20-430.fm Page 30 Wednesday, August 4, 1999 1:29 PM

Monitoring IDs

You can use your scanner’s display to monitor the frequencies in a trunked system for activity. You cannot hear conversations in this mode, but this is an excellent way to determine which talk groups are the most active. To set the scanner to monitor IDs, hold down SEARCH until the scanner beeps twice. SEARCH flashes, and all active talk group IDs appear in succession. To stop monitoring IDs, press SEARCH again.

Note: When you monitor IDs, locked- out IDs also appear.

CHANNEL ACTIVITY INDICATORS

Your scanner has 30 channel activity indicators (bars) which show the activ- ity taking place on a trunked system. You can see how many frequencies are being used and generally monitor how much communication traffic is oc- curring.

30

Each frequency you store in a trunking bank has a corresponding activity indi- cator.

The indicator that remains on steadily even when there are no current transmissions represents the frequency being used as the data channel.

The indicator that flashes when an ID appears represents the fre- quency being used by the radio you are currently hearing.

If an indicator turns on but you do not hear a conversation, the chan- nel is probably being used for a telephone interconnect call or a private call, or the indicator might be a locked-out ID. Your scanner does not monitor these types of calls.

If the scanner is holding on an ID which is not active, the other activ- ity indicators turn on and off as other groups use the system.

Page 30
Image 30
Radio Shack PRO-2050 owner manual Channel Activity Indicators, Monitoring IDs