MDC ID's on the 396XT / 996XT

[havmedic26]

Dear UPMan and anyone "in the know",

I am wondering when we will see MDC ID decoding on the 396XT or the 996XT (presumably with a firmware update). In my area, the MDC ID is extensively used and important. For example, in New Hampshire, police departments are dispatched on a county-wide basis by the county sheriff's department. Each community in the state is assigned an Astro25 MDC ID. Each community is required to participate in this program else become ineligible for grants / state / federal aid.

The system works like this:
The ID is 6 digits long
The first digit refers to the county
The second and third digits refer to the town in the county
The fourth digit refers to the unit type (PD, Portable, FD, EMS)
The fifth and sixth digits refer to the unit id number.

For example: ID: 854065

county 8 = carroll county
town 54 = north conway
unit type 0 = police mobile
unit id 65 = id 65 (which can then me connected to the appropriate car number. in this case it is 65. other towns may be car 1 through 20.

This would really really help make these scanners more useful (in my case so that I do not have to carry a motorola everywhere I go).

Astro25 MDC is open source and can be used by anyone (Uniden)

standard MDC ID is currently open to all manufacturers (currently being decoded by Kenwood, Maxon, Vertex, etc)

 

[doctordialtone]

MDC

Dear UPMan and anyone "in the know",

I am wondering when we will see MDC ID decoding on the 396XT or the 996XT

I believe you'll find your answer here:

http://info.uniden.com/twiki/pub/publish/upman.html#When_is_Uniden_going_to_fill_in

I use this in the meantime - of course no good on the mobile.

antistatic.org - winmdcd

 

[ofd8001]

Would you be talking about a radio ID number that can be displayed while you are receiving a transmission it is making?

If so, that feature currently exists and has been the subject of discussion in other posts within this forum.

 

[havmedic26]

MDC ID

yes, that is what I am asking about! Probably. I am not referring to the UID's. Otherwise, could you point be to the thread? If not, I can post some picks for those that do not have / play with Motorola. Basically, that noise you hear at the beginning (usually, sometimes at the end) of a transmission is sending a pre-programmed radio ID. At its' most basic level, when someone presses the emergency button on their radio, dispatch sees a number on their screen that they don't understand. 1 level above that is when the dispatcher knows who needs help, and starts asking "Car XXX do you have an emergency?" thus letting the bad guy know that a silent (hopefully - depends on the programmer) alarm has been triggered. At level 3, the dispatcher just sends the next closest car to the last address the car pressing their emergency button was at. If no emergency exists, the 1st car can just say "car XXX disregard, accidental." Anyway, at higher levels you could have a system such as the one I described in NH.

 

[rdale]

If so, that feature currently exists and has been the subject of discussion in other posts within this forum.

No. You are thinking of Radio IDs on trunked systems. He is talking about MDC, and there is no decoder for that in any scanner on the market. Demand to add such a feature is far too low to justify.

 

[cg]

The Uniden 996XT & 396XT will decode P25 IDs if you set them up as single channel P25 trunking. They will not do the analog IDs that Motorola uses called MDC1200.

chris

 

[Avery93]

I am confused, as there is no such thing as "Astro MDC". Is the signalling you are talking about used on a P25 trunking or conventional system, or an analog system? If it is a P25 system, then you are talking about the P25 radio ID which is built into the P25 CAI, and is supported by Uniden.

If it is an analog system, then you are probably talking about Motorola Tactical Public Safety, which uses very short bursts of P25 data to give an 8 character unit ID over an analog channel, and is used much like MDC1200 or FleetSync. TPS is not widely used, with the notable exception of the NYFD who I believe uses it on all fireground channels. Given that scanner manufacturers have not supported the much more popular MDC1200 signalling, I highly doubt they would implement TPS in any current or future scanners.

 

[scanningisfun]

MDC 1200 ID's are also limited to 4 digits. If you want to be able to decode them portable, just get something like an HT1250 off eBay.

Jacob

 

[ofd8001]

We're probably trying to do some assuming. . .

HAVMEDIC26- What kind of system are you listening to - is it a Project 25 digital system or some kind of VHF/UHF conventional system?

That will give some clue as to what direction to point you in for sure.

 

[havmedic26]

astro id

I appologize if i was unclear. It is an P25 conventional system. As far as i know, it actually has nothing to do with "mdc", but motorola's programming syatem handles it exactly the same as the mdc id's. The big difference is the acceptable characters. The original mdc accepted 4 hex characters. The p25 signaling id Allows 8 numbers. Other than that, the diffdrences are a paralell (and related to) the differences between FM and P25.

If i could display mdc1200 id's that would be great too!

But the p25 conventional signalling is what im asking about.

 

[scanningisfun]

I appologize if i was unclear. It is an P25 conventional system. As far as i know, it actually has nothing to do with "mdc", but motorola's programming syatem handles it exactly the same as the mdc id's. The big difference is the acceptable characters. The original mdc accepted 4 hex characters. The p25 signaling id Allows 8 numbers. Other than that, the diffdrences are a paralell (and related to) the differences between FM and P25.

If i could display mdc1200 id's that would be great too!

But the p25 conventional signalling is what im asking about.

The BCD396XT already can do conventional P25 IDs. You have to use the "One Frequency Trunk" option. It really doesn't make since to do it that way, but that is what they thought would work.

Jacob

 

[ofd8001]

The following comes from the BCD396XT firmware update page:

Using the Unit ID Feature

The Unit ID (UID) feature lets you see the unit ID of the radio currently transmitting on Motorola, EDACS, and APCO P25 systems. To see the Unit ID, you need to first turn on the global Unit ID option in the Settings menu.

Press MENU.
Scroll to SETTINGS and press E/yes.
Scroll to Disp. Unit ID and press E/yes.
Scroll to On and press E/yes.

When turned on, in Display Modes 1 and 2 the scanner will alternate the current channel information and the Unit ID information in Line 2 of the display. In Display Mode 3, the scanner will display the Unit ID information on Line 3 of the display.

If you program a Unit ID into a channel, you can assign an Alpha to the Unit ID. You program a Unit ID just like an iCall ID (press ./no then the Unit ID).

Notes:

In some cases where you catch a transmission already in progress you will not see the Unit ID.
In some cases where a second party responds to a transmission before the channel is released, you will not see the second party's Unit ID and will continue to see the first party's Unit ID.

This only works for the above type systems, which are digital systems. MDC signalling, the four character thing, is associated with analog systems. It is a (and forgive me if I use the wrong term) a data packet that comes either at the beginning or ending of the transmission. Some systems choose to have that at the beginning, others choose to have it at the end.

 

[garys]

This will work fine in the circumstances the OP presents. I have the NH State Police system set up a one channel P25 trunks and it displays the unit IDs.

The only thing I would add is that he would have to set up each channel as a separate site.

To the OP, what do they do about counties that are part P25 and part analog? Cheshire County comes to mind.

The following comes from the BCD396XT firmware update page:

Using the Unit ID Feature

The Unit ID (UID) feature lets you see the unit ID of the radio currently transmitting on Motorola, EDACS, and APCO P25 systems. To see the Unit ID, you need to first turn on the global Unit ID option in the Settings menu.

Press MENU.
Scroll to SETTINGS and press E/yes.
Scroll to Disp. Unit ID and press E/yes.
Scroll to On and press E/yes.

When turned on, in Display Modes 1 and 2 the scanner will alternate the current channel information and the Unit ID information in Line 2 of the display. In Display Mode 3, the scanner will display the Unit ID information on Line 3 of the display.

If you program a Unit ID into a channel, you can assign an Alpha to the Unit ID. You program a Unit ID just like an iCall ID (press ./no then the Unit ID).

Notes:

In some cases where you catch a transmission already in progress you will not see the Unit ID.
In some cases where a second party responds to a transmission before the channel is released, you will not see the second party's Unit ID and will continue to see the first party's Unit ID.

This only works for the above type systems, which are digital systems. MDC signalling, the four character thing, is associated with analog systems. It is a (and forgive me if I use the wrong term) a data packet that comes either at the beginning or ending of the transmission. Some systems choose to have that at the beginning, others choose to have it at the end.