer

best regards..Mike
 
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