NWIN and pro96com questions

[SquierStrat]

Hello. Ive been listening to the NWIN ceder bluffs tower since it became active and havent heard very much out of it. So i decided to connect my bcd396xt to pro96com and let it do its thing. I started it last night, and checked on it when i got home from work today, and saw a good amount of activity. The "affiliation log" had the most amount of activity and "affiliation list" had a decent amount too. Im basically wondering what all of this means.

Is the affiliation log basicallty a log of all activity that happens? like when i see talkgroup XXXX at a certain time, should i have heard audio from that talkgroup on my scanner, at that time? (assuming i have it set to
"id search")
And the affiliation list looks like it has the same information as the log, except less happenings. What is this?
Ive attatched pics of both screens for reference....

 

[realgeo]

Top of the afternoon, Squier!

I've been doing the same thing on the Plattsmouth and Neb City towers, collecting TGIDs and radio IDs, trying to at least figure out what unknown TGIDs belong with what general group (NSP, DOR, G&P, etc) on the system!

Actually, Affiliations are only an indication that a particular radio has announced it's presence on a particular Talkgroup. For example, when a user turns his radio on and selects a "channel", the radio talks to the system and requests access to the TG. If successful, the radio is considered "affiliated". In the IT world, this would be the same thing as logging on to, say, your Gmail account. You'll also see Unaffiliations as well - when a radio leaves a particular TG (logs out).

An affiliation doesn't mean that the radio has done any talking - it's just "logged on" to the system and ready to do something.

The Affiliation Log, I believe, is kind of a "raw" listing of events, where the Affiliation List will indicate just TGIDs and the radio that last affiliated, I believe!

The Grants tab is what you want to look at - that'll tell you who's been talking on the system. You'll also see CWID messages on that tab, too, indicating when the system is transmitting the analog ID. And, you'll see radios doing the PvtData thing as well - lots of that on Plattsmouth and Neb City both.

To get the Grants tab to show-up, click Edit | Screen Settings and then click the Grants tab and click the checkbox to enable it!

Hope that helps!

73

 

[mikey60]

The Affiliation List is a list of the currently affiliated radios on that site. That assumes that no affiliation or unaffiliation messages were missed on the control channel data.

The affiliation log screen shows all affiliations and unaffiliations that have been received by the program.

Mike

 

[realgeo]

The Affiliation List is a list of the currently affiliated radios on that site. That assumes that no affiliation or unaffiliation messages were missed on the control channel data.

The affiliation log screen shows all affiliations and unaffiliations that have been received by the program.

Mike

Hey, Mike!

Thanks for the explanation! So, if I'm watching that Affiliation List screen while not having any interruption in CC data, would I see RIDs come and go as a result of affiliating and de-affiliating, then? Kind of like watching TG's come active and go away on the main activity screen, eh?

THANK YOU for a nice program like Pro96Com! We all thoroughly enjoy the fruits of your labor!

73

 

[mikey60]

Yes. With good decode, over time the list will be fairly accurate as to which radios are affiliated with the site being monitored. It will probably never be 100% accurate, but it can be fairly close.

Mike

 

[SquierStrat]

Thank you for the input guys! I was worried about seeing all that activity and not hearing any audio out of the scanner, but it makes much more sense now. I opened the "channel grant trace" tab and it has remained blank the entire time.

 

[SquierStrat]

another question: does it matter if the scanner is scanning the system, or just parked on the control channel? does one work better then the other?

 

[realgeo]

another question: does it matter if the scanner is scanning the system, or just parked on the control channel? does one work better then the other?

Hey, Squier!

To get the most "complete" decoding, I would park the scanner on the Control Channel since it's the only one that broadcasts data about Grants and other activities on the system.

On a site with a _very_ low amount of voice traffic, it may not make a difference since the scanner would be sitting on the CC most of the time anyway. However, if you do have a lot of voice happening, your scanner is going to switch away from the CC each time a voice conversation happens, thus depriving Pro96Com of data during that time.

Of course, the flip-side of just parking the scanner on the CC for Pro96Com's sake deprives one of the pleasure of listening to actual conversations!

It's all a question of how much data you want to gather!

Are you hearing any increase in Troop A activity on either Omaha or Cedar Bluffs?

73