Newbie trunking question

[lbakken]

Hi, Currently I'm using a Uniden BC80XLT to listen to local 800mHz emergency transmissions. I live in the Seattle area (Snohomish County), and I know they use a Motorola trunk system. I have a basic understanding of how trunking works (or at least I think I do). From what I've read, a Uniden BCD396XT is designed to operate with this type of system. Basically, my question is: how would my scanning experience be improved with a trunk-tracking scanner? Would the primary benefit be that I could punch in a particular talk group (for, say, the Mukilteo PD) and it would follow that talk group as the system assigned different frequencies? Would there be any difference for general scanning, where I'd be browsing fire, police, etc?
Thanks, LB

 

[qlajlu]

Basically, my question is: how would my scanning experience be improved with a trunk-tracking scanner? Would the primary benefit be that I could punch in a particular talk group (for, say, the Mukilteo PD) and it would follow that talk group as the system assigned different frequencies?

Well, you wouldn't necessarily "punch in" a talk group (or TG). Hopefully, you would have it programmed into your scanner and all you would have to do is "lock on" or "pause" on that TG and your scanner would follow the conversation regardless of the frequency assigned to carry the voice.

Would there be any difference for general scanning, where I'd be browsing fire, police, etc?

Most scanners today will allow you to program in trunked systems and conventional systems and scan them both. Once you have the agencies you want to listen to programmed into your scanner, you will not have to do anything but listen...unless you want to pause on something.

I suggest you read this discussion on trunking in the RR.Wiki. I think you will find the answers to some of your questions. There is also a video here that is pretty long, but the first half of it will give you a lot of trunking information.

 

[lbakken]

great stuff!

Good info -- thanks! Man, the software demo was super cool. There's a whole other element out there I didn't even know about. Thanks!