Non stop receive bars going, like a CB radio,SDS200

[MarkBradley]

Hello, what is with the bars for the receive on the Uniden SDS200, it looks like it getting a signal and no one is coming through receive? Is this normal, flaw, am I missing something. Totally confused with this one. Anybody know what it is, or is this normal, swear it looks like talking, like a CB meter. Thank you for your time in advance....Mark

 

[ofd8001]

Depending on what you are trying to monitor, this could be normal behavior.

If you are monitoring only trunked radio systems, your scanner has landed on a control channel for the system. It stays on each site for a couple of seconds to check for active transmissions on the things you have turned on, such as Service Types, channels (if you created Favorites Lists), etc. If there is an active transmission, called a Channel Grant, the scanner goes to the voice channel assigned to that transmission and you should begin to hear the transmission. If there are no transmissions, the scanner moves on to the next site, or system and continues the process until it starts all over again.

 

[jonwienke]

That's normal for trunked systems. The control channel broadcasts continuously, even if no user is talking.

 

[MarkBradley]

Thank you both for the input, I do have a bunch of favorites loaded, with plenty of controls channels. I can see it doing that, actually I just loaded a bunch of Trunking id's and their control channels. I see it more when I mess with the Discover settings, and everything is opened up using the Discover setting. OK, thanks, it makes sense now, you guys have many happy scanning days, gonna go and mess with the scanner. Much appreciated, lots to learn on this scanner. Have a great day and stay safe.

 

[tvengr]

If you are monitoring the Lake County Public Safety trunked system, you should see a frequency of 774.71875 when nothing is being received. That is the control channel frequency. Many of the law enforcement ops talkgroups are encrypted which no scanner can receive. The dispatch talkgroups are open. Lake County PD is OK to receive. If you see a Mode of "TE", the "T" stands for TDMA (P25 Phase 2) and the capital "E" means full encryption. Here is a link to the Lake County Public Safety trunked system: Lake County Public Safety Trunking System, Countywide, Indiana - Scanner Frequencies