When I got my BC235 in the late 1990’s I really did not yet understand trunking and how it worked. My friend Scott explained it to me as how bank teller lines worked, at first you had multiple lines, each behind one teller, and hope you don’t get stuck behind an old lady that needed to recount all the pennies in her jar. Later they introduced a single queue, and you would go up to the next available teller, much more efficient! Once he explained that concept and how to program them I really got into them. I then was asked to test the new BC245XLT and got an early pre-production unit. This was mainly because I knew the right people and I had a couple EDACS systems in the area. The 235 was Motorola trunking only, the 245 was going to add EDACS capabilities.
With the 245 I was asked to test a new software package called “TrunkTrac”. At the time there were 2 versions of TrunkTrac, one for the 245, another for the OptoScan. Both were DOS programs, but that wasn’t an issue as I had been running Probe and various other radio programming software. TrunkTrac was a great application that worked well and provided invaluable info on trunking systems. In those days there were 3 forms of trunking that were common for business and public safety, EDACS, Motorola Type I and Motorola Type II. Type II was the easiest to deal with on scanners as you did not need a fleet map (like Type I) or have the channels in a particular layout (like EDACS). Thankfully most new systems at the time were coming in as Type II.
One weekend I was scrolling around the dial and heard a control channel on a channel I had never heard before. I set up TrunkTrac and found the System ID of 6E39 and started listening to it. There were a few channel grants on one or two talkgroups, 16 and 32. Turns out these were the techs setting the system up and they conveniently talked about the system details, including the name (“Star Crystal”, a new SMR) and the channels : “Let’s fail the control over to Channel 2”, then the control channel changed. One of the guys was named John but I never found out the other guy’s name until the following Monday.
On the aforementioned Monday I had a vendor meet with a tech to move a satellite receiver from one phone line to another. He came to our station, and we took his truck to the site. He had a Motorola Spectra in his truck and the display said “6E39”. I mentioned something like “Hey, that is that new trunking system that popped up over the weekend”. He was totally taken aback and asked how I knew. I rattled off the 4 channels used, the Connect Tone and that the other tech was John. I then said I presume that you were the other one. He was amazed that I had that info as they put it on the air Saturday, tested it on Sunday and it was now Monday.
When we got back to my office, I showed him my laptop with TrunkTrac and my trusty 245XLT. We took that out to his truck; he keyed up the radio and saw the channel grant and his radio ID show up immediately on my computer. He was instantly hooked. We went back into the office, and he called Scanner Master to order a 245 of his own and the software (it was sold by Scanner Master at the time).
When he got it a few days later he met up with me and we set it all up. He was like a fat kid in a candy store, we brought out the inner geek in him with that set up.
A little while later I discovered an obscure website called Trunkedradio.net. While we all now know it as RadioReference, it was then pretty much just a database of trunked radio systems. It was pretty much lacking in Illinois information outside the Chicago area, so I decided to change that. I started documenting systems around the Chicago area and correcting anything I found that needed it. I then took a week’s vacation and drove throughout the rest of the state and searched the 800 and 900 MHz. bands for trunking systems using Trunker and an AR8000 scanner. As I found a new system, I ran TrunkTrac on it as I preferred the reports it provided over that of Trunker. Trunker however would provide live info better as when you tuned the radio it would display the new System right away instead of having to restart the program. Eventually I grew to use Trunker as it was more versatile and would work with a data slicer and a discriminator tap on almost any radio.
This trip resulted in finding around 100 new systems around the state, ranging from small single site systems at factories or office campus’s to large networked systems used by a couple different utility companies. All this info was collected and eventually submitted to Trunkedradio.net and included in the database there. I also kept a database of my own in FileMaker Pro that included much of this information.
One of the guys I regularly shared info with worked at Motorola. There they had a master database of trunking systems they built. He was able to get me a copy of it in Excel and I was able to compare it with my notes. It turned out my notes were much more accurate, or at least up to date, but it did help fill in some of the gaps. I still have these records in my files. While most of them are long gone it is still neat to go thru them for nostalgia’s sake.
Fast forward another few years and the State of Illinois and Motorola was starting to build out the StarCom21 system. Again, in the Chicago area we had a good handle on the sites and other details, but we were lacking in other areas. Terry had done a good job of figuring out the Metro East area (That is the part of Illinois on the east side of the St. Louis metro) and the Springfield stuff had been figured out by some of us but the rest of the state was still a mystery. I took another week of vacation time and took off for Downstate. This time however I was using Pro96Com and a pair of PRO-96 scanners. This was a much easier method of finding stuff as the PRO96 would display the System ID and Site Number on a P25 system directly. I used on radio to search for new frequencies with control data and then popped it into the other connected to the computer running PRO96Com. I had a pretty good idea of most of the tower locations, much of that provided by an inside source at one of the contractors. I leveraged that info with the other info we had and after a few days had every site in the state figured out. The “Neighbors” list (Actually called Adjacent Sites) was great at confirming other sites and was closely monitored. During the day I would run Pro96Com on sites until I had enough info, like neighbors, the frequency list and more. At night in the hotel, I would collate the info in my notebook, with each Site on a separate page. I would document each site on a separate page and insert new pages as new sites were found. I also had a master list of Site numbers and locations so I could tell at a glance whether I had logged a site yet.
By this time Trunkedradio.net had morphed into RadioReference of course. All my info was combined with that of others into the well-documented StarCom21 info we have here now. Terry, Kevin, Ted, Fred, Tom and others all did countless hours of work and together it is possibly the best documented statewide system in the database.
Over the years I was able to obtain large chunks of info from various sources. For the old Illinois State Police EDACS system someone faxed me a complete list of talkgroups. I don’t know who it was, but the fax came from a phone number within the State Police District Chicago HQ. We had this info within a week of the system going live for State Police use. It had been used as a single-site system a couple months before for a large Governor’s Conference and repurposed for daily use soon thereafter.
Later as Lake County was installing there own EDACS system I kept the newly licensed frequencies in a scanner until one day when the control channel popped up. I programmed a scanner for that system and over the next week listened to the techs setting it up. A few days into the setup they started testing the talkgroups and helpfully went thru the entire list, saying “I am on Patrol 1, how does it sound?” and continued all the way thru the entire list of talkgroups. We had them all documented 6 months before the system went into daily use.
During my initial experiences with mapping out EDACS systems I discovered that the “Agency-Fleet-Subfleet” (AFS”) protocol didn’t really work as initially thought. There were few EDACS systems in the US at the time and the ones monitored by the engineers may have fit mathematically into a protocol that fit the mold but as more systems came online that math did not hold. My guess was that these engineers were more familiar with older Motorola Type I systems and carried that over to EDACS systems. By the time I figured that out AFS was already in use on many scanners and data sources, so it was left in place. I let them know about this but they were already moving on to bigger and better things, so the matter was dropped.
Another neat thing about EDACS systems in the area was that they all seemed to have a specific talkgroup used by the techs that they called the “Holodeck Channel”. This tells me that the same group of techs installed these systems and that they were likely Star Trek: The Next Generation fans.
These days most of the old EDACS, Motorola Type I and Type II systems are long gone. Public Safety and utilities have switched over to P25 systems for the most part and many businesses have converted to NXDN or (more likely) DMR. I never really got into LTR stuff and have diddled around with NXDN and DMR but most of my trunking work these days is monitoring local P25 systems and watching for new Talkgroups or Sites and frequencies. For a while I had 4 PSR600’s here tracking local systems but once I really got the lay of the land I cut back to a single 996P2 to feed Pro96Com and monitor a single system.
The other day a friend of mine emailed me, he had discovered an apparently undocumented DMR system run by a local utility. I was able to find out the user of it and with that he researched the licenses, now he is working on documenting the rest of the system. He told me he got so wrapped up in this he forgot to eat dinner. I know the feeling and I may start working on this system too and of course we will submit our findings to the RR Database.
With the 245 I was asked to test a new software package called “TrunkTrac”. At the time there were 2 versions of TrunkTrac, one for the 245, another for the OptoScan. Both were DOS programs, but that wasn’t an issue as I had been running Probe and various other radio programming software. TrunkTrac was a great application that worked well and provided invaluable info on trunking systems. In those days there were 3 forms of trunking that were common for business and public safety, EDACS, Motorola Type I and Motorola Type II. Type II was the easiest to deal with on scanners as you did not need a fleet map (like Type I) or have the channels in a particular layout (like EDACS). Thankfully most new systems at the time were coming in as Type II.
One weekend I was scrolling around the dial and heard a control channel on a channel I had never heard before. I set up TrunkTrac and found the System ID of 6E39 and started listening to it. There were a few channel grants on one or two talkgroups, 16 and 32. Turns out these were the techs setting the system up and they conveniently talked about the system details, including the name (“Star Crystal”, a new SMR) and the channels : “Let’s fail the control over to Channel 2”, then the control channel changed. One of the guys was named John but I never found out the other guy’s name until the following Monday.
On the aforementioned Monday I had a vendor meet with a tech to move a satellite receiver from one phone line to another. He came to our station, and we took his truck to the site. He had a Motorola Spectra in his truck and the display said “6E39”. I mentioned something like “Hey, that is that new trunking system that popped up over the weekend”. He was totally taken aback and asked how I knew. I rattled off the 4 channels used, the Connect Tone and that the other tech was John. I then said I presume that you were the other one. He was amazed that I had that info as they put it on the air Saturday, tested it on Sunday and it was now Monday.
When we got back to my office, I showed him my laptop with TrunkTrac and my trusty 245XLT. We took that out to his truck; he keyed up the radio and saw the channel grant and his radio ID show up immediately on my computer. He was instantly hooked. We went back into the office, and he called Scanner Master to order a 245 of his own and the software (it was sold by Scanner Master at the time).
When he got it a few days later he met up with me and we set it all up. He was like a fat kid in a candy store, we brought out the inner geek in him with that set up.
A little while later I discovered an obscure website called Trunkedradio.net. While we all now know it as RadioReference, it was then pretty much just a database of trunked radio systems. It was pretty much lacking in Illinois information outside the Chicago area, so I decided to change that. I started documenting systems around the Chicago area and correcting anything I found that needed it. I then took a week’s vacation and drove throughout the rest of the state and searched the 800 and 900 MHz. bands for trunking systems using Trunker and an AR8000 scanner. As I found a new system, I ran TrunkTrac on it as I preferred the reports it provided over that of Trunker. Trunker however would provide live info better as when you tuned the radio it would display the new System right away instead of having to restart the program. Eventually I grew to use Trunker as it was more versatile and would work with a data slicer and a discriminator tap on almost any radio.
This trip resulted in finding around 100 new systems around the state, ranging from small single site systems at factories or office campus’s to large networked systems used by a couple different utility companies. All this info was collected and eventually submitted to Trunkedradio.net and included in the database there. I also kept a database of my own in FileMaker Pro that included much of this information.
One of the guys I regularly shared info with worked at Motorola. There they had a master database of trunking systems they built. He was able to get me a copy of it in Excel and I was able to compare it with my notes. It turned out my notes were much more accurate, or at least up to date, but it did help fill in some of the gaps. I still have these records in my files. While most of them are long gone it is still neat to go thru them for nostalgia’s sake.
Fast forward another few years and the State of Illinois and Motorola was starting to build out the StarCom21 system. Again, in the Chicago area we had a good handle on the sites and other details, but we were lacking in other areas. Terry had done a good job of figuring out the Metro East area (That is the part of Illinois on the east side of the St. Louis metro) and the Springfield stuff had been figured out by some of us but the rest of the state was still a mystery. I took another week of vacation time and took off for Downstate. This time however I was using Pro96Com and a pair of PRO-96 scanners. This was a much easier method of finding stuff as the PRO96 would display the System ID and Site Number on a P25 system directly. I used on radio to search for new frequencies with control data and then popped it into the other connected to the computer running PRO96Com. I had a pretty good idea of most of the tower locations, much of that provided by an inside source at one of the contractors. I leveraged that info with the other info we had and after a few days had every site in the state figured out. The “Neighbors” list (Actually called Adjacent Sites) was great at confirming other sites and was closely monitored. During the day I would run Pro96Com on sites until I had enough info, like neighbors, the frequency list and more. At night in the hotel, I would collate the info in my notebook, with each Site on a separate page. I would document each site on a separate page and insert new pages as new sites were found. I also had a master list of Site numbers and locations so I could tell at a glance whether I had logged a site yet.
By this time Trunkedradio.net had morphed into RadioReference of course. All my info was combined with that of others into the well-documented StarCom21 info we have here now. Terry, Kevin, Ted, Fred, Tom and others all did countless hours of work and together it is possibly the best documented statewide system in the database.
Over the years I was able to obtain large chunks of info from various sources. For the old Illinois State Police EDACS system someone faxed me a complete list of talkgroups. I don’t know who it was, but the fax came from a phone number within the State Police District Chicago HQ. We had this info within a week of the system going live for State Police use. It had been used as a single-site system a couple months before for a large Governor’s Conference and repurposed for daily use soon thereafter.
Later as Lake County was installing there own EDACS system I kept the newly licensed frequencies in a scanner until one day when the control channel popped up. I programmed a scanner for that system and over the next week listened to the techs setting it up. A few days into the setup they started testing the talkgroups and helpfully went thru the entire list, saying “I am on Patrol 1, how does it sound?” and continued all the way thru the entire list of talkgroups. We had them all documented 6 months before the system went into daily use.
During my initial experiences with mapping out EDACS systems I discovered that the “Agency-Fleet-Subfleet” (AFS”) protocol didn’t really work as initially thought. There were few EDACS systems in the US at the time and the ones monitored by the engineers may have fit mathematically into a protocol that fit the mold but as more systems came online that math did not hold. My guess was that these engineers were more familiar with older Motorola Type I systems and carried that over to EDACS systems. By the time I figured that out AFS was already in use on many scanners and data sources, so it was left in place. I let them know about this but they were already moving on to bigger and better things, so the matter was dropped.
Another neat thing about EDACS systems in the area was that they all seemed to have a specific talkgroup used by the techs that they called the “Holodeck Channel”. This tells me that the same group of techs installed these systems and that they were likely Star Trek: The Next Generation fans.
These days most of the old EDACS, Motorola Type I and Type II systems are long gone. Public Safety and utilities have switched over to P25 systems for the most part and many businesses have converted to NXDN or (more likely) DMR. I never really got into LTR stuff and have diddled around with NXDN and DMR but most of my trunking work these days is monitoring local P25 systems and watching for new Talkgroups or Sites and frequencies. For a while I had 4 PSR600’s here tracking local systems but once I really got the lay of the land I cut back to a single 996P2 to feed Pro96Com and monitor a single system.
The other day a friend of mine emailed me, he had discovered an apparently undocumented DMR system run by a local utility. I was able to find out the user of it and with that he researched the licenses, now he is working on documenting the rest of the system. He told me he got so wrapped up in this he forgot to eat dinner. I know the feeling and I may start working on this system too and of course we will submit our findings to the RR Database.
