need BCT8 programming help

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bchains

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I just picked up a BCT8 and am trying to get the CT HWP trunking programmed, but being a newbie I'm having trouble understanding certain terminology and knowing what to enter into the unit. Pretty complicated stuff.

Are there any good instructions/tutorials for doing this kind of programming? Or is anyone brave enough to help me out? I'm pretty excited about getting up and running.

Thanks in advance!
Bryan
New Haven
 

N1SQB

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Welcome Aboard!

Bryan!
Welcome to the greatest scanning site in the world! The Ct. State Police which is what I interpret you mean by highway patrol, is on a digital 800 mhz. Motorola Type 2 Trunked system. The BCT-8 does NOT have digital decoding capabilities. You will need something capable of decoding digital signals versus analog which is what everything else pretty much is. Both Uniden and a company called GRE make excellent choices. Its up to you. Radioshack also sells digital scanners that are made for them by GRE. The CSP is not difficult to monitor but it does require some knowlege of the system itself and a general knowlege of trunking to program the scanner. You can get all that information here on this site. Thats why I say and others agree that this IS the best scanning site in the world. Look around,ask questions and have fun. Again, welcome!

Manny/N1SQB
 
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bchains

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Thanks a lot for this info... is the trunking system (digital 800 mhz) the same for MA, NH, and/or ME HWP/State Police? I orig. purchased the BCT8 to listen in while driving back and forth to ME, but if the BCT8 won't handle this it looks like eBay for me, followed by Radio Shack. I imagine I'll be able to program whatever unit I buy at some point, but if its a nogo from the onset I'm not going to get far!
Bryan
 

KB1JHU

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The Mass State Police system is still mostly analog. I think the only area that may have digital is around Boston or the Cape area so the BCT8 should work for Mass. New Hampshire and Maine are both using VHF-hi but NH is all digital. At this point it looks like almost every law enforcement agency in NH is digital.

I used to make the trip all the time with my Pro-97 and I didn't mind not hearing CSP or NHSP. Most of my drive time was in Mass and Maine anyways.
 

bchains

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Do any of the Radio Shack or Uniden mobile scanners have that nice beartracker feature to boot? :)
 

KB1JHU

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In most cases, the beartracker feature is outdated. I think most of the frequencies it checks are what the old mobile extenders used back when most highway patrols were on low band. I'm sure there are still some places it would be useful, but probably not around here.
 
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