244 - A Warning About Trunk Systems

This is a warning about trunk systems.  There are issues that can arise when trying to setup your scanner to monitor trunked radio traffic. Today’s podcast contains some hints to help you keep your sanity when programming your scanner for large trunk systems with multiple sites. What You Need To Know Trunk system has a couple of different components that make it work. We need a transmitter or tower to receive or tune to. We need a control channel that tells the scanner what talk groups are active Our scanner will move to voice channels when talk groups are active. Talk groups are segments of users or departments on a trunked system. Trunk systems can have multiple sites. Trunk systems can be large, they can be small. They can be multi-level, multi county, multi state, single state. They can be small systems ranging inside of a building to ranging across thousands of miles, but they all start with a single site. A “site” in Radio Reference and a “site” on paper are not the same as a transmitter site. It can be, but it shouldn't be thought of that way. We can also have sites and layers set up based on who uses them. To program our scanners correctly, we need to know if talk groups are segmented on specific layers (aka sites) or if they are shared across multiple sites Talk groups only appear on sites if there are users affiliated on those sites. This helps manage spectrum and only required talk groups are using valuable RF resources. Don't expect a user that's 100 miles away from you to be on the site you are listening to if the selected layer doesn't cover where they are. It's very important to understand where the talk groups are showing up on these systems.     ==================================== 🎙 Join our new Scanner Radio Community ==================================== Join our FREE Discord server and connect with other Scanner Radio Users! By using Discord, a free, multi-platform community portal, you can now be part of the Scanner Radio Discussion! Chat real time, share photos, ask questions, and give feedback to other's in chat. 🔗 https://www.scannerschool.com/discord   ==================================== 🎓 Check out our online courses ==================================== Our free Software Defined Radio course will have you up and running with a SDR in a weekend. Upgrade to our Advanced Course, and learn how to setup SDR Software like a pro. 🔗 https://www.courses.scannerschool.com   ==================================== ⚠️ I want to answer your questions ==================================== I am always looking to answer your scanner radio question. If you have a question you'd like answered, please leave me a voicemail with your question: 📞 516-308-2885 🔗 https://www.scannerschool.com/ask   ==================================== 🏆 Thank you Patreon Supporters ==================================== Thank you to all monthly Patreon Supporters. Supporting the podcast can be done for as little as $1 per month. Supporters at the $3 and $5 level will receive the podcast without the middle commercial break. Supporters at the $5 level not only receive the podcast early, but they also get access to discount codes, monthly zoom meetings, and Squelchy sticker packs. 🔗 Join our Patreon program at https://www.scannerschool.com/patreon   ==================================== 🎥 Subscribe to our growing YouTube Channel ==================================== We are live once a month on YouTube to answer your questions. 2022 will be the year of Video for Scanner School Be ready for the upcoming videos by subscribing now to our YouTube channel 🔗 https://www.scannerschool.com/youtube   ==================================== ➡️ Follow Scanner School on Social Media ==================================== ▶︎ Twitter - https://www.scannerschool.com/twitter ▶︎ Facebook Page - https://www.scannerschool.com/facebook  ▶︎ Facebook Community - https://www.scannerschool.com/faceboo... ▶︎ Instagram - https://www.scannerschool.com/instagram ▶︎ TikTok - https://www.scannerschool.com/tiktok  ==================================== All session notes with links to the items we talked about can be found on our website at  https://www.scannerschool.com/session244 #podcast