p25 digital apco 700mhz smiulcast

[yatesfire5]

my question is do all digital or p25 scanners have a control channel ?

 

[jonwienke]

A control channel is not a scanner function. It is a frequency used by P25 and other trunked systems to broadcast system information and voice channel activity to subscriber radios (and scanners if they are capable of monitoring trunked systems). A control channel tells subscriber what voice channel to use when transmitting or receiving a call. Conventional P25 does not use control channels; only voice info is transmitted.

Uniden scanners use the control channel to follow conversations on all types of trunked systems. Whistler scanners use the control channel to monitor trunked P25, but ignore the control channel on DMR and NXDN trunked systems. As a result, they will randomly skip from one conversation to another on busy systems.