Wildcard???

[sbhnutts570]

Hello,
I am new to scanning could someone tell me what to do with these Wildcard channels? They get a lot of traffic.I am in Ohio, Summit County, scanning some Marcs, Summit P 25, Summit 800 and Summit South talkgroups.I don't mean to sound dumb but what are they used for? I can't figure out who is talking on them but there is alot of action.

Thanks

 

[KB7MIB]

Assuming that you're using a GRE or Whistler scanner, a wildcard setting allows you to hear every talkgroup on the trunked system, or at least that are authorized on the site(s) of a trunked system that you can receive.
It is useful for discovering new talkgroups not in the database. Once you discover them, the fun is trying to determine who uses them.

If there are known talkgroups in the database that you want to listen to, then program them in specifically. Otherwise using only a wildcard will make it difficult to follow the specific ones you are actually interested in.

Uniden scanners have a similar feature, but I don't recall what it's called.

John
Peoria, AZ

 

[troymail]

If there are known talkgroups in the database that you want to listen to, then program them in specifically. Otherwise using only a wildcard will make it difficult to follow the specific ones you are actually interested in.

This is VERY important. If you didn't import/load all talkgroups for the system you are wildcarding, you'll see alot of talkgroups that seem like "unknowns" when they are "known". If you add a wildcard object, make sure you have imported ALL known talkgroups for the system. If there are "known" things you don't want to listen to, lock them out. The wildcard object will still see they are in your programming and it will also ignore them.

Uniden scanners have a similar feature, but I don't recall what it's called.

John
Peoria, AZ

"ID Search" (vs. the default "ID Scan")

 

[sbhnutts570]

I found a wildcard object I want to program in a scan list. I have the radio ID and the talk group Id, how do I program that into a scanlist

 

[troymail]

When you get an active wildcard hit, just press MENU... then the default menu option is to store that TGID. . So then just press SEL.

 

[Nasby]

I found a wildcard object I want to program in a scan list. I have the radio ID and the talk group Id, how do I program that into a scanlist

I'll bet if you look in the database you will find the listing for the T/G that you got the wildcard hit on.

Then you could add the alpha tag and know what agency you are hearing.