Understanding Scanning
This section provides you with background on how scanning works. You don’t really need to know all of this to use your scanner, but some background knowledge will help you get the most from your BCD396T.
Understanding the Scanner’s Memory
Your scanner’s memory is organized in an architecture called Dynamic Allocated Channel memory. This type of memory is organized differently and more efficiently than the bank/channel architecture used by traditional scanners. Dynamic Allocated design matches how radio systems actually work much more closely, making it easier to program and use your scanner and deter- mine how much memory you have used and how much you have left.
Instead of being organized into separate banks and channels, your scanner’s memory is contained in a pool. You simply use as much memory as you need in the pool to store as many frequencies, talk group ID’s, and alpha tags as you need. No memory space is wasted, and you can tell at a glance how much memory you have used and how much remains.
With a traditional scanner, when you program it to track a trunked system, you must first program the frequencies. Since you can only program one trunking system per bank in a traditional scanner, if there were (for example) 30 frequencies, the remaining channels in the bank are not used and therefore wasted. Also, since some trunked systems might have hundreds of talk groups, you would have had to enter those types of systems into multiple banks in order to monitor and track all the ID’s.
What is Scanning?
Unlike standard AM or FM radio stations, most two- way communications do not transmit continuously. Your BCD396T scans programmed channels until it
Understanding Scanning
19
