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Ham Radio University

Scanner Radio

“Crash Course”

Presented by:

Phil Lichtenberger - W2LIE

“Scanner School”

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A Little about me and my Scanning

background

I have been around scanners since before I could walk!

Growing up, my earliest memories include watching the red lights dance on my grandparent's old Bearcat 101 in the kitchen. The sounds of police and fire tones would make their way into the living room as we played on the floor.

My father worked at a marine shop and sold crystals for receivers to anyone looking to listen to their radio. He still has those dusty glass baby jars in his garage. A reminder of yesterday, when 8 channels was more than enough to hear everything you needed to know.

Years before I could drive, my uncle took me out shopping and we bought my dad the top of the line radio for the time, a Uniden BC200XLT. 200 Channels was enough to listen to Long Island, where I am from, as well as New York City. I still think my dad only listened to about 10 channels though!

It was around this time my dad handed me my first scanner – a FanonCourier Slim Scan 6-HLU. I would spend hours with his crystal collection moving the rocks between the Hi/Lo positions to see if anything interesting would come in. I still have that radio in my collection and it brings me joy to think about it.

It wasn't shortly after that I picked up a used Uniden BC200XLT for myself and stole the old man's Police Call frequency books and started writing down all the frequencies I wanted to listen to in a notebook.

A few years later, I remember waiting, very impatiently, for the new Uniden BC785D to be released. I had wanted a BC780XLT badly be decided that waiting a few months for the top of the line model would be worth it. This was a new world for me – trunking. There was a lot to learn, and I was hungry to do so!

The Hobby Takes a Turn

Shortly after getting married, moving out of my parents house, and buying my own, I started playing around with websites. I decided that it would be pretty neat if I could listen to my scanner from work by streaming it over the internet. In 2005, My very first website was born, W2LIE.net . Keep in mind, this was before scanner streams was as popular as it is today. I quickly captured a following and the website grew to include over 10,000 members and many scanner streams.

Local scanner enthusiasts started asking me a lot of questions that I was more than happy to answer. In 2009 I was asked to give a scanner radio class at a local Amateur Radio Event called Ham Radio University. It was a packed room! I've been back every year to give the same presentation.

Eventually – people started to have me program their radios, and this became the start of my online business, Monitor Long Island, Inc. Monitor Long Island, Inc. was the business side of the hobby, where I would start selling scanners, antennas, consulting services, and programming. Eventually Monitor Long Island, Inc. grew to Paging Business called East Coast Pagers.

Back to my roots

I soon noticed that I've been spending a lot of time focusing on the business side that I didn't have time to enjoy the hobby as I did. I really liked teaching people about scanning and passing on all the information I've learned through the years.

I talked with so many people across the US who have asked for my help. I found I was answer the same questions and then I had an idea – I would create an online school for scanners – or Scanner School

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Goals for Today’s Session

Go over basic Radio Terms
Conventional Scanning
Trunking Systems
Scanner Hardware
Where to get more help
Q&A

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Part 1 -

The Basics

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What is Scanning?

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Why use a scanner

And not a two-way radio?

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What can you listen to on a scanner radio?

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Part 2 -

Conventional

Scanning

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Amplitude Modulation (AM)

Amplitude Modulation - AM

Consists of a Carrier Wave (⅔ power)

Frequency

Info Bearing Modulation Waveform (⅓ of power)

AC Signal inside the Carrier Wave

Consists of two sidebands, an upper and lower and is a mirror of each other
Amplitude / Strength of the waveform oscillation is what is varied
Was the earliest method to transmit voice via radio, dones so in the early 1900’s

Pros:

Multiple transmissions can be heard at the same time
It can be demodulated using a simple circuit using very few electrical components, making it cheap and simple to build
AM Signals can be reflected back to earth from the ionosphere layer.

Allows singals to propiagate several thousands of miles away
Why it is used for Short Wave Transmissions
Every hear AM Skip?

Cons:

Inefficient use of power because ⅔ of it is lost in just the carrier wave
Receiver can detect noise and interference rather easily

Thunderstorms, transformers, motors etc.

Not efficient in bandwidth.

Used By:

CB Band in the US
AM Broadcast for Talk Radio and Sports
Aviation

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Frequency Modulation (FM)

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PL / DPL Codes

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Digital Transmissions

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FDMA & TDMA

Images from TAIT Radio Academy

https://www.taitradioacademy.com/topic/the-difference-between-fdma-and-tdma-1/

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P 25

APCO-25 | Project 25

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DMR

Digital Mobile Radio

Color Codes

Digital Mobile Radio

The DMR Association was established in 2005 and is made up of 40 members including JVC Kenwood, Icom, Motorola, Tait, and Hytera to name a few.

According to the DMR Association, the key benefits of DMR are:

Doubling the capacity of existing licenses
Backwards spectrum compatibility with legacy systems
Efficient use of infrastructure equipment
Longer battery life
Ease of use and creation of data apps
System flexibility through simultaneous use of TDMA Channels
Advanced controlled features
Superior audio performance
Security of supply through a fully open standard

ETSI Standard of Digital Mobile Radio
True Digital Mode (No Analog)
2 Timeslot TDMA

(Time Division Multiple Access)

Uses the AMBE+2 Vocoder by DVSI

What do we need to program DMR Conventional in our Scanners?

Receive Frequency

OPtional - Colour Code, Talk Group, and Time Slot

Conventional DMR is either Type I or Type II

-- Tier I

License free use in the European PRM446 band

Simplex use only - no repeaters

Maximum of half a watt

No repeaters, or telephone interconnects

Must use fixed antenans

Suited for Personal use, recreation, small retail that do not require a large coverage area

The European PMR446 band operates on 446MHz and it is very similar to MURS or FRS here in the US.

-- Tier II

Licensed Conventional Radio

Covers 66Mhz - 960Mhz in the EU Spectrum

Targeted for those who need spectrum efficiency

Offers advanced voice features

For High power communications

ETSI Specs require TDMA 12.5khz bandwidth

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NXDN

NeXt Generation Digital Narrowband

(NeXt Generation Digital Narrowband)

ITU-R Accepted mode of Digital Mobile Radio

Created in 2003
Protocol was announced in 2005 with the first radios appearing in 2006
Created for the business environment
Meant to upgrade existing analog and LTR systems into a digital environment
Uses FDMA

NXDN Standard supports 6.25kHz or 12.5kHz

Kenwood’s NXDN solution is called NEXEDGE

Icom’s NXDN solution is called IDAS – Icom Digital Advanced System

NXDN was created to be a ‘de-facto two-way digital standard’ (NXDN Forum) and it was created to cater for as much of the potential market as possible.

With the US market being a major market, they created it around the FCC mandate for narrowbanding.

NXDN Forum has 30 members, including Radio Manufacturers such as JVC Kenwood and Icom, Radio Test Sets from Aeroflex, Anritsu, General Dynamics, Dispatch Consoles

RAN Codes

What do we need to knwo to program conventioanl NXND?

Recieve Freq. optional: RAN code and Talk Group

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Part 3 -

Trunking

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What is trunking?

And how does it work?

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Common Analog Trunk Systems

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Motorola Type II

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EDACS

Enhanced Digital Access Communications System

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LTR

Logical Trunked Radio

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Digital Trunking

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Motorola P25

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DMR

-- Tier III -

Licensed Trunking Radio

Covers 66Mhz - 960Mhz in the EU Spectrum

Uses two slot TDMA

Offers advanced voice features

Offers Short messaging limited to 128 characters

Also 288bits for data in various formats

You need to know the LCN when programming your scanner

Typically LCN pairs are the same frequency

LCN 1&2 are the same frequency
LCN 3&4 are the same frequency
ETC

DMR Trunking comes in 3 main flavors

Capacity Plus
Connect Plus
Capacity Max

Capacity Plus Trunking

Single site or Multiple Linked Sites
Up to 15 linked sites
Up to 12 repeaters per site

8 Can be used as Voice & Data
11 Can be used for Data Revert

Uses a REST channel instead of a dedicated control channel
Sends data bursts out every few seconds

Idle users are moved to the next REST channel if a voice channel is needed
Will cycle up the channel numbers until it comes back to ch 1

You need to know the LCN when programming

Connect Plus Trunking

Multi Site Network
Upto 250 sites and 15 repeaters per site
Has a fixed control channel
Supports GPS, Text Messages, and man down alerting.
Operates with Dynamic Site Assignment, so only the only voice resources you use are on the local site you are operating on (and where the other units are registered to)
Automatic call queuing.
Automatic site roaming
Has been discontinued by Motorola and replaced by MotoTRBO Capacity Max

Capacity Max Trunking

Fully compliant with DMR Tier III Standards
Multi Site Network
Up to 250 linked sites
Up to 15 repeaters per site

Voice and Data up to 15 sites at a time
Plus 6 data revert channels

Uses a dedicated control channel
Second control channel may be added

Users are assigned a voice channel and time slot
You need to know the LCN when programming

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NXDN

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Rebanding

Simplified Background

Rebanding is basically shifting the licensees in the 800MHz band around so that they are correctly grouped together.

NexTel purchased ESMR frequencies which operated lower than public safety bands.
This configuration caused interference in the public safety spectrum
SMR & ESMR frequencies were shifted, and the public safety band was relocated down to the old NexTel RF Real-estate.
Typical Rebanding frequencies for Public Safety are 15MHz down from their existing location

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Radio Reference

Forums, Wiki, and Database

With over 1 million

Registered users!

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Facebook

Open and Closed

Scanner Radio Groups

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The

Scanner Guys

Weekly YouTube

Show where each show

Is a different topic

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Scanner School’s Podcast

Over 210 Podcast Episodes to Date!
New Podcast’s Released every Tuesday
Available on your favorite Podcast Player, Our website, and YouTube Channel

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Scanner School’s Live Q&A Sessions

Q&A YouTube Session on the first tuesday of every month at 8pm Eastern US Time
Q&A Podcast released on the first tuesday of every month

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Questions and Answers