trunking w/o a trunktracker

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steveh552

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I had posted that I was looking for a trunk tracker on the wtb board, but so far, I am not sure I can afford the asking prices. I was curious, is it possible to listen to an analog system that is trunked w/o having a trunk tracker? I ask because I have a ham radio that is capable of 800mhz, so in theory, I would think I would be able to listen with it. Any info would be great.
 

Dubbin

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steveh552 said:
I had posted that I was looking for a trunk tracker on the wtb board, but so far, I am not sure I can afford the asking prices. I was curious, is it possible to listen to an analog system that is trunked w/o having a trunk tracker? I ask because I have a ham radio that is capable of 800mhz, so in theory, I would think I would be able to listen with it. Any info would be great.


It can be done but on a large system it will be very difficult to follow whats going on. Program in all but the control channels and see how it does.
 

fmon

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steveh552 said:
I had posted that I was looking for a trunk tracker on the wtb board, but so far, I am not sure I can afford the asking prices. I was curious, is it possible to listen to an analog system that is trunked w/o having a trunk tracker? I ask because I have a ham radio that is capable of 800mhz, so in theory, I would think I would be able to listen with it. Any info would be great.
You can program all frequencies, lockout the duty control and hear voice traffic. However, you can't hold on an ID so may miss some of the coms if other frequencies are active.

Some Smartnet and Smartzone systems rotate the controls often (daily here) so you may need to unlock yesterdays control and lockout today's. A few EDACS systems may also change controls at times.
 

SAR923

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I can be done on small systems. I was able to follow traffic pretty well when I was on Maui programing the the LTR Multinet frequencies as conventional but it still took some button pushing to follow some calls. There were only five or six frequencies I had to follow and traffic stayed on frequency for a while because of the low call volume. Trying the same thing with a trunking system with any more frequencies or heavier call volume would have shortly become a source of extreme frustration. I don't know what your budget is but I regularly see PRO-94 and PRP-95 scanners on e-bay going for less than $100. There's a PRO-94 there now with a Buy It Now price of $90. Unless you're absolutey broke, I'd really try to get a trunk tracking scanner.
 

Bill_White

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Before trunking scanners…

When all we had was TRUNKER and computers had more than one COM port:
http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Trunker
One radio with a discriminator tap into a data slicer was used to decode the data stream.
A second computer controlled receiver was needed to follow the audio.

Before that, as Frank said..
We programmed the system frequencies into one bank and locked out the control channel.

Those were the days..
 

steveh552

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I was wondering if it would work. Thinking a Trunking scanner wont be budgeted like I had expected, so I guess I can make this work for the short term
 

n2mdk

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steveh552 said:
I am willing to trade the Q7A listed in my sig for a trunking scanner if anyone is interested.

I would list it for trade in the Classified section on the forum, you just might get a few takers.
 

af5rn

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I know you've decided to move on and get a trunking scanner, but the original question was a good one that deserves a full discussion for future reference.

Analog trunking systems can be monitored with a radio that does not trunk track. However, monitoring them and effectively scanning them are two different things. Everytime someone transmits on that system, they will come up on a different frequency of the system. So, almost everytime they unkey their microphone, you're going to have to start quickly running through every frequency in the system to catch the rest of the conversation. In a small town, 5 frequency system that is not shared by all the dog catchers, sewer workers, water works, street pavers, traffic signal techs, park lawn mowers, ambulance drivers, and firemen in the city, it's not a completely overwhelming task, but certainly a pain in the arse. You'll miss a great deal of things you were trying to hear. You won't even know who you are listening to (what channel) unless you recognise the voices, unit numbers, or locations.

If your system consists of ten or twenty frequencies, forget it. You could scan them with a conventional scanner and get the general gist of things, but again, you're still not going to be able to effectively follow entire conversations. Nor will you be able to separate fire, EMS, police, and public works from each other. With a modified ham HT, the scan mode is simply way too slow to even do that much.

So yeah, you can monitor the individual frequencies, but no, you can't effectively scan the system as a whole.

Thanks to Uniden and UPman, here's a link that will help you understand why. Looking forward to see what you end up buying!
 
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ibagli

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If you're talking about the Heath system (or any other small, unnecessary system), it's pretty easy.
 
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