I-Call/Priva-Call Masking

[bc780l]

With ICall active, you'll hear all the ICalls on the system, which can be quite daunting if you're really interested in only the LEO ICalls and the garbage trucks are chatting. If it's obviously not what you're interested in, you can lock out that ICall just as you can any other ID in search mode, subject to the same limitations for the number you can lock out. Other ICalls will continue to come in. However, on a large system, this is simply not practical.

On my system of primary interest, ICall is used quite extensively--mostly in areas that are not of interest to me. Most of the LEO radio IDs are clustered in a range. Thus, when I see the radio ID (in UniTrunker, for example) or the 7xxxxx ICall ID pop up on the scanner, I can, with high confidence, know that is a target of interest based on their prior talk-group affiliation history.

I have not found a solution that will allow selective monitoring of specific radios/ICall IDs. It would, for example, be really nice to allow monitoring of a specific 7xxxxx by entering that radio/ICall ID into the scan list, but it doesn't work. (Yes, you can put the wildcard ICall ID in a scan list to monitor ICalls, but that's an all-or-nothing solution--made even worse by not showing the individual IDs when they come up.) Beyond individual IDs, how about a mask (sort'a like IP masking?) to allow selective monitoring of a specific range, or ranges, or ICall IDs?

Anyone have any success at doing this? Am I missing some feature in the 396/996? If it's not there now, I would consider that an item of interest in some future upgrade.

 

[DaveIN]

If you remove the I-Call wild card, or lock it out from the group, you should be able to just ID scan to listen to the radio ids you have entered into your group. I would just make a group for the radio IDs you want to listen to.

 

[W4KRR]

Most systems have more individual radios than talkgroups. Since each radio has a unique ID number, the only choice is to make a list of the exact radio ID's you are interested in and enter them into memory as if they were talkgroups. The only problem is that you may not know what all the radio ID's are, and there would likely be more of them than you have memory for.

But I like your idea of a search range, not only for radio ID's, but also for talkgroups. Example: you could program the scanner to search all talkgroups between, say, 4176 and 8272, and ignore all those outside that range. Maybe in a future model.

 

[bc780l]

Well, as I indicated, I've entered individual radios into an active group, but nothing seems to work. For example, using decimal radio IDs, a specific radio-ID using ICall that shows up in UniTrunker is 5150, and on the 396 as 705150. One-to-one correspondence and frequency of the ICall use has been confirmed multiple times.

After entering 705150 (or others, confirmed to be using ICall) into an active group on the 396, and watching UniTrunker to confirm activity, the 396 picks up nothing. (I'm not using UniTrunker to remotely control the 396 for this.) You both say it should work, but perhaps I'm missing a fine point--and if so, what? Have you personally done this successfully?

Yeah, a range of radio-IDs would be nice, but I don't see any possibility of that for now. If we can get at least this method working, it would be great for targeting usage of specifically identified radios.

 

[W4KRR]

Well, as I indicated, I've entered individual radios into an active group, but nothing seems to work. For example, using decimal radio IDs, a specific radio-ID using ICall that shows up in UniTrunker is 5150, and on the 396 as 705150. One-to-one correspondence and frequency of the ICall use has been confirmed multiple times.

After entering 705150 (or others, confirmed to be using ICall) into an active group on the 396, and watching UniTrunker to confirm activity, the 396 picks up nothing. (I'm not using UniTrunker to remotely control the 396 for this.) You both say it should work, but perhaps I'm missing a fine point--and if so, what? Have you personally done this successfully?

Yeah, a range of radio-IDs would be nice, but I don't see any possibility of that for now. If we can get at least this method working, it would be great for targeting usage of specifically identified radios.

I cannot say I have actually tried entering individual radio ID's and scanned them to see if this would work, but I would assume it should.

Now on the BCD396 (and all the Uniden radios that track I-Calls) I believe there's a menu option for I-Calls that allows you to select, "Off", "On", and "Only". I assume this is not set to "Off"? Aside from this, I have no other ideas why this wouldn't work as you have tried it.

 

[n2mdk]

Is this a P25 system by any chance if it is see this thread
http://www.radioreference.com/forums/showthread.php?t=82383&highlight=I-Call

 

[bc780l]

... there's a menu option for I-Calls that allows you to select, "Off", "On", and "Only". I assume this is not set to "Off"?

The global ICall setting IS set to OFF--otherwise ALL ICalls (except those manually locked out) would be monitored. Indeed, this may be the problem by masking the ICall bit to the the "talkgroup" entered that matches the desired radio-ID. If so, the concept is mutually exclusive and the only option would be to forget the idea of entering target radio-IDs and then just locking out the trash (pun intended...).

Edit: On the other hand, just thinking more about that: Global ICall OFF will still allow the 700000 wildcard to work (although no great detail is shown) for ICalls in an active group. Gotta be something else that's not hooking up correctly.

Is this a P25 system

This is not a P25 system--standard Motorola II 800MHz 3600bps. All the IDs are matching properly when global ICall is turned ON.

Sure would be nice to do tho ...

 

[DaveIN]

So if you use the I-call only setting will the id's display with ID search? Maybe you need to save a radio ID or two and then scan them.

 

[bc780l]

Isn't that what I've said I've done in post #4 above?

 

[DaveIN]

What I am saying is, when the I-call is displayed, press "E" to save it to a group and then try to scan it, not enter them by hand.

Yes, I have saved two radio IDs found during and I-call and then scanned them, then hearing them later when they use an I-call again.

 

[W4KRR]

The global ICall setting IS set to OFF--otherwise ALL ICalls (except those manually locked out) would be monitored.
Edit: On the other hand, just thinking more about that: Global ICall OFF will still allow the 700000 wildcard to work (although no great detail is shown) for ICalls in an active group. Gotta be something else that's not hooking up correctly.

Okay, you're saying that programming the I-Call wildcard will override the I-Call menu setting, even if it's set to "Off"? I would have assumed (there's that word again!) that if it were set to "Off", that all I-Calls would be ignored. Again I have not tested that myself.

 

[videobruce]

I hate to ask this, but what the hell is ICall??
I did a search and it turned up some computer software to make free phone calls.

 

[bc780l]

What I am saying is, when the I-call is displayed, press "E" to save it to a group and then try to scan it, not enter them by hand.

Yes, I have saved two radio IDs found during and I-call and then scanned them, then hearing them later when they use an I-call again.

I've been able to save them that way, too, but you have to have the global ICall ON to see them in the first place. But, were you scanning them later with global ICall OFF? I've done that, no joy. With ICall ON, it works, but then again, you'll have all the other ICall traffic to deal with.

... if it were set to "Off", that all I-Calls would be ignored.

I have the feeling that that must be correct, with the clear exception of the 700000 wildcard. I was just hoping there was a way around it. It doesn't look like it for now, so I'm not pursuing this further at this time. Next release, Uniden, along with that masking feature???

What's ICall?

The Uniden manual simply describes it: "I-calls are direct unit-to-unit transmissions that are not heard by other system users." More clearly, it is a dynamic, temporary, direct communications link between two radios, sort'a like setting up a temporary talk group that only those two radios are a part of. Thus, no one else will be a party to that communications link (unless, of course, you have a radio that can monitor ICalls). It's also called Priva-Call in some systems. They are not simplex links, but go through the system. You have to know the radio code for the person you're talking to and punch it in on the radio keypad--almost like the Nextel/Sprint walkie-talkie mode. A telephone interconnect is also available on many systems.

 

[DaveIN]

You mentioned that you hear all the I-call traffic beyond the ones you have saved.

If you use ID search and want to hear I-calls, you have to set I-call to on (or only) in the system settings of that trunked system. In ID search you will hear all I-calls unless you lock them out like a talkgroup ID.

If you use ID scan and want to hear I-calls, again you have to set I-call to on (or only) in the system settings for that trunked system. If you have a wild card saved in the group, you will still hear all the I-calls as you would in ID search if I-call is turned on in the system settings. If you lock out or remove the wild card in the group, then you should only hear the radio IDs you have saved in the group unless you locked them out.

The wild card can be entered in the radio two ways. You can use the keypad shortcut ".0" to save it as "700000", or you can type it in as "700000". If you hold on the ID it will be displayed a talkgroup ID:700000.

As for UniTrunker reporting a different I-call number other than the full radio ID, that doesn't sound right. I don't think the I-calls are shortened to four digits, but I could be wrong.

Can you put up a screen shot of UniTrunker with the I-calls displayed?

 

[bc780l]

Interestingly enough, if I do a "quick save" of the ICall into the "quick save group" it WILL be captured on ID Scan (naturally, with ICall turned ON for the system). It will NOT, however, scan if manually entered into a regular group. That begs the question of what's the difference between a regular group and a quick save group that it affects the ability to capture the group?

Re: your other points, yes, yes, and yes -- I wouldn't have gotten this far without already knowing that, but good to review, regardless. Problem is getting them on normal ID-Scan in a normal group.

As far as the radio-IDs, they're really anything between potentially Hex 1 and FFFF, depicted decimally with the 7- prefix on the Unidens. As stated, I've confirmed on this Smartnet system that, for example, decimal radio 20 using ICall shows up as 700020 on the Unidens, and decimal radio 60052 shows up as 760052 on the Uniden. Some systems add some joy to that, as alluded to in the earlier post on P25 systems.

 

[slicerwizard]

FYI, FFFF is an invalid radio ID on Motorola 3600 bps systems.

Also, radio ID's 1FC0 to 1FFF are not valid on 800 MHz 3600 bps systems.

 

[bc780l]

Yes, it was overgeneralization on my part, but was meant to illustrate that radio IDs are in a broad range on the system. The real issue is getting the IDs to work in a regular group, which doesn't work on my 396. As stated, it will work in the "quick save group," but alas, that's worthless to use on a large system--sitting and waiting until the target group uses ICall ... There must be some status bit Uniden is missing between the two group entries? Why would it work in the quick save group but not a regular group? Entries appear identical ...