Montgomery county and BCT15x

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daneg

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Lancaster County pa
So I am oing to be going to montgomery county coming up but I have a question. How do I program their system? It's a Motorola Type II SmartZone.

How do I program this? I will be using freeSCAN so it should be as simple as Copy and paste right? I will be going to King of prussia
 

ka3jjz

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So I am oing to be going to montgomery county coming up but I have a question. How do I program their system? It's a Motorola Type II SmartZone.

How do I program this? I will be using freeSCAN so it should be as simple as Copy and paste right? I will be going to King of prussia

No, the newer DMA scanners really don't lend themselves well to cut and paste operations (although you can...) - the reason is that you don't have banks in the traditional sense. You have to think in terms of systems, sites and groups - and that takes some doing if you've been doing it the other way for some time.

In addition the 15x is going to be somewhat limited if you're trying to hear the County system, as it has some digital talkgroups, which it won't be able to handle. Here is the link in our database - and note that anything in blue, both here and in our wiki, is a link

Montgomery County PA Trunking System, Various, Pennsylvania - Scanner Frequencies

Any talkgroup with a mode of 'D' is digital. Anything with an 'E' is encrypted - no scanner can decode these.

If you still want to pursue this, then we have a few references to help - all of what I am about to mention is found in the following article

Programming Your Uniden Scanner - The RadioReference Wiki

Regardless of what scanner you want to use, you need to connect it via USB if you're using a newer PC without any serial ports. Our Connecting Scanners via USB article discusses this in detail.

Next is understanding DMA and the scanner itself. We have a DMA FAQ, but even better would be the Easier to Read manual. Don't try to use the Uniden manual - and there's even a printed version of the XT Easier to Read series if you are better off with that.

Next FreeScan (which works with all the Uniden DMA Scanners) has a user guide - and in there, are the hints as to how to set up the scanner before making the connection (which happens to be the reference right out of the user guide).

I would take some time to do some reading first and see if this is the way you want to go

best regards..Mike
 

daneg

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Jan 17, 2007
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307
Location
Lancaster County pa
No, the newer DMA scanners really don't lend themselves well to cut and paste operations (although you can...) - the reason is that you don't have banks in the traditional sense. You have to think in terms of systems, sites and groups - and that takes some doing if you've been doing it the other way for some time.

In addition the 15x is going to be somewhat limited if you're trying to hear the County system, as it has some digital talkgroups, which it won't be able to handle. Here is the link in our database - and note that anything in blue, both here and in our wiki, is a link

Montgomery County PA Trunking System, Various, Pennsylvania - Scanner Frequencies

Any talkgroup with a mode of 'D' is digital. Anything with an 'E' is encrypted - no scanner can decode these.

If you still want to pursue this, then we have a few references to help - all of what I am about to mention is found in the following article

Programming Your Uniden Scanner - The RadioReference Wiki

Regardless of what scanner you want to use, you need to connect it via USB if you're using a newer PC without any serial ports. Our Connecting Scanners via USB article discusses this in detail.

Next is understanding DMA and the scanner itself. We have a DMA FAQ, but even better would be the Easier to Read manual. Don't try to use the Uniden manual - and there's even a printed version of the XT Easier to Read series if you are better off with that.

Next FreeScan (which works with all the Uniden DMA Scanners) has a user guide - and in there, are the hints as to how to set up the scanner before making the connection (which happens to be the reference right out of the user guide).

I would take some time to do some reading first and see if this is the way you want to go

best regards..Mike

Thanks, yeah I know some are digital and whatnot. Although I am trying to figure out if i need to program every channel and the red channel first or what.

I hope i can get a digital scanner next year.
 

ka3jjz

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You can set this up using just the red and blue frequencies (primary and alternate CCs) and then specify Control Channel Only (CCO) trunking. You need not program all the frequencies unless there's an unknown CC out there.

I have a .996 file for my 396 that I use when I go up there for the annual Winterfest - and that's all I ever use on most trunks anyway. Keep in mind that CCO is the default for the P25 trunks

best regards..Mike
 

daneg

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Jan 17, 2007
Messages
307
Location
Lancaster County pa
You can set this up using just the red and blue frequencies (primary and alternate CCs) and then specify Control Channel Only (CCO) trunking. You need not program all the frequencies unless there's an unknown CC out there.

I have a .996 file for my 396 that I use when I go up there for the annual Winterfest - and that's all I ever use on most trunks anyway. Keep in mind that CCO is the default for the P25 trunks

best regards..Mike

Thanks!!
 

ka3jjz

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If you want an example to look at, Dan, email me at ka3jjz1 (at) verizon (dot) net and I'll send you my Winterfest profile. Mind you that I'm coming from Maryland, so I cover a lot more than just Penn, but it may help you to see an actual working example

best regards..Mike
 
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