Hey all.
Bitten by the bug I am; I now have three computers running T4Win (and/or Trunkito at times). I have a few questions to ask the group and things to observe about T4Win's behavior that I thought I'd share.
First, I'll describe my systems, etc.
One is an IBM Thinkpad 600 laptop with 512mb of RAM, a 400mhz Pentium processor, an 80gb HDD, the typical IBM sound card (MWave/CS4232 if I recall). This runs Win98 SE.
Another is an HP Pavilion zd7010 laptop with 512mb of RAM, a 2.7ghz Pentium processor, a 40gb HDD, and onboard Conexant AMC Audio. This runs XP Home.
The third machine is a cobbled-together beast with 64mb of RAM, a 266 mhz AMD processor, a total of about 2.4 gigs of HDD space (whatever non-wrecked drives I could find hanging around), and an old Sound Blaster 16.
Two radios are discriminator-tapped; one is a Motorola Maxtrac 800mhz, another is a BC245. I can also bring audio off my UHF MT2000 with the 3.5mm audio adapter, or my BC250D or BC796D (the latter of which may get tapped soon).
Most of the observations here will apply to any of the above 3 computers hooked up to the BC245, most often roaming and/or stationary near to the trunk sites.
Oh yes, I'm using the latest version of T4Win publicly available as well.
And now, my comments:
I started out primarily listening to a Motorola Smartzone system. Once I determined most of the data for it, I moved on to all the other (in-range) systems in the Alberta section of the Trunked Radio Database. So I have two EDACS96 systems, a bunch of LTR, several Motorola systems, and ultimately, a bunch of MPT1327 systems - though not through T4Win for now, of course.
Regarding EDACS - there are two systems very close to one another in my area, both of which are broadcasting sysid 1 site 0. One is 20 frequencies, the other 5. I tried several ideas to separate these systems as far as the computer was concerned, such as giving them different sysid's or site numbers of my own making; naming them differently; etc. Unfortunately it seems that regardless of what I do, if I keep both systems in the XML file, the popup box will only ever give me the first one to pick from when an EDACS signal is discovered. I have all of these systems stored in one huge XML file for ease of transport; should I resign myself to putting the second EDACS system in another file for now, or is there a solution I'm not seeing?
Also in the EDACS end of things, I'm encountering a discrepancy between the fleet ID provided by T4Win and the fleet ID my BC250D obtains. For example, one talkgroup in particular, decimal 292, shows up as 02-036 in T4Win, but on my BC250D, the conversation takes place consistently on 02-044. All of the talkgroups I noted today when viewing as Fleet in EDACS mode as opposed to decimal were significantly off. Am I doing something wrong? I'm a fair rookie when it comes to EDACS and in fact anything not Mot II Smartzone. I accept I could be misunderstanding a lot..
No matter what I did, I could not get the program to track an LTR system today. Is there support for it at this time?
When I happened across an MPT1327 signal by accident the other day, with the scanner in Search mode and the decoder running in T4Win, the program simply exited to the desktop immediately upon receipt of the signal. I don't know if that's intended or not, but it didn't seem like it.
I've come to the conclusion that a number of the systems I (and apparently everyone else in the area) thought were Type II Motorola are actually either Type I or Type IIi. One system in particular, I noted the "Type" (status bit) column populating with a different value almost every time someone keyed up - such as "unused" or "coded emergency patch". Now, this part isn't really T4Win related, I don't think, but if I have captured as many Type II IDs as possible (with status bits off, so obtaining IDs such as 81, 374, etc), is there any way for me to try to guess at their Type I equivalents, and/or the proper fleet map?
I noticed last night that T4Win sorts systems in the Database tab first by their type alphabetically (EDACS96, LTR, Motorola, and MPT1327, in my case), then by sysid/site, then by name. Is there a way to change that - or, if not, can we put it on the list? I'd much prefer to have the systems I monitor more often at the top of the list than in the middle. Perhaps a 'sort' field like exists on the TRSDB could be considered.
The color codes - is anyone else having troubles with them? I Googled for a site that could provide me with hex values for colors, and came up with this. As it turns out, the colors in T4Win seem to be exactly the numerical inverse of what is shown on the page (i.e. red is 0000FF and blue is FF0000, not the other way around). When I created the XML file (from scratch - don't ask), I couldn't remember if there was an '0x' before the color value, so I put one in just in case. Did I inadvertently invert my choices, or is the webpage (or T4Win) wrong?
On the Smartzone system, the frequencies are intended to show up in their respective sites as far as I understand it, but on occasion one gets a few in the overall system entry (i.e. the one above Site 1). Is there a purpose to having frequencies show up in the overall system entry? I appreciate that the program obviously can't know what system it has until it has it, but one would think that site 0 on a Smartzone system would have 0 frequencies.
In the same vein, the system creates a new EDACS96 entry every time it happens across the control channel again, regardless if I'm trying to pick (one of) the existing system(s).
I know MPT1327 isn't being supported yet, but will there be a way to share talkgroup and radio ID information across systems? Maybe I should back up and ask another question, actually. Running Trunkito, I have found several systems that are sharing the same "system ID" in my local area. A public safety system has IDs 8969, 8977, and 8985, and yet the hospital security in another area has 8969, 8977, 8985, and 8993. They are for sure not connected in any way. Another trio of licenses owned by a radio rental company are broadcasting sysid's 8985 and 0081 (I'm not in range of the tower for the third site). Are there any MPT1327 gurus around who can explain what the deal is - are the sysid's only there to be relative to one another in a certain system? For the T4Win related part of this question, I'm absolutely sure that the three-site public safety system is going to share radio IDs and talkgroups. I'm reasonably certain that the four-site hospital group will share at least talkgroups if not radio IDs. If the MPT1327 systems don't operate as a "site 0/site 1/site 2" setup like a Smartzone system does, will there be a way to maintain the talkgroups and radio IDs across the system without having to update three (or however many) sets of lists?
The last bit I have for now regards Motorola channel numbers. I now have three lists which conflict each other - the official documentation for one trunk system, the numbers shown in T4Win, and the numbers shown on the Batlabs site. Is there a common channel numbering system? What I have is, 866.0375 is shown as channel 602 from the documents, channel 601 in T4Win, and channel 604 on the Batlabs list. T4Win seems to run just fine using the channel numbers it has. So I guess I'm more confused than anything else.
Hopefully that isn't too much for people to absorb, and someone will be able to answer the questions. Thanks!
Bitten by the bug I am; I now have three computers running T4Win (and/or Trunkito at times). I have a few questions to ask the group and things to observe about T4Win's behavior that I thought I'd share.
First, I'll describe my systems, etc.
One is an IBM Thinkpad 600 laptop with 512mb of RAM, a 400mhz Pentium processor, an 80gb HDD, the typical IBM sound card (MWave/CS4232 if I recall). This runs Win98 SE.
Another is an HP Pavilion zd7010 laptop with 512mb of RAM, a 2.7ghz Pentium processor, a 40gb HDD, and onboard Conexant AMC Audio. This runs XP Home.
The third machine is a cobbled-together beast with 64mb of RAM, a 266 mhz AMD processor, a total of about 2.4 gigs of HDD space (whatever non-wrecked drives I could find hanging around), and an old Sound Blaster 16.
Two radios are discriminator-tapped; one is a Motorola Maxtrac 800mhz, another is a BC245. I can also bring audio off my UHF MT2000 with the 3.5mm audio adapter, or my BC250D or BC796D (the latter of which may get tapped soon).
Most of the observations here will apply to any of the above 3 computers hooked up to the BC245, most often roaming and/or stationary near to the trunk sites.
Oh yes, I'm using the latest version of T4Win publicly available as well.
And now, my comments:
I started out primarily listening to a Motorola Smartzone system. Once I determined most of the data for it, I moved on to all the other (in-range) systems in the Alberta section of the Trunked Radio Database. So I have two EDACS96 systems, a bunch of LTR, several Motorola systems, and ultimately, a bunch of MPT1327 systems - though not through T4Win for now, of course.
Regarding EDACS - there are two systems very close to one another in my area, both of which are broadcasting sysid 1 site 0. One is 20 frequencies, the other 5. I tried several ideas to separate these systems as far as the computer was concerned, such as giving them different sysid's or site numbers of my own making; naming them differently; etc. Unfortunately it seems that regardless of what I do, if I keep both systems in the XML file, the popup box will only ever give me the first one to pick from when an EDACS signal is discovered. I have all of these systems stored in one huge XML file for ease of transport; should I resign myself to putting the second EDACS system in another file for now, or is there a solution I'm not seeing?
Also in the EDACS end of things, I'm encountering a discrepancy between the fleet ID provided by T4Win and the fleet ID my BC250D obtains. For example, one talkgroup in particular, decimal 292, shows up as 02-036 in T4Win, but on my BC250D, the conversation takes place consistently on 02-044. All of the talkgroups I noted today when viewing as Fleet in EDACS mode as opposed to decimal were significantly off. Am I doing something wrong? I'm a fair rookie when it comes to EDACS and in fact anything not Mot II Smartzone. I accept I could be misunderstanding a lot..
No matter what I did, I could not get the program to track an LTR system today. Is there support for it at this time?
When I happened across an MPT1327 signal by accident the other day, with the scanner in Search mode and the decoder running in T4Win, the program simply exited to the desktop immediately upon receipt of the signal. I don't know if that's intended or not, but it didn't seem like it.
I've come to the conclusion that a number of the systems I (and apparently everyone else in the area) thought were Type II Motorola are actually either Type I or Type IIi. One system in particular, I noted the "Type" (status bit) column populating with a different value almost every time someone keyed up - such as "unused" or "coded emergency patch". Now, this part isn't really T4Win related, I don't think, but if I have captured as many Type II IDs as possible (with status bits off, so obtaining IDs such as 81, 374, etc), is there any way for me to try to guess at their Type I equivalents, and/or the proper fleet map?
I noticed last night that T4Win sorts systems in the Database tab first by their type alphabetically (EDACS96, LTR, Motorola, and MPT1327, in my case), then by sysid/site, then by name. Is there a way to change that - or, if not, can we put it on the list? I'd much prefer to have the systems I monitor more often at the top of the list than in the middle. Perhaps a 'sort' field like exists on the TRSDB could be considered.
The color codes - is anyone else having troubles with them? I Googled for a site that could provide me with hex values for colors, and came up with this. As it turns out, the colors in T4Win seem to be exactly the numerical inverse of what is shown on the page (i.e. red is 0000FF and blue is FF0000, not the other way around). When I created the XML file (from scratch - don't ask), I couldn't remember if there was an '0x' before the color value, so I put one in just in case. Did I inadvertently invert my choices, or is the webpage (or T4Win) wrong?
On the Smartzone system, the frequencies are intended to show up in their respective sites as far as I understand it, but on occasion one gets a few in the overall system entry (i.e. the one above Site 1). Is there a purpose to having frequencies show up in the overall system entry? I appreciate that the program obviously can't know what system it has until it has it, but one would think that site 0 on a Smartzone system would have 0 frequencies.
In the same vein, the system creates a new EDACS96 entry every time it happens across the control channel again, regardless if I'm trying to pick (one of) the existing system(s).
I know MPT1327 isn't being supported yet, but will there be a way to share talkgroup and radio ID information across systems? Maybe I should back up and ask another question, actually. Running Trunkito, I have found several systems that are sharing the same "system ID" in my local area. A public safety system has IDs 8969, 8977, and 8985, and yet the hospital security in another area has 8969, 8977, 8985, and 8993. They are for sure not connected in any way. Another trio of licenses owned by a radio rental company are broadcasting sysid's 8985 and 0081 (I'm not in range of the tower for the third site). Are there any MPT1327 gurus around who can explain what the deal is - are the sysid's only there to be relative to one another in a certain system? For the T4Win related part of this question, I'm absolutely sure that the three-site public safety system is going to share radio IDs and talkgroups. I'm reasonably certain that the four-site hospital group will share at least talkgroups if not radio IDs. If the MPT1327 systems don't operate as a "site 0/site 1/site 2" setup like a Smartzone system does, will there be a way to maintain the talkgroups and radio IDs across the system without having to update three (or however many) sets of lists?
The last bit I have for now regards Motorola channel numbers. I now have three lists which conflict each other - the official documentation for one trunk system, the numbers shown in T4Win, and the numbers shown on the Batlabs site. Is there a common channel numbering system? What I have is, 866.0375 is shown as channel 602 from the documents, channel 601 in T4Win, and channel 604 on the Batlabs list. T4Win seems to run just fine using the channel numbers it has. So I guess I'm more confused than anything else.
Hopefully that isn't too much for people to absorb, and someone will be able to answer the questions. Thanks!
