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I am reading the output of Trunk88 and reading TG's that my scanner has never, and will never pickup on the trunked system (SERS). The particular talkgroup that im seeing alot of activity on right now is 8176, my scanner cannot hear anything on this TG. Is this an encrypted Talkgroup ? I see alot of these talkgroups that my scanner has never picked up.



Also one of the other interesting things I've seen on the SERS trunk is what appears to be radios being essentially kicked off the Talkgroup when they are breaking a rule. Either that or it just so happens when ever there is really personal information being divulged god turns off their radios. I every so often hear radios being cut out on TAC channels when the officers are talking about personal stuff. I know this is not scanner cutting out, or losing the control channel. Once I hear this cutting out sound in the middle of a conversation on a TAC channel ...the two parties never speak again on the tac channel, its clearly an outside force doing this.

It's safe to say, that there isn't anyone with their finger on a radio kill switch and I'm at a loss as to where to begin to explain. ...but it ranges from "there's a lot more happening in the system then you are not aware of" to "policing the police on their own air would simply be silly". Since this is happening when conversations of a personal nature occur I would venture to guess it is coincidence.

You had previously posted about not being able to hear the control channels. I would suspect that you are having a problem receiving the system.

_________________
I taste copper.
Comments, views, opinions - and trails of destruction - are my own.

What about the TG I am seeing in my trunk88 output ?

It could just be coincidence . That said, its not out of the field of possibility that there isn't a way to communicate with another officer that the conversation needs to be ended immediately. What do they do when they simply dont want to continue the conversation on the radio, for any number of reasons just say give me a 21 ? Is there a code or signal to end the conversation immediately. Surely, there are department policies that you can't divulge certain information on the air, and when that policy is broken how is that handled ? Somebody is listening to that conversation on TAC, somebody knows a department policy was violated. These are all very legitimate questions. They could use a plethora of mediums to communicate this message (IE dont talk about this). I've just noticed when I hear this sound, and it is always this exact sound that it happens when it is on a tac channel. It wouldn't be hard to have a button on a radio that transmits a sound which than could be interpreted as X.

Not to go into a philosophical lesson here, but I've found things to be true that are so impossible sounding that it pales in comparison to this on the grand scheme of things. There is always something we don't know. Always.

I can't tell from your description whether or not you already knew this, but 21 is a pretty standard code for phone call.

Radio traffic on the public safety system just isn't supervised in the manner you are suggesting. There are of course policies about what can go over the air but these are pretty highly trained individuals that are using this system and they know their policies. Granted, mistakes happen but to suggest that every channel has a live operator or supervisor on it isn't realistic.

The system does have a means of issuing a stun/kill command to a radio but that command can render the radio inoperable and is commonly used for administrative purposes. Alternatively there is an ability to force a radio to regroup to a different talkgroup or in some systems an over the air reprogram can be sent but all of these features are high level features and they just aren't ever used to bump someone's radio around for saying something they shouldn't have.

If two people were talking on a tac channel and it suddenly stops the moment personal information comes up, the simplest answer is that one party decided to take the conversation to NexTel, a land line phone, or some other medium and it occurred between transmissions making it appear to you as though there may have been intervention.

The second most likely answer is that your receiver lost it's reception with the system. Poor receivers (or even good ones with poor reception) can sometimes successfully unmute to a call and then for whatever reason decide it had made a mistake midway through remute.

And I agree with the green glowing taco, 10-21 or '21' is one of the most commonly used 10 codes in this region and it means phone call.

_________________
I taste copper.
Comments, views, opinions - and trails of destruction - are my own.

"8176"
Never seen or heard this TG come up on my end.

"the particular talkgroup that im seeing alot of activity on right now is 8176, my scanner cannot hear anything on this TG. Is this an encrypted Talkgroup ? I see alot of these talkgroups that my scanner has never picked up."
This gives the impression that you think your scanner will not pick up encrypted TG's. That is not the case. SERS has a few TG's that area always encrypted. Such as ERT, CID and NARC. I locked them out of my scanner because they are annoying.
The attached clip is close to what you will hear when you come across one of these TG's..


Lastly, the idea that someone from SNOPAC and or SNOCOM has there finger on a button to kick a radio and or disassociate it is so unrealistic I don't know where to start.

I listen to SERS a good part of the day/night. And I can not say I've ever seen any pattern where personal or questionable conversation(s) where cut off suddenly. As others mentioned, the likely culprit here is loss of the data channel or something along those lines.

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I should also add that just because you hear the voice channel loud and clear, doesn't mean that the control channel is coming in the same. If the control channel drops out, a perfectly good sounding voice call will end.

If you have trouble keeping a voice channel up trying listening to the control channel and move your antenna to an area where you hear it best.

_________________
I taste copper.
Comments, views, opinions - and trails of destruction - are my own.

This is a strange one. Trunk88 is showing the Control Channel is active with this TGID 8176 and bit 2 is also on. Yes this is on the CC. It only shows on Trunk88. Retro shows nothing strange with the CC. I saw this a few weeks ago and passed it off as a bad decode of something.

Anyone have any idea why the 867.175 CC for SERS W might be showing TG 8176 and the EMER bit?

Now it is gone and clear.