It worked...kind of

[sc800]

Last night I plugged in an audio cable and opened the UniTrunker program. To my surprise, this actually worked, what was logged was

EDACS96 0
Motorola 0000
Motorola 6A47

however, that was the extent of the logging. Could it be because no one was talking on any of these groups or does more need to be done?

 

[br0adband]

Well that looks like a list of the Systems it picked up. What exactly do you want Unitrunker to do for you, since the actual logging feature ends up with a file that looks like this:

Log file originally created as UniTrunker-20071227.LOG
5000 G 3C0 Status[2] = 1000
30A0 G 3C0 System is Type II or IIi 800 Connect Tone=116.13 Hz
6004 G 3BF Network Status
6004 G 3BF Network Status
4300 I 3BF Network Status
0B19 I 2F8 Idle
8F70 G 152 Continuation 152 G 8F70
8F50 G 0E6 Continuation 0E6 G 8F50
30A0 G 3BF Network Status
5000 G 3C0 Status[2] = 1000
30A0 G 3C0 System is Type II or IIi 800 Connect Tone=116.13 Hz
6004 G 3BF Network Status
4300 I 3BF Network Status
8F70 G 152 Continuation 152 G 8F70

and it just goes on and on and on and on and on like that. It's not really going to be truly useful, nor will the log look anything like what the screen is showing; from what I can tell the log file only contains the most relevant info necessary and it's not really in a human readable format (unless you're Rick himself, that is).

Say what it is you're looking for or expecting and then someone can answer the question a bit better. You could take a look at a video I did (with audio that matches) so you can see what's going on in real-time. Watch the BC-246T display on the video and when you see a talkgroup name tag come up, you can then look just above it to Unitrunker and see where the info is related.

http://members.cox.net/bbzghost/East_Zone_1_Ch_1.wmv (4.19MB - 10 mins 16 seconds)

That should give you some idea of what's going on when Unitrunker is set up and working properly. And yes, every label, tag, talkgroup name and radio ID listed was done by hand. And the colors too... it's a roll call/radio check test done recently on the Southern Nevada Area Communications Council (SNACC) system here in Clark County (aka Las Vegas and the surrounding areas). Not a lot of action going on, but it gives you a general look at how Unitrunker can be programmed or at least filled wth the info which then displays as "proper" tagged groups and radio IDs which just adds an entirely new side to the hobby of monitoring.

Also, the purpose of me doing this type of video is to later play it back and catch the radio IDs (RIDs) so I can name the specific units as appropriate: in this video there are a bunch of radios that transmit and all you see is the 5 digit RID - after I made this video I went in and then put the proper unit label on those. Most of them are labeled already, but using this way of recording the audio and video together I end up with a record that I can go back to and continually fill out this RID list - only about 4,500 radios to go on this system.

 

[sc800]

I guess I'm asking how do you program in the talkgroups manually, it won't let me do it.

And also, why does it now say "NO SIGNAL" on the top of it even though it was set up like this previously to get the list of systems?

 

[br0adband]

NO SIGNAL typically means the scanner feeding the program with the control channel audio is either off, or the volume is turned down (if you're not using a discriminator tap, of course), or you're off frequency - you're not tuned into a control channel. Each of the 3 items you listed above are system IDs, so you at least have 3 systems in your area that Unitrunker has picked up enough data from to get the system ID. So it seems like you've had some success, but you have to pick one system, find the control channel that's active, and let Unitrunker monitor that for a period of time, and I don't mean like 1 minute or whatever.

Just tune the radio to a control channel on that system, feed the signal to Unitrunker and it'll start picking up the group IDs and radio IDs. You'll also get system data for reference info, etc.

To put in the information you want, once Unitrunker has a given group or radio ID stored in it's data files, then it's easy to label that talkgroup or the specific radio. At the main screen you'd hit F for Find, then on the next screen you choose G for Group or U for User - Talkgroups are found using G, specific radio IDs are found using U.

Next screen you enter the talkgroup (Group) or radio (User) ID. You'll see [0 ] (that's actually [0 followed by about 9 or 10 spaces, then the ] to close it; this forum is deleting the spaces, sorry) listed, so you need to press Backspace a few times till the 0 disappears, then type in the talkgroup or radio ID in question. If Unitrunker has already picked up activity on that TGID or RID, then you'll get info related to that ID as already noted and stored in the data files, looks like this for one of the ones I have programmed, RID 42294:

For a TGID it would look like this for talkgroup 35650:

I guess the distinction has to be clear that a TGID (Talkgroup) and RID (Radio ID) are definitely not one and the same thing even though they might seem that way.

Hope this helps...

 

[FlashSWT]

As for the NO SIGNAL issue, try running Uniscope to see if the computer is even getting an audio signal.

.

 

[cg]

Did you plug into a discriminator tap. The lack of some basic info beyond it not working leads me to think that you are using an external speaker or earphone jack.
If you have a discriminator tap, disregard. If you are wondering what I am typing about, read the WIKI on decoding programs and discriminator taps.

chris

 

[FlashSWT]

The headphone jack on a Uniden 396 will work for a Motorola Type II system but only with a decode rate around 80% (and with a lot of quality fluctuation). It will pick up groups OK but not Radio IDs with any reliability in my experience.

.