New Scanner ?

[Watchman1]

My local law enforcement has recently installed a new radio system and the frequencies are still the same. When my old scanner locks on a call all I hear is a motorboat sound. Do I need a digital scanner or is it just scrambled ? My old scanner is a BC 100XLT.

 

[davewhall29]

According to your location (Waynesboro, TN) I looked up Wayne County in the DB:

Wayne County, Tennessee (TN) Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference

The DB shows that the frequencies have been switched to DMR which is Digital Mobile Radio, which means it cannot be picked up with just a scanner. Not even a digital scanner. You will need a software program such as DSD and a discriminator tap in order to receive the voice traffic on the frequencies.

 

[Watchman1]

Thanks for the reply. I will have to see what I can do. Do you recommend anything easily available ?

 

[davewhall29]

Thanks for the reply. I will have to see what I can do. Do you recommend anything easily available ?

Easily available? Short answer...No.

You have 2 choices:

1.) Spend $$$ on a TRBO radio and then you will have to find all the slots and color codes to program it to hear, which will not be easy to do unless you know someone who programs the radios the department uses;
2.) Use DSD or a similar digital voice decoding software, with an appropriate scanner. Then you will have to probably use a discriminator tap, which means you will have to open up the scanner and modify it internally.
Check out the Wiki pages on the DSD:

Digital Speech Decoder (software package) - The RadioReference Wiki

and discriminator tap:

Discriminator output - The RadioReference Wiki

for more info on those topics.

 

[mikewazowski]

Easily available? Short answer...No.

You have 2 choices:

1.) Spend $$$ on a TRBO radio and then you will have to find all the slots and color codes to program it to hear, which will not be easy to do unless you know someone who programs the radios the department uses

or run DMRDecode which will give you the timelost, colour code and group information for free.

All it takes is a discriminator tapped scanner.

The only cost would be the radio, programming cable and Motorola CPS. Still expensive.

 

[jaspence]

DMR decoding

There are other DMR radios beside Motorola available that will do the job. I have a vhf and an uhf Hytera, and the software is around $50. I use them mostly for amateur frequencies, but they each cover the full frequency range needed for public service radio. There is also a new radio available, model cs700 that sells for about $285 from ebay and even less from Connect Systems. It seems to have favorable reviews, especially at the price it sells for. Software is available.

 

[TRamrod38]

or run DMRDecode which will give you the timelost, colour code and group information for free.

All it takes is a discriminator tapped scanner.

The only cost would be the radio, programming cable and Motorola CPS. Still expensive.

What model or type scanner does it take to put a discriminator tap in it to hear TRBO.

 

[davewhall29]

What model or type scanner does it take to put a discriminator tap in it to hear TRBO.

There are several different ones you can use. See my link above about discriminator outputs to see a list.

 

[INDY72]

And as long as they are not running encryption, you will be rolling pretty cheaply, and relatively simply.