Pro95 scanning help

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10point

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I am new to scanning and have a pro 95. I am using the win95 software to program. I have my trunked frequencies on bank 0 and regular ones on bank 1. My channel 008 gets lots of activity when I just put it there manually and leave it there but when I am scanning banks 0 and 1 I am not getting near as much activity. Any ideas?
 

DickH

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10point said:
I am new to scanning and have a pro 95. I am using the win95 software to program. I have my trunked frequencies on bank 0 and regular ones on bank 1. My channel 008 gets lots of activity when I just put it there manually and leave it there but when I am scanning banks 0 and 1 I am not getting near as much activity. Any ideas?

We don't have enough info.
What system are you trying to monitor? City/County/State?
 

10point

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DickH said:
We don't have enough info.
What system are you trying to monitor? City/County/State?

It's the Tippecanoe County, Indiana trunking system.
 

raisindot

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10point said:
I am new to scanning and have a pro 95. I am using the win95 software to program. I have my trunked frequencies on bank 0 and regular ones on bank 1. My channel 008 gets lots of activity when I just put it there manually and leave it there but when I am scanning banks 0 and 1 I am not getting near as much activity. Any ideas?


Ummm, well it IS a scanner, so you should expect to "catch" fewer calls on any given frequency when you're scanning many frequencies versus when you're monitoring it in manual. One of the realities of the hobby is that the more channels you program, the more likely you are to catch the "end" of a given call than the whole conversation.

If you haven't filled the banks with frequencies or talkgroups, you may want to lock out all of the channels within the banks that are empty. This at least will make the scanning more efficient.

Suzie
 

GrayJeep

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Not hearing stuff

10point said:
I am new to scanning and have a pro 95. I am using the win95 software to program. I have my trunked frequencies on bank 0 and regular ones on bank 1. My channel 008 gets lots of activity when I just put it there manually and leave it there but when I am scanning banks 0 and 1 I am not getting near as much activity. Any ideas?

Here's a possibility-

Win95 can program the radio to try to receive freqs that it really can't. In such a case the radio will not scan the "wrong" frequency but will instead stop on the channel just before the "wrong" one. You can look for this by putting the radio into scan and then watching the bank indicator for whether the bank indicator goes from bank to bank happily scanning or whether it never leaves a particular bank.

If it's stuck, pushing MAN will show you the channel BEFORE the one it won't do.
The fix is to then push MAN again to move the scanner to the channel it won't do and then manually (I said MANUALLY) re-program that channel to what you think you want it to be. When manually programming the radio it will automatically shift itself to the nearest allowable frequency and subsequently it will correctly scan that channel.

If you've programmed several "wrong" freqs you may have to do this several times to find all the problem channels.

An alternative is to lockout the suspected problem channels before programming them and see if scanning progresses correctly.
 

10point

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NW0U said:
Here's a possibility-

Win95 can program the radio to try to receive freqs that it really can't. In such a case the radio will not scan the "wrong" frequency but will instead stop on the channel just before the "wrong" one. You can look for this by putting the radio into scan and then watching the bank indicator for whether the bank indicator goes from bank to bank happily scanning or whether it never leaves a particular bank.

If it's stuck, pushing MAN will show you the channel BEFORE the one it won't do.
The fix is to then push MAN again to move the scanner to the channel it won't do and then manually (I said MANUALLY) re-program that channel to what you think you want it to be. When manually programming the radio it will automatically shift itself to the nearest allowable frequency and subsequently it will correctly scan that channel.

If you've programmed several "wrong" freqs you may have to do this several times to find all the problem channels.

An alternative is to lockout the suspected problem channels before programming them and see if scanning progresses correctly.

I don't think it is stuck on a bank. I do have some frequencies programmed in that appear to not be used anymore. Could that be causing a problem? I am going to delete those out and try it again tonight after work.
 

n2mdk

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Is everything set up for Trunking is the Bank Type set to Mot which it needs to be as well as each frequency Rx Mode set to Mot and not FM.
It looks to be a mixed Analog and Digital system but it looks like only one TGID is listed as D/Digital most seem to be A/Analog
This is the system I take it http://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?sid=313
 

10point

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n2mdk said:
Is everything set up for Trunking is the Bank Type set to Mot which it needs to be as well as each frequency Rx Mode set to Mot and not FM.
It looks to be a mixed Analog and Digital system but it looks like only one TGID is listed as D/Digital most seem to be A/Analog
This is the system I take it http://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?sid=313

It appears that I have everything set up correctly for trunking.
 

N8IAA

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10point said:
I am new to scanning and have a pro 95. I am using the win95 software to program. I have my trunked frequencies on bank 0 and regular ones on bank 1. My channel 008 gets lots of activity when I just put it there manually and leave it there but when I am scanning banks 0 and 1 I am not getting near as much activity. Any ideas?

It seems that your county has moved to a trunked system. Go to the database, click on IN, click on your county, click on Tippecanoe County system 1. Put the control channels in red in the scanner. Use a bank that is open. In Win95, click on the box that says CONV, a drop down window appears, click on MOT. Go down to where the frequencies are put in. In the RX mode box, doubleclick to get the dropdown box, click on MOT(all freqs in red). Put in the CC's for your county(yes it is P-25, but it is mixed mode. This means that for right now, everything is in analog and can be monitored). On the right hand side of the screen, there is an area to put in your TGID's. This way you can monitor only those that are of interest to you. Do not have any conventional frequencies in the same bank as your trunked system. You should only have three frequencies programmed in in trunk mode.
HTH,
Larry
 
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10point

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N8IAA said:
It seems that your county has moved to a trunked system. Go to the database, click on IN, click on your county, click on Tippecanoe County system 1. Put the control channels in red in the scanner. Use a bank that is open. In Win95, click on the box that says CONV, a drop down window appears, click on MOT. Go down to where the frequencies are put in. In the RX mode box, doubleclick to get the dropdown box, click on MOT(all freqs in red). Put in the CC's for your county(yes it is P-25, but it is mixed mode. This means that for right now, everything is in analog and can be monitored). On the right hand side of the screen, there is an area to put in your TGID's. This way you can monitor only those that are of interest to you. Do not have any conventional frequencies in the same bank as your trunked system. You should only have three frequencies programmed in in trunk mode.
HTH,
Larry

I follow what you are saying but shouldn't I put in all 8 frequencies and not just the 3 red ones? The one I am getting a lot of activity on is 867.71250 which is not in red. What are the CC's? Also, I do not have any of the convential frequenices in the same bank as my trunked ones.
 

N8IAA

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10point said:
I follow what you are saying but shouldn't I put in all 8 frequencies and not just the 3 red ones? The one I am getting a lot of activity on is 867.71250 which is not in red. What are the CC's? Also, I do not have any of the convential frequenices in the same bank as my trunked ones.
The ones in red are the Control Channels. It is probably showing VC (voice channel)next to the frequency when it comes up. The 95 is a CC scanner, so you only need to put in those three frequencies. Used to have a 95, now I have a 97 and a 96. Make sure the bank is in MOT mode and the frequencies are in MOT mode also. This will insure that you are in the proper trunk mode. If you want to hear more, leave the bank in OPEN mode. On the same line as the bank #, bank tag, is a box that if you check it will be in the CLOSED mode. Leave it unchecked to hear more activity in your county.
Larry
 
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10point

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N8IAA said:
The ones in red are the Control Channels. It is probably showing VC (voice channel)next to the frequency when it comes up. The 95 is a CC scanner, so you only need to put in those three frequencies. Used to have a 95, now I have a 97 and a 96. Make sure the bank is in MOT mode and the frequencies are in MOT mode also.
Larry

I don't have the scanner here with me right now but I believe you are right that it shows VC.
 

gmclam

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PRO-95 & trunking

10point said:
I am new to scanning and have a pro 95. ... I have my trunked frequencies on bank 0 and regular ones on bank 1. My channel 008 gets lots of activity when I just put it there manually and leave it there but when I am scanning banks 0 and 1 I am not getting near as much activity. Any ideas?
That sounds normal to me. However, I'd like to clarify that you only have ONE trunked system programmed into bank 0. That means most of the 100 channels in bank 0 are currently not used.

By your opening statement, channel 008 is one of the trunked frequencies of your local system. I strongly suggest that you read your owner's manual, and the WIKI section here at RR regarding TRUNKING. Once you understand the basics of how trunking works, you will understand what you are seeing.

I see this issue come up a lot. People try to listen (even if just as a test) to a TRUNKED system in MANUAL mode. It does not work that way with these scanners. Scanners such as the PRO-95 are designed to monitor the active control channel and switch to desired voice channels. Therefore, when scanning, the PRO-95 will always display the voice channel on line 2 and the control channel (text or frequency) on line 3 with the "scanner's channel number" of where you've programmed the control channel.

Interestingly enough small trunked systems could function with just 2 frequencies; one for the control channel and one for voice. As long as everyone does not talk at once, all voice COULD be on the same frequency. So with your scanner in MAN mode on that frequency, it will appear to be very busy. In SCAN mode, there are a lot of other factors that have to be set correctly - is the bank open or closed, are talkgroups programmed, are sub groups turned on, are talkgroups locked out, are all frequencies set to the correct mode (which would never be FM), is the mode of the bank set correctly .... ????

Bottom line; while you can listen to conventional channels in MAN mode, you can not really listen to trunked conversations that same way. In order for the PRO-95 to track trunked conversations, it must be in SCAN mode (and all that stuff above set correctly).

I follow what you are saying but shouldn't I put in all 8 frequencies and not just the 3 red ones?
You only "need" the ONE frequency which is the current control channel. The problem is that they switch the active control channel from time to time. I always program in all frequencies for a TRS, but I lock out those which are never control channels because it slows down scanning (by a minute amount).

The one I am getting a lot of activity on is 867.71250 which is not in red.
Is this VOICE activity or DATA (control channel) activity? If it is VOICE activity, IGNORE IT. The scanner only needs the active control channel. Paying attention to where the voice activity is will only confuse the issue.

What are the CC's? Also, I do not have any of the convential frequenices in the same bank as my trunked ones.
You can find the active CC yourself. Go to MAN mode and step through each channel. You'll know the CC when you find it. It won't be voice. The last line of the display will eventually tell you it is a control channel. Then press SCAN to listen to what's going on.
 
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