Probably a dumb question about trunking but...

[del1964]

Was wondering if I took a P25 Motorola trunked system (Indiana SAFE-T) and placed all those trunked frequencies from a site into a "Conventional" system in FreeScan with my BCD396XT what would happen? First of all, I'm assuming I'd have to make the voice channel as "all" as opposed to Digital only or Analog only. I'm basically wanting to experiment with frequencies I found using Unitrunker that do not show up on RR database. Wanting to see if the scanner finds anything on them especially any ENC communications since the scanner doesn't stop on them but Unitrunker tells me are there. Just messin' 'round. Also assuming that the scanner would stop on the control channel....but I'd lock it out. Anyone ever tried that?

 

[UPMan]

With the only exception being that SAFE-T is not a P25 system (it is a Motorola Type II system with a mix of P25 and Analog voice channels), not a dumb question.

You'll hear system traffic just like we listened to back before trunk tracking scanners were available.

Not sure how the ENC traffic will sound (or if it will sound). On a true conventional channel, you wouldn't normally hear much (sometimes you might hear a blip of encrypted audio until the scanner caught the encryption flag in the data).

 

[del1964]

Tried

I tried it over lunch break just now. It worked just like you said. Stopped on the control channel frequencies with all the data noise....I locked them out (I programmed in 3 sites with all their frequencies within listening range)....and the other channels picked up traffic....except I didn't have a clue who was talking...lol because I had no TGID labels on anything....was just searching. Didn't pick up any ENC but really didn't listen long enough. I'll scan more tonight at home and see if any come up at all. Thanks for the response.

 

[kskarma]

Should work fine....

I basically do the same thing with the Motorola II system here. While I have some Trunking scanners, I also use an older RS 2005 as well. I just put the 15- 800Mz (in this case) channels in the RS scanner and each day I 'lock out' the one that is the Control Channel. They rotate through five different CC's and change about 11PM...so it's no big deal. When there is something active on a Trunked channel, I will lock that TalkGroup on one of the other scanners...and then have the RS scanning for other traffic during the activity.

Most of the time a conversation that starts on a trunked frequency will stay on that same freq. for the duration of the exchange...so it works very well. As you mentioned however, you have nothing but your ears and knowledge of the voices, protocols, addresses...etc...to help you ID who you are hearing...