rmiller, welcome. Let me start off by saying that anything in blue (or in our wiki, if text is underlined), it's a link of one kind or another.
To start to understand the concepts behind trunking, where agencies share a pool of frequencies, please see the following wiki article - stick with the basics in that first section -
http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Trunking
You may think of talkgroups as groups of users - in the client server world, the server is the trunking system, the clients are numerous users. You would use the database to identify those clients (users = talkgroups) that belong to your area, and you could program a scanner to listen to just those users, and nothing else. This is what is known as programming a scan list.
Speaking of the database, if we're talking about this system...
http://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?sid=4239
The BCT8 cannot handle this system. Only those scanners listed below can - each of the model numbers in the article below are links to articles that more fully describe each model
http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Category:Digital_Scanners
I would start by getting comfortable with the concepts of trunking; jump over to our Ohio forum and see what others seem to think works well in Lucas County. There are also several Yahoo based scanning groups for the area that are also a valuable source of information. Some are listed here...
http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/US_Scanning_Mailing_Lists
73 (best regards) Mike
