TPS question...Im puzzled.

[EJB]

After I put the proper frequencies in I hit the data button and put a base in and hit enter. Then the offset was automatically 50. I tried to change it but it said error. These are base and offset from the radioreference page:


Custom Frequency Tables

Base Spacing Offset
141.01500 15.0 380
151.73000 15.0 579
154.32000 15.0 632

Do I have to enter all of these? If so not sure how to do it.

It's been a long time since I used a 245, I don't think that it will allow you to use the 2nd and 3rd one. But not using the 2nd one only applies to the Mowat Toronto tower.

For bare bones the 245 did a pretty good job with analogue Fleetnet, no tagging I don't think of talkgroups and the like but it served me well for a few years till upgrades.

 

[fullspectrum]

It's been a long time since I used a 245, I don't think that it will allow you to use the 2nd and 3rd one. But not using the 2nd one only applies to the Mowat Toronto tower.

For bare bones the 245 did a pretty good job with analogue Fleetnet, no tagging I don't think of talkgroups and the like but it served me well for a few years till upgrades.

So how do I get this to work? After the frequencies are put in I press Data and enter the base then enter and it automatically shows 50 for offset. After I entered in the appropriate offset I pressed scan and it appeared to just be scanning the bank of frequencies I entered. It didnt appear to be trunking like the TPS system does where all you see are the talk groups. It looks more like its just scanning the frequencies normally and not trunking.

 

[mciupa]

Follow these WIKI instructions:

Programming your BC245XLT for Fleetnnet - The RadioReference Wiki

 

[fullspectrum]

Follow these WIKI instructions:

Programming your BC245XLT for Fleetnnet - The RadioReference Wiki

I swear I searched this forum up and down and Yahoo'd the crap out of BC245 xlt fleetnet programming. Geez I feel like a dork. Now I go Google it in that exact phrasing and BAM! there it is plain as day.

Anyhow seems according to that page you enter the base and offset FIRST then enter the frequencies AFTER.

Much appreciated, I will give that a go and see how it works. Thanks for all your help guys.

 

[fullspectrum]

Ok... so basically it seems to not make a difference if I enter the frequencies before or after the base and offset, as all the frequencies I entered before are still there either way.

Once programmed I press SEARCH and on the left it displays the channels it's scanning rapidly over and over again, and the word "SCAN" goes across the screen from right to left. Not sure if this is working but I haven't seen one talk group or heard a single transmission

 

[EJB]

I swear I searched this forum up and down and Yahoo'd the crap out of BC245 xlt fleetnet programming. Geez I feel like a dork. Now I go Google it in that exact phrasing and BAM! there it is plain as day.

Anyhow seems according to that page you enter the base and offset FIRST then enter the frequencies AFTER.

Much appreciated, I will give that a go and see how it works. Thanks for all your help guys.

What tower are you monitoring? As mentioned, Mowat has a voice channel of 152.000, and you will need to use the 2nd of the 3 offsets and such but King City, Brittania, Whitby, and whatever other towers in the area really only need the first sets of offsets and such.

Remember to enter in all the relevant hospital talkgroups, sometimes the CACC (Georgian CACC is the dispatcher for York and Simcoe Co) uses one of the Georgian CACC tac talkgroups for patches but sometimes they will use the actual hospital talkgroups like York Memorial, Royal Vic in Barrie. Someone else can probably give you a better list of hospitals that you would expect Georgian CACC to send EMS units.

And finally, enter in the MOH Zone 1, Zone 2, etc. 34976 Is the talkgroup for MOH Zone 1. Since Georgian is on the boundary with 4 different CACC's you will often hear EMS units from different CACC's switch to Zone 1 as they travel from their boundary to another.

An example: There is a EMS call in the Caledon or Orangeville area. The Orangeville EMS unit, (ID'd as Dufferin County Ems) might be sent to a hospital in Simcoe County and they will use Zone1 TG to talk to the Georgian CACC and often patch to a hospital on that talkgroup as well.

If a York Region Ems unit is enroute to a Toronto city hospital or takes a call in what they sometimes still call Metro they will use the Toronto CACC talkgroup and announce the CTAS and the severity of the call.

If need be I can provide you with a pretty good list of what talkgroups you will hear off towers such as King City, Brittania, Mowat, while others can give you info for Edgar (N. of Barrie), Primrose (Junction of Hwy 10 and I think 89, N. of Orangeville). There also is a few wiki articles written about this that I came up with years ago.

E

 

[EJB]

Ok... so basically it seems to not make a difference if I enter the frequencies before or after the base and offset, as all the frequencies I entered before are still there either way.

Once programmed I press SEARCH and on the left it displays the channels it's scanning rapidly over and over again, and the word "SCAN" goes across the screen from right to left. Not sure if this is working but I haven't seen one talk group or heard a single transmission

You have to at least enter in the first set of off-sets, You have to enter in the base frequency of 141.015, the spacing (15.0) and Offset, 380. Without this your scanner will not work on this trunked system.

If you are trying to Monitor Mowat you will see that one of the voice channels for this tower is 152.000. I don't think the 245 will allow you to enter in the 2nd set of offsets (base 151.730, same Spacing 15.0 and Offset 632).

You were given a link to instructions by Mcuipa, if you have issues, and believe me, when I first got this scanner probably 12 years ago to the day I had to get a good deal of health. Most of the people on this site are helpful, unlike myself

 

[fullspectrum]

You have to at least enter in the first set of off-sets, You have to enter in the base frequency of 141.015, the spacing (15.0) and Offset, 380. Without this your scanner will not work on this trunked system.

If you are trying to Monitor Mowat you will see that one of the voice channels for this tower is 152.000. I don't think the 245 will allow you to enter in the 2nd set of offsets (base 151.730, same Spacing 15.0 and Offset 632).

You were given a link to instructions by Mcuipa, if you have issues, and believe me, when I first got this scanner probably 12 years ago to the day I had to get a good deal of health. Most of the people on this site are helpful, unlike myself

Im trying to monitor York tower only. I think its in King City? Anyway I can enter the Base and Offset in but that all it lets me enter in? No option to enter space. Also do I have to enter the talk group ID's manually? The Trunked Toronto Police ID's come up by themselves...i thought it should be similar no??

 

[EJB]

Im trying to monitor York tower only. I think its in King City? Anyway I can enter the Base and Offset in but that all it lets me enter in? No option to enter space. Also do I have to enter the talk group ID's manually? The Trunked Toronto Police ID's come up by themselves...i thought it should be similar no??

The instructions that MCuipa gave you should allow you to enter in the base 141.015, the spacing 15.0 and the offset 380.

With the Toronto Public Safety system the talkgroups appeared and you didn't have to enter them manually; because the talkgroups in question were analogue. With the fleetnet, King City tower there are analogue talkgroups like the ones for York and Simcoe Ems but a good deal of traffic are the digital talkgroups like 8656 and many others. Your scanner will stop when they are being used and you will hear a loud annoying grinding sound, P25 Digital communications thru a scanner that cannot decode it.

 

[DaveH]

Im trying to monitor York tower only. I think its in King City? Anyway I can enter the Base and Offset in but that all it lets me enter in? No option to enter space. Also do I have to enter the talk group ID's manually? The Trunked Toronto Police ID's come up by themselves...i thought it should be similar no??

If you programmed according to the Wiki it should be OK, just be aware Uniden confused
the issue by calling "offset" what we refer to as "step" or "spacing". So you program the OFS to 15,
which is really the 15kHz frequency step. This very old trunking scanner only allows one
channel offset (380) which is fixed and can't be changed, so is not entered. This limitation
has very minor impact in this case, losing one channel on one site.

Dave

 

[fullspectrum]

If you programmed according to the Wiki it should be OK, just be aware Uniden confused
the issue by calling "offset" what we refer to as "step" or "spacing". So you program the OFS to 15,
which is really the 15kHz frequency step. This very old trunking scanner only allows one
channel offset (380) which is fixed and can't be changed, so is not entered. This limitation
has very minor impact in this case, losing one channel on one site.

Dave

Thanks for all the information Dave and everyone else. I've done everything to a T and still no cigar...not sure why. I tried putting some talk group ID's in and it lets me put them in but I hear nothing. Somehow I feel like its not trunking the frequencies I put it. It just scans them. When it does go into trunking it picks up the Toronto police in the other banks.

There was a few times where it locked on an ID right after I hit trunking:

35824 8bf A MIS TAC 2 SW Tactical 2 - Peel South West

It locked onto this one for a second. I'm just wondering how much activity I should hear on this? Other than locking on for a second thats all I got then it automatically goes back to scanning all the frequencies in the bank and it's silent. I also heard something briefly on ID 45936...not sure what that was. Overall I hear pretty much nothing...What is the proper way to enter the talkgroups in?

 

[EJB]

Where are you located? If you saw what you saw for the Mississauga SW talkgroup you have done something right but maybe you are in an area where you cannot "hear" the King City tower hence you can't scan something you can't hear.

 

[davidmc36]

Ok... so basically it seems to not make a difference if I enter the frequencies before or after the base and offset, as all the frequencies I entered before are still there either way.

Once programmed I press SEARCH and on the left it displays the channels it's scanning rapidly over and over again, and the word "SCAN" goes across the screen from right to left. Not sure if this is working but I haven't seen one talk group or heard a single transmission

If you see that then you are not locked on to the control channel.

When you are done programming press Scan. If you lock onto the control channel in search mode you you should see just five dashes on the display until a transmission comes through. If you have more than one talkgroup programmed into the ID banks then you can press Scan after you get into trunk mode and if locked onto the control channel you will see "id SCAN" scrolling across the screen.

 

[fullspectrum]

If you see that then you are not locked on to the control channel.

When you are done programming press Scan. If you lock onto the control channel in search mode you you should see just five dashes on the display until a transmission comes through. If you have more than one talkgroup programmed into the ID banks then you can press Scan after you get into trunk mode and if locked onto the control channel you will see "id SCAN" scrolling across the screen.

Something is still not working right. after I hit "search" SCAN goes across the screen and the channel numbers that I have the frequencies on keep rotating very fast on the left kinda like a non trunking scan.

 

[davidmc36]

.... SCAN goes across the screen....

When you see that, briefly press TRNK.Do you see the word TRUNK in the left corner of the display disappear? Keep hitting SCAN. Can you hear the control channel clearly?

 

[fullspectrum]

When you see that, briefly press TRNK.Do you see the word TRUNK in the left corner of the display disappear? Keep hitting SCAN. Can you hear the control channel clearly?

Yes when I hit TRNK the work TRUNK disappears in the left corner. When I hit scan then it stops on 143.370 and it sound like someone holding a mic on but with static. It doesn't sound like the TPS control channel with the weird noise(can't describe it).

The frequency 142.380 is in red but I hear nothing on it at all. 143.370 is the only one I hear and it's static.

York 141.19500 141.67500 142.14000a 142.38000c 142.78500 142.92000 142.98000
143.35500 143.37000 143.77500

 

[davidmc36]

Yes when I hit TRNK the work TRUNK disappears in the left corner. When I hit scan then it stops on 143.370 and it sound like someone holding a mic on but with static. It doesn't sound like the TPS control channel with the weird noise(can't describe it).

You hear more static than anything else?

If so it sounds like you are not getting the control channel well enough to trunk.

Should sound pretty much like this:

http://www.w2sjw.com/sounds/Moto3600 Type-II Slow.mp3

If you hit TRNK again to get back to trunking mode and you do not see either id SCAN scrolling across the screen or the five dashes (if in search mode) then you are not getting the Control Channel clear enough.

You only have one tower close enough to try?

May need better antenna, ie: outdoor.

 

[fullspectrum]

You hear more static than anything else?

If so it sounds like you are not getting the control channel well enough to trunk.

Should sound pretty much like this:

http://www.w2sjw.com/sounds/Moto3600 Type-II Slow.mp3

If you hit TRNK again to get back to trunking mode and you do not see either id SCAN scrolling across the screen or the five dashes (if in search mode) then you are not getting the Control Channel clear enough.

You only have one tower close enough to try?

May need better antenna, ie: outdoor.

I tried entering the Toronto Mowat 40MOWT frequencies and I can hear the control channel coming through but with some static. Same thing doesn't trunk properly....You could be onto something here with the weak control channel.

Well in the very least I'm learning something with all this..LOL All the help is much appreciate from you guys.

I'm thinking I'm going to upgrade in the new year and get a Uniden BCD436HP. Do you think better to get this over the BC-D396XT?




.

 

[fullspectrum]

You hear more static than anything else?

If so it sounds like you are not getting the control channel well enough to trunk.


May need better antenna, ie: outdoor.

Faaaaak....I'm a knob! I've been trying all this in my basement! YOU were right! It's the control channel...as soon as I went upstairs I was able to hear some transmissions from Peel Region EMS!

You see I can hear Toronto Police in my basement no problem so it never occurred to me that this system would be any different...but obviously its a weaker signal.

Well I hope this thread can help someone else in the future. Lots of lessons to be learned here LOL.

I'm going to keep listening and I will let you all know how it's going. Thanks guys!


What base and offset do I enter in for the Toronto Mowat 40MOWT tower is it 151.73000 15.0 ? I suppose it wont work with my scanner because DAVEH said and I quote:

"Uniden confused the issue by calling "offset" what we refer to as "step" or "spacing". So you program the OFS to 15,
which is really the 15kHz frequency step. This very old trunking scanner only allows one
channel offset (380) which is fixed and can't be changed, so is not entered. "

So I guess I'm limited to towers that use the 380 offset since it's fixed on my oldie goldie scanner...is this right?



.

 

[davidmc36]

Nice to hear you succeeded.

You will be able to use the scanner for all towers since they all use the "380". The only limitation is on MOWAT that actually uses the higher channels you will miss the odd transmission. MOWAT uses the 141.015, 15.0, 380 table, it just uses the second one in addition to that.