Joebearcat please read..... potential software/firmware issue

[radioman2008]

Joebearcat,

I own MANY Unidens, 436/536/SDS units and looking to buy more. all these units spend most of their time recording in discovery mode preserving radio history in the Tampa Bay area.

I have many years of audio recordings that have been created from these scanners. all these recordings are being stored in their normal directory structure created by the scanners. a few days ago I noticed that one of my recent recordings was saved as "461812500_NFM_Area1"
I'm familiar with Area1 being a system configuration of LTR Trunking. unfortunately when i go into it, the audio is digital, not analog, so somethings not right. I searched my entire collection of data for AREA0 AREA1 and only found 3 entries over the years, all have digital audio in the folders.

I suspect discovery mode conventional is supposed to file LTR audio conventionally this way, like all the other PL/DPL/CC/RAN tags at the end of the folders.

Can you check into this, see if this was a feature that didn't get all its coding completed, or maybe there's a corruption in the coding?

if discovery mode conventional could file LTR audio this way it would be HUGE! I could narrow down more systems and put them together for Radio Reference.

Thank you

 

[n1chu]

I am Intrigued by the massive library you have compiled. And while I apologize for turning off subject of your inquiry, I should like to ask as to your motivation(s) for retaining the files.

(I pass no judgements, you may merely have no reason other than since that capability existed, you exercised it, fully within your rights to do so. But, having way too much time on my hands, I let my mind wander a bit. What other possible advantages are there to keeping such records?

One thought did come to mind… the compilation of data, be it a single copy of record, or a copy of the same, isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But in order for that data to be considered useful, it’s existence must be known to others, those who might be able to use such information to correct a wrong, should any recordings of record be used inappropriately (intentionally or mistakenly). And, that lead me further down the rabbit hole to the question of if your recordings would hold up in a court of law? I have no idea, but I thank you for the intriguing questions your post has caused me to ponder.

Yes, before anyone piles on, this post is basically nonsense in nature… but I wonder if there have been any cases where compilations of this nature have been benificial.

 

[cg]

Wouldn't be too difficult for a LTR signal to be active at the same time as a digital signal is on the same frequency in an area where such systems share channels. An adjacent channel would be another possibility.

 

[Whiskey3JMC]

I'm familiar with Area1 being a system configuration of LTR Trunking. unfortunately when i go into it, the audio is digital, not analog, so somethings not right.

Area codes (either 0 or 1) are a function of IDAS trunking (Icom's version of NXDN) so that would most likely explain why the emissions on the discovered frequency are digital. See here and here

 

[radioman2008]

I am Intrigued by the massive library you have compiled. And while I apologize for turning off subject of your inquiry, I should like to ask as to your motivation(s) for retaining the files.

well........
when I was a child one of my family members of whom I have high respect for had a large collection of family history, lots of antiques from family and genealogy. when I would visit she would always talk about her hobby of tracing relatives, some going back to the civil war. although that didn't really get my interest back then, I suppose in a sense I'm following in my relatives footsteps of history preservation, in a different way, preserving radio.

there are many things I heard on the radio back in the 80s/90s that are long gone, the technology doesn't exist anymore never to be heard again, hospital medical voice paging, commercial voice pagers, random oddball Trunking systems, commercial 800 and 900 Motorola type 1 trunked systems, the old EDACS GE We bring good things to life scanner defeat tones.
seriously, in the early 90s I heard those GE tones so much but never thought to record them. no EDACS systems have used those tones since the mid 90s and it appears no one thought to record them. wish I had better recordings of the old AMPS cellular system, got some in 2008 right before they shut down the network, the 800 scanner I had at the time sucked, it was made before the blocking was implemented so it was really old, and had a crappy receiver.

In the early 90s when I first got my ham license I have a lot of memories using local Ham repeaters, wish I had recordings of, the courtesy tones, the robotic ID's, CARS Club 146.970 with auto patch, 145.110 KC4HU George stones repeater, the 145.21 Dunedin that had a phone patch, all had a certain sound to the general repeater culture that is gone forever, I don't have recordings of any of those repeaters back then, wish I did. I used to talk on all those repeaters all the time. some interesting old timer QSOs would happen on Georges repeater. My recordings of Ham today, will provide nostalgia for those in the future wishing to listen to the past.


I have a growing collection of FM broadcast recordings, maybe in 10-20 years regular FM Broadcast will be history, replaced with some kind of DAB Digital format, or perhaps everyone will stream their music over the internet.
people searching for Nostalgia might appreciate the recordings I have accumulated.

how useful to others are my recordings today?
lets say a RR user in Florida posts they are looking to identify a frequency, I can do a search for that frequency and see what years it has been active, and I can listen to the audio to potentially help them identify what company or user it is.

 

[JoeBearcat]

Just noting that I read this thread and I'm following it.

 

[n1chu]

well........
when I was a child one of my family members of whom I have high respect for had a large collection of family history, lots of antiques from family and genealogy. when I would visit she would always talk about her hobby of tracing relatives, some going back to the civil war. although that didn't really get my interest back then, I suppose in a sense I'm following in my relatives footsteps of history preservation, in a different way, preserving radio.

there are many things I heard on the radio back in the 80s/90s that are long gone, the technology doesn't exist anymore never to be heard again, hospital medical voice paging, commercial voice pagers, random oddball Trunking systems, commercial 800 and 900 Motorola type 1 trunked systems, the old EDACS GE We bring good things to life scanner defeat tones.
seriously, in the early 90s I heard those GE tones so much but never thought to record them. no EDACS systems have used those tones since the mid 90s and it appears no one thought to record them. wish I had better recordings of the old AMPS cellular system, got some in 2008 right before they shut down the network, the 800 scanner I had at the time sucked, it was made before the blocking was implemented so it was really old, and had a crappy receiver.

In the early 90s when I first got my ham license I have a lot of memories using local Ham repeaters, wish I had recordings of, the courtesy tones, the robotic ID's, CARS Club 146.970 with auto patch, 145.110 KC4HU George stones repeater, the 145.21 Dunedin that had a phone patch, all had a certain sound to the general repeater culture that is gone forever, I don't have recordings of any of those repeaters back then, wish I did. I used to talk on all those repeaters all the time. some interesting old timer QSOs would happen on Georges repeater. My recordings of Ham today, will provide nostalgia for those in the future wishing to listen to the past.


I have a growing collection of FM broadcast recordings, maybe in 10-20 years regular FM Broadcast will be history, replaced with some kind of DAB Digital format, or perhaps everyone will stream their music over the internet.
people searching for Nostalgia might appreciate the recordings I have accumulated.

how useful to others are my recordings today?
lets say a RR user in Florida posts they are looking to identify a frequency, I can do a search for that frequency and see what years it has been active, and I can listen to the audio to potentially help them identify what company or user it is.

I wish to thank you for taking the time to answer my slightly off subject question… and further appreciate the thought you put into it. I half expected it would go unanswered. I too have taken a shot at recording for posterity on occasion, an example was the small fortune I spent on VHS tapes when I recorded every “Star Trek the next Generation” TV show! …all tapes are unaccounted for, either repurposed or tossed out. Oh well, cable reruns are always available. Thanks again.

 

[radioman2008]

JoeBearcat,

thank you for reading my post.

What the guys describe could be a possibility of what Area0 Area1 are referencing, "461812500_NFM_Area1" indicates a IDAS trunking system heard conventionally. seems like such a Niche market to just identify IDAS systems with such a designation, I would not be surprised if there were 25-50 LTR systems for every 1 IDAS Trunking system. still speculating there could be a firmware coding issue.
I have picked up NXDN trunked systems conventionally and they just show up as RAN1 or whatever number the ran is after the frequency
such as 461812500_NFM_RAN1

so my 2 questions for you are
1. can you confirm that Area0 Area1 after the frequency in discovery mode is representing IDAS Trunking?
2. would it be possible for the software engineers to add a designation to identify LTR Trunking signals?
even filing as "461812500_NFM_LTR" would be really cool and helpful to those searching for signals that can be used to update Radio Reference. LTR data is a sub audible signal similar to DPL so I don't think it could be that difficult to set up.

For other RR members reading this thread,
here some other examples that Discovery mode conventional BCD436HP/BCD536HP/SDS100/SDS200 already files signals as

461812500_NFM_None (carrier squelch or currently LTR)
461812500_NFM_ColorCode1 (DMR)
461812500_NFM_RAN1 (NXDN)
461812500_NFM_107.2 (PL)
461812500_NFM_D023 (DPL)
461812500_NFM_N293 (P25)

 

[JoeBearcat]

JoeBearcat,

thank you for reading my post.

What the guys describe could be a possibility of what Area0 Area1 are referencing, "461812500_NFM_Area1" indicates a IDAS trunking system heard conventionally. seems like such a Niche market to just identify IDAS systems with such a designation, I would not be surprised if there were 25-50 LTR systems for every 1 IDAS Trunking system. still speculating there could be a firmware coding issue.
I have picked up NXDN trunked systems conventionally and they just show up as RAN1 or whatever number the ran is after the frequency
such as 461812500_NFM_RAN1

so my 2 questions for you are
1. can you confirm that Area0 Area1 after the frequency in discovery mode is representing IDAS Trunking?
2. would it be possible for the software engineers to add a designation to identify LTR Trunking signals?
even filing as "461812500_NFM_LTR" would be really cool and helpful to those searching for signals that can be used to update Radio Reference. LTR data is a sub audible signal similar to DPL so I don't think it could be that difficult to set up.

For other RR members reading this thread,
here some other examples that Discovery mode conventional BCD436HP/BCD536HP/SDS100/SDS200 already files signals as

461812500_NFM_None (carrier squelch or currently LTR)
461812500_NFM_ColorCode1 (DMR)
461812500_NFM_RAN1 (NXDN)
461812500_NFM_107.2 (PL)
461812500_NFM_D023 (DPL)
461812500_NFM_N293 (P25)

No - and area code does not single out IDAS since LTR uses area codes, too.

IDAS is Icom's version of NXDN. It isn't as popular, but is part of NXDN decoding.

I do not know the currect spec to identify LTR, but it's possible the area code was all that was decoded in your case.

In each of the current cases, the CTCSS or equivalent is used append the frequency and mode. Area Code would be the equivalent for LTR, as LTR only sends Area Code (0-1), Home Channel (1-20), and Talkgroup (1-254) so area code is the best choice.

It is very likely you saw LTR. I believe IDAS would also append with the RAN.

 

[mtindor]

It is very likely you saw LTR. I believe IDAS would also append with the RAN.

Conventional IDAS would support a RAN
Trunked IDAS has no RAN

So if one monitored a voice comm on a Trunked IDAS system via Discovery, it would not append a RAN.

I'm pretty sure " 461812500_NFM_Area1 " would be indicating IDAS Trunked.

You've got two IDAS system (a Type C and a Type D) over in WPA that you might be able to determine this with:

CNX GAS (IDAS Type-D) - CNX Gas Co LLC Trunking System, , Multi-State - Scanner Frequencies

Church Communities Foundation (IDAS Type-C) - Church Communities Foundation Trunking System, Various, Pennsylvania - Scanner Frequencies

 

[JoeBearcat]

Still, he could have seen LTR, right?

 

[mtindor]

I guess lol. But I thought he said when he played the audio it was digital.

 

[radioman2008]

Ill try to provide more info here to show how rare it is to see Area0 Area1

so all my Uniden discovery recording files from 2015 to August 2021
over 1.3 Terabytes
over 91,000 directories such as 1 example 452287500_NFM_None
over 12 million individual audio files.

of 91,000+ directories, only 3 were created by the scanner as Area0 Area1, and of the audio heard in the directories, its Digital not analog.


When I scan Discovery mode conventionally any audio from M1CE Oldsmar LTR home channel 14 452.2875
shows up in the None directory 452287500_NFM_None
Mobile One Communications and Electronics Oldsmar Trunking System, Oldsmar, Florida - Scanner Frequencies (radioreference.com)



it seems possible to me that software designers may have wanted to separate LTR audio in discovery but something happened in the coding and its not working correctly, maybe its an easy fix, like most or all the coding is there, but a few bits are missing?

JoeBearcat, could you ask the software team to look into the discovery mode Area0 Area1 coding to see if there's an issue?

Thank you for representing us scanner enthusiasts to Uniden.

 

[JoeBearcat]

I will ask what they signify. It is possible that if that is the only data decoded, it was used to append.

But I will find out for certain.

 

[radioman2008]

Joebearcat, any update?

thank you.

 

[JoeBearcat]

I got a reply, but not really an answer:

NXDN also uses the area code for IDAS.
If the IDAS icon is shown, it is NXDN. If not, it is LTR.
The RAN code is used for NexEdge.

I replied and explained this is in the filename and not the screen, but never got another reply.

 

[radioman2008]

thank you for trying, I appreciate all you do out here on the forums.