trunking scanner

I want to be able to pick up Police, Fire, EMS. So what does trunking mean? I want to buy a scanner but not sure what kind to buy. Just need something basic but a good one.

Thanks

Some Police, Fire, and EMS departments have specific frequencies that they have a license for and use. There may be several of them, but they are usually designated for specific things. One may be for dispatching, one for records checks, or they may be used depending on what area you are in, with a specific frequency for a specific area. They use them as they want, but they use one frequency for the entire conversation.

Trunking radios use a pool of frequencies. The various departments may have a license for them or they may pay for use from a commercial radio service. In this type of radio service, a conversation may change frequencies several times. There is signaling included in the system to tell the radios which frequency to switch to each time they transmit or receive. This is done to allow more radios on each frequency and to allow different users to hold conversations with out bothering those who don't need to hear them. A Fire department and a Police department can share common frequencies like this without being bothered by the others transmissions. It's not done to be secret or sneaky, but it does that to some extent.

Most scanners won't be able to follow the frequency change in a trunking system. A trunking scanner is designed to be able to understand the signaling and change to the right frequency, just like the radios do, allowing you to hear the complete conversation, rather than just one transmission from one radio, then a completely different transmission from another radio, etc.

Whether it is worth the added cost depends on if there are trunking systems used by the departments you want to hear.

2007-01-18 08:49:50 by joy f

A quick introductory video of the RS PRO-106 Digital Trunking Scanner. If you want a video showing a certain function of the scanner, drop a ...

Im not sure what to look for.
this link has all the frequencies in my surrounding area

http://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?c tid=321

I dont know if its possible to tell from those numbers and letters if a regular non trunking scanner will pick them up.

Help please!! Thanks!!

I looked at the page you linked, and those are standard scanner frequencies, which can be picked up with any scanner. I am linking a page to the broward trunking frequencies. Note that the frequencies are in a much higher range, the 800's. That's how you know it's trunking.

2009-07-11 21:58:33 by wushux2003

Price: $199.99 $129.99

Download frequencies from your computer with software and patch cable
Hear storm reports before they are broadcast on TV or radio, alerts you to severe weather locally
Factory Refurbished to meet or exceed original equipment specifications; includes a 90-day limited warranty
Searches for nearby frequency transmissions within approximately 1,000 feet of the radioEasy to read in low light or completely dark areas
Store up to 1,000 frequencies, covers police frequencies in most metropolitan areas

I got the unit second hand, and don't have manuals. Does the Kenwood TH78A support trunking? I'm in Journalism, and am interested in using the same hand held I carry for HAM stuff as a police scanner.

It doesn't appear to be able to be a trunking scanner according to the manual.

2009-03-26 08:17:23 by fastfinge

Price: $199.99

Mobile/base design, Skywarn, NOAA WX alert, Signal Stalker II
Will pick-up frequency, from uhf-vhf-and mhz
Triple trunking radio scanner
Police,fire, motorola,ge/ericson, ltr trunked scanner

I am looking to buy a radio frequency scanner and I've noticed some have trunking. What is trunking?

trunking is a term that basically means for example....there are 10 different station nets, but the fcc only allocated enough frequency bandwidth for 3 active frequencies at any time. what happens is that between those 10 nets, only 3 of them can be active at the same time. if all three are used then the 4th one that is trying to communicate with someone from his net will have to wait till one of the other nets frees one of the frequency channels.

basically there are 10 people in a house....only 3 people can take off, each in their own car to visit their friends. the other 7 cannot use the car till one of the three return one car.

what the concept does is it saves frequency bandwidth space for other uses instead of specifically assigning a frequency when it's hardly even used,....which would be a waste. it's frequency usage efficiency.

2008-06-04 19:49:06 by mitch1561

I'm looking to by a BC346XT by Uniden, and haven't had any luck finding it on my own. I've looked at about every Radio Shack with no luck. If you can think of any places in or around Charlotte that carry scanners, I would be much obliged. I just don't want to order online unless I can't find it anywhere else. Thanks!

I'm pretty sure that Radio Shack is not carrying Uniden scanners, I think I bought one from them a few years ago. I don't know anyone in Charlotte who carries Uniden. If you're wanting to scan the Charlotte-Mecklenburg trunked system many of the models Radio Shack carries are capable of doing it. It's a Motorola Type II system and set up is pretty straight forward. I'm using several Radio Shack Pro 94's and they do fine. Some of the later models have gotten very user unfriendly to program and have a lot of useless features on them. We use Unidens at work and there are ok but I really like my little hand held. My only complaint is that it isn't loud enough is a noisy area. I picked this one up at a pawn shop for under $100. Cabarrus and Rowan counties are also trunked Motorola Type II systems. With a dual trunk scanner (like the Pro 94) you can listen to all of them in certain places. York county SC also has a trunked system that is encrypted although it can be scanned.
Good luck and hope that this is of some help to you.

2009-05-22 08:24:40 by bubbajoe827