Is there any trick to quickly identifying unlisted TGIDs?

[edclarkiv]

As asked. Are there any tricks to quickly identify talk groups found when using ID Search? I have as many unidentified TGIDs as listed. I've even used direction antennas for signal strengths and frequencies (using detailed display of course) and even sat for hours listening. But even those things didn't provide what appeared to be reliable correlations.

I'm in Ogemaw County and can receive pretty much every county surrounding us.

Is it appropriate to list what I figure out here? Or just submit it to RR?

Thank you.

 

[Whiskey3JMC]

If UID aliases are broadcast over the air, use DSDPlus & this can sometimes give you a clue as to who you're listening to. Otherwise, no other way aside from listening closely or taking note of UID trends. Might take months or years to ID users, especially if transmissions are vague, talkgroups are seldom used or full encryption is a factor. Sometimes they can never be ID'ed without inside system or agency knowledge

Is it appropriate to list what I figure out here? Or just submit it to RR?

Use the applicable county or system's wiki page to document unknowns. MPSCS has unidentified talkgroup wiki pages by county

 

[dave3825]

If UID aliases are broadcast over the air, use DSDPlus & this can sometimes give you a clue as to who you're listening to.

Unitrunker logs every rid it sees, and keeps its history, so you can usually get an idea of users unless they are specific to the unknown tg, meaning if they don't transmit on any other tg's

 

[edclarkiv]

Thank you folks.

EDIT: I already have DSDPlus installed. I was using it to decode local ham DMR repeaters.

Since I don't see a way to easily connect the SDS200 to my PC for audio. I'm assuming this will be with an RTL-SDR of similar.

Thanks,

 

[drdispatch]

If you're unsure of the user, you can also post your findings to this thread:

MPSCS Sites/Talkgroups 2025

This is the main discussion thread for the MPSCS radio system for 2025. 73's Ron

forums.radioreference.com

Include whatever info you have; Radio ID's, Talkgroup ID, what you heard (this can sometimes help narrow down who the user is, or at the very least whether it's police, fire, EMS, etc.) If there are other listeners in the area with some experience listening to particular agencies, they might be able to provide other pieces to the puzzle, so to speak.

 

[Whiskey3JMC]

Since I don't see a way to easily connect the SDS200 to my PC for audio.

Proscan makes this easy. It also gives you a full history log of freqs, TGIDs, UIDs and more to help with your ID'ing efforts

 

[edclarkiv]

This is what I started using. I already had it setup for remote use. Just stumbled onto the logging right after uninstalling UniTrunker.

I'm finding a lot of odd things. There seems to be some cross listing of our county and a neighboring county. Still accumulating data.

Thanks,

 

[KE5MC]

Thank you folks.

EDIT: I already have DSDPlus installed. I was using it to decode local ham DMR repeaters.

Since I don't see a way to easily connect the SDS200 to my PC for audio. I'm assuming this will be with an RTL-SDR of similar.

Thanks,

Ham repeaters are a little easier. Google local ham clubs and go to their website. They typically list DMR talk groups if they have a DRM repeater. If I recall correctly the online version of RepeaterBook does too.

 

[buddrousa]

@edclarkiv
You can get a wireless bridge to add the SDS200 to your wireless network and add PROSCAN and control and listen to your SDS200 remotely.
It will also record audio and log UID's and TALKGROUPS on your PC.

 

[edclarkiv]

Ham repeaters are a little easier. Google local ham clubs and go to their website. They typically list DMR talk groups if they have a DRM repeater. If I recall correctly the online version of RepeaterBook does too.

Thank you. I am a 33 year ham. I have all sorts of other radios for those frequencies. I'm really after the P25 capabilities of the SDS200. Thanks again!

 

[Forts]

You can often tell what county they belong to by the RIDs on the talkgroup. Beyond that... it's just a matter of seeing if the radios go anywhere else. For example if I see a new TG of 4567 I'll tag the radios on that group as 'SEEN ON 4567' or similar. Now if I see those radios popping up elsewhere, say on a public works group or a police group, it starts to help narrow things down. This is where I prefer the more robust logging of Unitrunker as you can follow the history of any radio it's logged and see what groups it's been on. Unfortunately in my location, UT can't lock on to my nearest site (St Clair County) yet DSDPlus will grab it just fine.

 

[edclarkiv]

@edclarkiv
You can get a wireless bridge to add the SDS200 to your wireless network and add PROSCAN and control and listen to your SDS200 remotely.
It will also record audio and log UID's and TALKGROUPS on your PC.

My household has so many IT devices I have a mixture of 1000Base and Dual band wireless. The SDS200 itself is on a 1000Base network to the router. I then use my laptop to run ProScan remotely.

Like many it took me a few minutes to get into ProScan, Sentinel and the SDS200 deep enough to make it work mostly how I wanted. Where I ran into trouble is trying to figure out all of the unlisted TGIDs I was seeing. Like someone already mentioned, it's not always obvious what you are hearing and it's not always easy to figure out and correct it. In the old days there were a lot of actually license ID callsigns being used. I'm not hearing those any longer. Yeah, I'm old.

But I'm also seeing my counties TGIDs showing up in the neighboring counties System. I've re-created my favorites lists 100 times using both ProScan and Sentinel and this is consistent. So either there are errors in the database or there are programming errors at the county. Doubtful. Is that even possible using P25 NAC? I don't know. I'm just learning this P25 thing past basic programming.

To start with I'm going to move that channel/frequency to my county and see if things line up any better.

Thank you all,

 

[edclarkiv]

You can often tell what county they belong to by the RIDs on the talkgroup. Beyond that... it's just a matter of seeing if the radios go anywhere else. For example if I see a new TG of 4567 I'll tag the radios on that group as 'SEEN ON 4567' or similar. Now if I see those radios popping up elsewhere, say on a public works group or a police group, it starts to help narrow things down. This is where I prefer the more robust logging of Unitrunker as you can follow the history of any radio it's logged and see what groups it's been on. Unfortunately in my location, UT can't lock on to my nearest site (St Clair County) yet DSDPlus will grab it just fine.

I'm playing with all of these tools. Kinda back and fourth as I'm kinda feeling like they all have strong points and weak points. Thank you.

 

[dave3825]

But I'm also seeing my counties TGIDs showing up in the neighboring counties System. I've re-created my favorites lists 100 times using both ProScan and Sentinel and this is consistent. So either there are errors in the database or there are programming errors at the county. Doubtful. Is that even possible using P25 NAC? I don't know. I'm just learning this P25 thing past basic programming.

Could you post a link to both systems and list a few of the tgid that show on both systems?

 

[edclarkiv]

Okay. Been playing and learning. Finally starting to understand how all of this works.

But... The as for the unknow TGIDs I simply just keep the Michigan state page for MPSCS open and use the browser "find in page" feature to look for the unknown TGIDs. 97% of the time the answer is there. I just had to realize that any TGID could come from any site and that counties aren't limited to the sites in their counties. Interesting.

Once a TGID is identified I can either remove it from the Favorites list or avoid it. It is cool of the things you might hear with "ID Search" on.

I appreciate your replies.

Thanks,