Monitoring Tips

    I'm no technical writer. You will find that out by reading this document! So if you notice errors or my poorly written text, please let me know! [GRIN]

    In order the monitor the City of Tallahassee trunking system efficiently, the use of the Trunk Trackers (TT) Scan List is a must. If you want to monitor EVERYONE at the same time, you simply do nothing while in trunk tracking mode. You scanner will track the entire system and you will hear everything. This is OK but what if you just want to monitor the police department or the sheriff's department? That is where the Scan List  option of the TT scanners come in handy.

Scan List

    The Scan List mode of your TT is where you store the Talk Group ID's that you see on your display when the scanner stops on a conversation. This way you can crate list of your favorite agencies to monitor and you don't have to listen to the dog catcher catching strays across town. Remember on your old scanner when you put the police frequencies in bank 1, fire frequencies in bank 2, EMS in bank 3 and so on? This is the same type of setup although in a different way. Instead of entering frequencies like before, you simply enter the ID in a "bank". Remember you programmed your scanner with the frequencies before to be able to monitor the trunking system. Once that is done, you don't have to worry about frequencies anymore. Now we will concentrate on the ID storage so you can monitor your favorite agencies!

     I'll show you an example of entering Talk Group ID's in the Radio Shack PRO-2050 base scanner. The Pro-2050 has 5 Scan List and can store 10 ID's per list. This way you can listen up to 50 of your favorite IDs at the same time (1 Scan List or all 5 Scan List..it's up to you how many to want to listen at the same time)

Manually Storing IDs into Scan List

    When you stored the 800Mhz frequencies in your TT scanner, you probably put them in the first 20 channels of the scanner. You then pressed the Trunk button, then selected 1 (to monitor the first bank of 20 or 30 channels). After pressing the number 1 (for the first bank) you press the Search button. Your TT scanner then searches out the 800 Trunking computer channel then starts displaying Talk Group IDs and you are listening to conversations of all agencies at this time. I'll be using this example in my steps.

    1. While the scanner is trunking (your listening to conversations), press 1 then the Manual button. On the top left of your display, you should see a flashing number 1 (it's real small). A larger number 1 is below (not flashing). You are in Scan List number 1, ID storage position 1 of 10. If you press your up and down arrow on the keyboard, your flashing number will change indicating you are moving to the other Scan List. Go back to the flashing number 1.

    2. Assuming you are now back to the flashing 1. For our example, we are going to put some ID's of the Tallahassee Police Department. On your keypad press 16 then the Enter button. You just entered Alpha dispatch in Scan List 1, position 1. CONGRATULATIONS!

    3. Press the UP arrow or the Manual button to go to the next position in your Scan List. Using the keypad press 48 then the Enter button. You have now added the second ID in Scan List 1, position 2. You have up to 8 more IDs to go in this Scan List so get movin'!

    4. After entering 8 more ID's press your Scan button. The number 1 stops flashing and the word Scan scrolls across your display. You are now scanning only the ID's that you put in your list. If these become active with a conversation, the ID will display and you hear the conversation.

    5. Pressing Manual or the Up or Down arrows will stop the scanning and put you back in the scan list on the position that it stopped (1 - 10). To add more IDs to your list, press Manual again or the Up or Down buttons. Once you go past 10, you now enter the second Scan List bank. You now have 10 more IDs that you can add. A small 2 will appear at the top of the display and the larger number below will indicate what position (1 through 10) you are in this list. Enter LCSO ID's in this list. When you are through, press Scan again.

    6. After pressing Scan you will now see a little 1 and 2 at the top of your display. That indicates you are now scanning  Scan List 1 and 2. While scanning you can press 3 on your keypad to add Scan List 3 to your scanning. Of course it's blank at this point but using this method, you can add or remove Scan List while in the scanning mode.

    7. Pressing Manual, Up or Down buttons will allow you to scroll through all your IDs that you put in the lists. You can press this during scan to allow manual viewing. When you hit an unoccupied position, you will see dashes (-) indicating a free position that you can put an ID in.

   8. To go back to listening to everyone, press Search. You are now back to listening to everyone on the trunking system. To get back to your Scan List press 1 then Manual. Little number at the top is what Scan List you are in, big number below is position 1 - 10 of that Scan List.

Once you get the hang of it (practice... practice... practice.... remember your piano teacher???) it will make more enjoyable scanning!