Trunker / Night Watcher Help

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LGLHOOK

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First, I have never ran a program like Trunker or anything but it looks kinda cool. I was wondering if there is any way to monitor any program similar to this without messing up your scanner (e.i. drilling holes in the case, etc.) for a tap.
Second, Have you ever heard of a program used to monitor the scannner at night in mp3 format from the computer. I thought I read it somewhere in the RR forum but I can't find it to save my life.

Any help you can give me on these areas would be greatly appreciated. I just thought it would be cool to kinda get into that other stuff.
 

RolnCode3

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The Pro-96 can monitor 9600 systems with a program, via the PC port. Other than that, I don't think you can monitor trunked systems without tapping it. You can do others like ACARS (aviation), etc... that don't require a tap. BTW-Trunker is VERY cool, and it's worth tapping a scanner if you have the know-how, or at least the desire to learn (I did mine myself with zero electronics knowledge, and a little luck :wink: ).

Don't know about mp3 format, but ARC250 Pro will put them in .wav format. It creates a new file every time there's a transmission. Even names the file so you can keep track of when it was created.
 

Dewey

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As far as the "tap" goes, most decoding programs are going to want the clean baseband audio, which most scanners do not output, so yes, you will probably have to modify.

As far as the computer control goes, you didn't say which scanner that you were using. The Radio Shacks can be computer programmed, but not computer controlled; however, this does not include the older RS Pros that are really Unidens (the 90 & 91 I ***think***). The newer Unidens can be computer controlled, so yes, you can "control" them throughout the night with the different control software that is out there.

As far as recording, there are many audio recording programs out there. While everyone has their favorites, my favorite is RecAll Pro. The will give you VOX control, date/time stamps, and the ability to record to MP3 files. One of my favorite setups for my Unidens are RadioManager for control, and RecAll Pro for recording. This combination adds the text display of the scanner to the recorded audio in RecAll Pro. IOW, as you were to listen to the file/files that you recorded overnight, you would see the date and time of the transmission, ***and*** whatever text tag that was programmed into your scanner for that channel.

Dewey
 

LGLHOOK

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Thanks for your input. I have a Pro-96 and a pro-2067 (soon to be traded for a Pro-2096 :D ) I just dont want to mess up my scanners cause I dont know how to make the tap and all that stuff and knowing my "luck", I will end up messing them up.
 

RolnCode3

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To run Trunker, you don't need a trunking scanner. You just need a scanner that has a tap, and can do 800mhz frequencies. When you run Trunker (or any of the others), you just park the scanner on the control channel. You'll need a trunking scanner (seperately) to listen along to the voice, but the tapped scanner won't do anything but send the control channel to the computer.
 

Dewey

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Actually, if you have a scanner dedicated to Trunker, you may not need a "trunking scanner". If you second scanner is computer controllable and supported by Trunker, Trunker can control it for you.

Dewey
 

lndshrk

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It's on this board.. but it won't matter, Bud.

We don't have any 9600 baud systems active in the valley
that I'm aware of. UCAN sure isn't.

BTW, you don't need a "trunking scanner" for the control channel.

Just any old thing that'll pickup the 800's.

You're welcome to email me and stop by any weekday afternoon or
evening to see my setup.

Jim
 

windigofer

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a) The specific program is called Pro96Com (you can actually download it in RadioReference's files section)--HOWEVER:

i) it ONLY works for 9600-baud APCO-25 trunked systems (in other words, you have to have a particular flavour of *digital trunked* system)
ii) it will NOT work with other types of trunked systems (including APCO-25 3600 baud or conventional trunked Motorola systems).
iii) you MUST use a Pro-96 or Pro-2096 scanner.

b) Discriminator taps *do* require some soldering skill, but you do *not* have to have a trunktracker to use with Trunker (I myself have used an old Pro-29 scanner which does no trunking whatsoever on its own :3) With a Pro-96, I'd probably actually recommend using Trunker in conjunction with Win96--save the talkgroups (by letting Trunker run for a good day or three on a trunked system so you get all the talkgroups and control channels), then input the control channels/fleetmaps/talkgroups in Win96 and program your scanner thusly.

(In other words, Trunker is much more of a tool to *investigate* a trunked system; once you have roughly how it's set UP, then you can use the Pro-96 to actually *monitor* and identify specific talkgroups. I am presently using a Pro-2067 (which IS tapped) to record all the known talkgroups on a Louisville system, and monitoring/identifying with the '96.

I've not yet tapped the Pro-96, if only because I am reluctant to do a solder job on a $400 scanner :3 At the same time, though, the GRE Radio Shack scanners *do* seem to be very discriminator tap friendly (the Pro-96, Pro-92, and Pro-2067 have test points that can be used as discriminator taps, for instance; the Pro-2067's tap is especially easy to install!) as compared to the Uniden-made radios. (Sometimes surface mount soldering of a lead to a leg of an IC has to be done with the Uniden kit)

c) Whilst it *is* in theory possible to use a program like T4Win or Trunker without a discriminator tap...it works much, much, MUCH better with the tap. I will even go so far to say that discriminator tap + 2-level interface tends to work better than discriminator + soundcard.

If you're reluctant to tap the radio, ACARS is listenable without a discriminator tap (there are multiple utils that decode ACARS using a sound card). Most other digital monitoring is going to need a tap, though.
 

LGLHOOK

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Thank you very much for your input guys. It is very helpful. I guess I would feel better about tapping my Pro-2067 rather than my Pro-96. I guess it leaves me no choice but to tap if if I want to get into the trunker programs.
 

windigofer

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Fortunately, the Pro-2067 is one of the easiest scanners ever to tap, hands down.

The Pro-2067 has a test point, TP-301, which can be soldered to (there's a wire and everything) with a 15 watt soldering iron (basically solder a 1k or 2.2k resistor to it, and a wire to the other end of the resistor); the toughest thing is actually making a hole in the scanner back (I did it below the audio jack, got a little mono 1/8" plug, you could use RCA as well) but this can be done with a Dremel and the proper bits.

Over on a Yahoogroups list (http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/Pro-2067) there's been explicit instructions posted; the pics showing where it is on the mainboard are at files/photographs, but essentially TP301 is visible if you unscrew the bottom cover. :3

One good thing, too: If you ever decide to sell the Pro-2067, generally having a discriminator tap and/or other mods actually *increases* the worth of the radio on places like Ebay and such. :3 (The thing is, there are a lot of useful mods that can be done to this radio...not just discriminator tap, but a mod to improve the squelch, a mod (essentially a small daughterboard) to enable autoscan on turning on the scanner... :3)
 
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