Received a uniden bct8 for xmas and have been reading the manual which i will need to read over and over I live in edgewater fl. and was wondering how to program for 3 diff police dept in my area A.Port orange Fl B New Smyrna Beach Fl.C Edgewater Fl. looking at the frequency list all use a shared system or I guess what they call a trunked system so i was trying to figure out how you can tell each dept when they all are sharing freq i was wondering what importance the control freg plays and waht banks could i use for seperating the 3 police depts if i can any help on this would be greatly appreciated because right now just using the pre programmed freqs for pol if you can help please send me info at
rvcrazy2@aol.com again thanks i think this site is the best for newbie help
Here is a simple explanation of how trunking works.
Motorola Trunking:
The object of trunking is to allow many users to share a relatively few frequencies.
A trunking system is controlled by a computer. Information (data) is exchanged between the system radios and the computer on a control channel, sometimes called a data channel. It sounds like a strong buzz.
A large system can have up to 28 freqs., 4 of which may be used as control channels. The control channel may be changed once a day or as often as the programmer decides. Some scanners need only the control channels to track an entire system. Just put in the 4 Control Channels.
Each group of users (Fire, Police, etc.) is assigned TALK GROUPS. In a Motorola Type II system, the most common type, TGs are usually in 32 number steps starting with 16 and going up to 65536; 16, 48, 80 --- 4656, 4688, 4720 --- 28944, 28976, etc. System radios can have more than 100 TGs programmed into them.
After all the freqs. have been entered and it is "trunking", the Banks become SCAN LISTS where you enter the Talk Groups you want to hear.
Use the Talk Group numbers in the DEC column, not in the HEX column.
When a user pushes the talk button on his radio, data is sent to the computer. The computer chooses an unused freq. and sends that data to all the radios using the TG of the originating unit. This all happens in a fraction of a second and it happens EVERY TIME a radio is used.
EXAMPLE:
Fire Dispatch calling Engine 4 (TG 4528 on 856.7125)
Engine 4 answering Dispatch (TG 4528 on 852.2625)
Respond to 73 Elm Street (TG 4528 on 855.9625)
Engine 4 responding (TG 4528 on 851.6375)
If you have entered TG 4528 into your scanner, it will decode the control channel data and change your scanner freqs. to follow the conversation on TG 4528.
This should get you started, but you should read the manual carefully. You may need to read it several times.
EDACS and LTR systems use the same principles, but they can not do Control Channel Only trunking, the TG numbering is different and the frequencies must be entered into specified channels in the scanner.
