Newby need help reading freq. info

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gquiroz

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I am trying to obtain the freq. for Mckinney Texas police department, but when I look it up it shows several freq. and a DEC and HEX number????????
need to know what to punch into my scanner for the Police Dispatch freq. only.

Can anyone help.

Thanks
GQ
 

ka3jjz

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I don't know what county you are looking at, but from your description, you are looking at a Trunked system. In this type of system, many users share a common set of frequencies, and each set of users use what are termed talkgroups. They are expressed both in decimal (DEC) and hexidecimal (HEX) formats. With the exception of the new GRE scanners, all other scanners would use the decimal format exclusively.

There are specific kind of scanners - called trunktrackers - that can copy trunked systems, and not all trunked systems can be received. You can start by checking this link out - anything in blue is a link - and read the basics and the article on the Uniden website first.

http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Trunking

73 Mike
 

N8IAA

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gquiroz said:
I am trying to obtain the freq. for Mckinney Texas police department, but when I look it up it shows several freq. and a DEC and HEX number????????
need to know what to punch into my scanner for the Police Dispatch freq. only.Can anyone help.ThanksGQ

GQ, I am presuming that you have a trunktracking scanner. A simple analog trunktracker that does Control Channel will work. McKinney is a Motorola system that if you go to the data base and look up the four frequencies in red and enter those. If your trunktracker is not a Pro-95, 94,97,96, or Uniden 246 or newer, you will have to put in all frequencies. The talkgroups have to be put in separate.
HTH,
Larry
 

gquiroz

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Virginia, MN
I have a Uniden bc350c. The city of mckinney is in collin county.
Thanks for everyone for all your sudgestions, I will try them and see witch one works.

Thanks
GQ
 

ka3jjz

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A 350c won't do it, GQ. You will need one of the trunktrackers as listed in our wiki. The analog trunktrackers will handle Colin county and McKinney, but you will need a digital trunktracker for Frisco, which will also handle the 2 analog systems mentioned earlier.

Before you get snowed under with the details, I would encourage you to learn more about trunking using the reference given earlier. Then start asking questions...

73 Mike
 

hiegtx

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gquiroz said:
I have a Uniden bc350c. The city of mckinney is in collin county.
Thanks for everyone for all your sudgestions, I will try them and see witch one works.

Thanks
GQ
An analog trunk tracking scanner is only going to be s short time solution, even for McKinney.

McKinney is apparently considering a new radio system. See this thread in the Texas regional forum. The new system almost certainly will be digital, P25. Frisco, to your west, is already fine tuning their new P25 (digital) system, and will be moving off the Plano system when construction & system testing/setup is complete. Plano will likely convert as well. There probably will be others in the metro area convert over the next couple of years.
 

loumaag

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Katy, TX
gquiroz said:
What affortable hardware do you recommend to purchase?
The word "affordable" and digital are probably a factor of how deep your pockets are. All new digital capable (P25) scanners start a $500 and go up, although not too much more. The used market is a possibility; however, I suggest that you head over to the TX Regional forum and ask some questions there so that you may get some insight from the local guys as to what is happening (or will likely happen) in your area.
 
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