TRS listed on county homepages

[west-pac]

I've noticed this recently, and I'm not sure if the TRS that are in use are being removed from the county homepage, or if I've just looked at a bunch of county homepage that never had them listed, but I'm curious why they're not listed on the county homepage. When you go to a county homepage, such as this one:

Marion County, Florida (FL) Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference

Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference for Marion County, Florida (FL)

www.radioreference.com

On the first channel listed, the description says something to the effect of: 'backup for the TRS', however, the TRS is not listed in the header of that section as being where you'll find the current radio traffic for that county or city. How are people supposed to know which TRS to listen to? You can click on the 'All Trunked Radio Systems' link for that county, but there may be 2, 3, or 4 dozen Trunked Radio Systems in that county. Is that county on their own TRS (the analog, or the P25 Phase II?), on the statewide TRS (the Edacs, or the P25 Phase I?), are they on the Duke P25 system,... maybe the CMEX DMR system???

My question: Why is the TRS that is in use, not listed in the header for individual cities and counties anymore?

Here is an example of what I'm used to seeing, and wondering why all of the county homepage are not setup like this. The first thing you see under each category is where you'll find the current radio traffic, then you see the analog and backup channels.

Monroe County, Indiana (IN) Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference

Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference for Monroe County, Indiana (IN)

www.radioreference.com

(EDIT: My question is not about this specific county. My question is Database-wide, why are they not listed on each header?)

 

[u2brent]

It's probably the p25, the one named after the county.

 

[west-pac]

It's probably the p25, the one named after the county.

Maybe, maybe not. 🤷‍♂️ Wouldn't it be 100x easier to figure out if it was just listed under the header for that county?

 

[u2brent]

Sure, it would be.

 

[mwjones]

It has been my experience that when a new system is submitted to the RRDB, the admins typically will not add a link on the various pages (I.E. in a sub-section on the County or a separate services page). I tend to include that information (and the appropriate links to the appropriate sub-section as part of the submission and rarely have an issue getting them added.

I suspect that your examples are exactly that the admin was not provided the sub-category and thus didn't get updated.

Of course, one of the great RRDB database admins can likely chime in with more detail.

 

[GTR8000]

There are literally hundreds (if not thousands) of conventional subcategories within each state, and the process of linking related trunked systems is not automatic, it has to be done manually on a per-subcategory basis.

If a trunked system needs to be linked within a particular subcategory, then make a submission (to the county/agency page, not to the trunked system page) and an admin will get to it as time permits.

 

[seagravebuff60]

In my experience, Florida is one of the worst when it comes to what the OP is describing above. There are no links to various Trunked Systems on County Pages. I often take 20 minutes or more to determine what agency is on what system, as I travel a lot and would like to know.

But then again, as GTR said above, the process is not automatic. So it's just a matter of people sumbmitting the info to the DB to get it in the right place.

 

[Starcom21]

It's a difference between what admins do. When I get a submission, for a TRS or the county, and it is associated with the other, I make a note, OR add the related trunk system information. It's what I've always done. I don't leave the user hanging, wondering what to do.

I've recently (in the last 3 months) just went through the states that I deal with on normal basis (IL, MO, IN, AR, TN, AL, GA), and made sure that in the larger/statewide/areawide systems, that each county (and some municipalities) is directing back to the trunked system. Depending on the agency, time and encryption, I may even note the talkgroup and all users in the description. Having a county page with no frequencies and 25 municipalities, all linking to the same trunked system may be overkill.

EVERY submission I get for a TRS, I always check the county level to see if any notes needs to be made. It should just be part of what we do.

It's the same as completing FCC license information, proper lat/long, address, etc on a trunked site. Some admins just throw the frequencies in, add "site 1" and move on. If you add a new Talkgroup category, add the proper county and lat/long for the area that that category serves.

Suggesting the site to use, if known or necessary, in a TRS link may be helpful too.

 

[west-pac]

It's a difference between what admins do. When I get a submission, for a TRS or the county, and it is associated with the other, I make a note, OR add the related trunk system information. It's what I've always done. I don't leave the user hanging, wondering what to do.

I've recently (in the last 3 months) just went through the states that I deal with on normal basis (IL, MO, IN, AR, TN, AL, GA), and made sure that in the larger/statewide/areawide systems, that each county (and some municipalities) is directing back to the trunked system. Depending on the agency, time and encryption, I may even note the talkgroup and all users in the description. Having a county page with no frequencies and 25 municipalities, all linking to the same trunked system may be overkill.

EVERY submission I get for a TRS, I always check the county level to see if any notes needs to be made. It should just be part of what we do.

It's the same as completing FCC license information, proper lat/long, address, etc on a trunked site. Some admins just throw the frequencies in, add "site 1" and move on. If you add a new Talkgroup category, add the proper county and lat/long for the area that that category serves.

Suggesting the site to use, if known or necessary, in a TRS link may be helpful too.

I appreciate your extra effort for listed the currently used public safety TRS on the county homepage. Doing so makes it very easy to dive into the Site and Talkgroup data for that particular county while trying to help people with their scanners/programming related questions.

 

[mwjones]

I appreciate your extra effort for listed the currently used public safety TRS on the county homepage. Doing so makes it very easy to dive into the Site and Talkgroup data for that particular county while trying to help people with their scanners/programming related questions.

I'm going to concur with @west-pac's comments to @Starcom21. There are a lot of great admins working to maintain this repository, and most of them do phenomenal jobs (and in my travels both here in Texas and other states, I have had submissions worked by many).

But I also admit, it's a garbage in-garbage out situation - the admins can only work with what they're given in a submission, and some don't have time to do the research to fill in the blanks. It is for that reason I've developed a set of "templates" that I use for submissions, making sure all those overlooked details are submitted. I also tend to look at the TRS I'm working with and will include links to the sections and reasons why the system should be linked from those sections. This "kitchen sink" approach I know is appreciated based on the feedback from the admins but also goes to make the content complete for anyone searching the RRDB.

 

[Mex]

I wonder if anything is going to be done about the litter of "See the wiki for more frequencies" statements overly posted on most Illinois database pages?

 

[RaleighGuy]

I wonder if anything is going to be done about the litter of "See the wiki for more frequencies" statements overly posted on most Illinois database pages?

I wish that statement (and the Wiki) would be used more often, especially for unconfirmed frequencies for an area. There are lots of frequencies that are probably XYZ but we don't know for sure, being able to have that type of thing in the wiki, and a reminder to the casual visitors that the wiki has things like that, can be very useful.

 

[Starcom21]

I wonder if anything is going to be done about the litter of "See the wiki for more frequencies" statements overly posted on most Illinois database pages?

They don't need to be listed under every single sub category. I'm going through County by county now cleaning stuff up