WA Radio Scanner Users' Group

HI all
just getting back into scanning......and truncking which i have not done before & thinking ???
Can USA scanners be used in oz for trunking?
Thnx.

theoretically...yes
the particular encoding and decoding of a particular talk group is probably done the same way in both countries.
However, expect to find certain frequency bands innaccessible, for example I think the 78MHz range is not in the american scanners and so you will miss out on some of the different bands.
If you're just thinking about buying a scanner, don't waste the time and money ordering from the US, rather get an Australian compatible one that will give you the australian frequencies.

being not overly knowledgeble on scanning... what is trunking?

i hear it alot, but buggered if i know what it is

I ordered an Icom IC-5 (I think?) scanner about 4 years ago from the USA via the interwebs, it was 25mhz > 1000mhz with no interruption.
They clearly stated on the website that the 'export model' did not block the cell phone bands which were somewhere around 800-900mhz. Apart from that, as far as I know, the scanners have full coverage.

If I was a US citizen and purchased it, I would have got the model with 800-900mhz blocked out.

Bonez

Nafenn wrote:being not overly knowledgeble on scanning... what is trunking?

i hear it alot, but buggered if i know what it is

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trunked_radio_system

1080 wrote:HI all
just getting back into scanning......and truncking which i have not done before & thinking ???
Can USA scanners be used in oz for trunking?
Thnx.

As has been pointed out elsewhere, the American scanners often don't have the 70 to 85 MHz Band. And whereas the Australian 800 MHz Band goes to 869.9875 MHz, the American 800 Mhz Band stops at 868.9875 MHz, and this is important if you want to Trunk-track Motorola 800 MHz Smartnet systems, of which there are one or two in the Perth area.

There are seven major Trunking protocols in the world:

Motorola
EDACS
LTR

MPT1327
SmartTrunkII
TETRA
TetraPol

and present day scanners will only handle the first two, or three protocols, depending on model.

There are a number of MPT1327 Trunked Radio systems in the South West corner of Western Australia, and these can be Trunk-tracked by using a PC controlled scanner in conjunction with software such as TrunkView.

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Comint