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maudclapet

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Thanks hertzian for your quick and excellant explanation of moving object from one list to another, I haven't tried it yet but I will today.

New question---

Is there a list out there for understanding the termonology when you print out the frequiencies and they use WEM CAR,GRVFD,DPW/PD/FX,MARC3,WOTAC2,WISPERN etc- This is all Greek to me and I don't know what they mean. Please advise

Also wondering if there is a conversion chart for Motorola PL out there that I could print out? Any help is greatly appreciated. Please advise

Thanks again for all the assistance
 

satosi

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Those look like alpha tag abbreviations.
"WEM CAR" would be "WEM Car" where "WEM" is probably an abbreviation of some city or town. It is a frequency or talkgroup used for car-to-car communications.
"GRVFD" would probably be "GRV Fire Department"; "GRV" is a town name, probably something like "Greenville" expanded.
"WOTAC2" would be "WO Tactical 2" (don't know what WO is). It's a channel used for tactical operations.
 

nanZor

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Satosi is right - these alpha tags are convenient descriptions which you can change to your liking.

If an "official" channel agency designation is known, such as "channel 17" or "blue 3" for example, I'll put that into my alpha tag as well. That way when a call goes out to change frequencies to the official designation, I can easily go there manually. For example, if I have tagged an object as "Mobile Tac" for my own purposes, but units in the field have an official name for it, such as "Blue 1", I'll incorporate both the official and personal designation:

Ex:
BLUE1 Mobile Tac

CTCSS/PL chart:
About half-way down this page you'll see the Motorola designations for "ZA", "YB" etc if that is what you are referencing:

Continuous Tone-Coded Squelch System - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Be sure that the list of freqs you are given is actually up to date! Agencies may have changed, so you may want to let the Pro-106 confirm it first. When programming, you can tell the scanner to use:

SQ Mode: CTCSS
SQ CODE: SEARCH

Now when it stops on frequency, you can actually confirm the PL/CTCSS code and then go back in and reprogram with the specific frequency if you want.

Note: The very last paragraph of the WikiPedia entry for CTCSS usage is fantastic! The question for you is - do you REALLY need those PL tones to distinguish between differing groups on the same frequency, or are you trying to cover up an interference issue?

If you are doing neither, just leaving the scanner in SQ Mode=CTCSS and SQ CODE=Search is just fine without having to program in the specific pl tone later.

I've found over the years that using PL for its intended purpose is fine, but using it to band-aid over interference is foolish. Fix the interference if you can! :)
 

maudclapet

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Rudolph Wis.
Questions on Pl conversion chart & moving objects

Thanks onece again your replys are most helpful, I do understand both of these a lot better. Thanks again
 
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