Anyone using a traditional police scanner might have noticed something peculiar lately. It might have become increasingly difficult to follow a radio transmission. If this sounds familiar, a trunk radio system may be the cause. Digital trunking scanners are the only way to follow a trunk radio system.
Many law enforcement agencies, fire departments, and other government agencies are switching to trunk radio systems in order to make it increasingly difficult to monitor radio transmissions. A trunk radio system allows a group of users to share a group of radio frequencies. The users in the group constantly change frequencies within the frequency pool.
Traditional scanners will scan frequencies and then lock on when it picks up a transmission. When agencies used one frequency at all times, a traditional scanner would allow the listener to hear an entire transaction. However, this is not possible when an agency uses a trunk system.
In a trunk system, the conversation will jump to a different frequency at each transmission break. This means that a traditional scanner that is set to one frequency will only hear one tiny bit of the conversation. Even if a traditional scanner is set to scan, it is highly unlikely that anyone will be able to follow a conversation with any sort of coherence, especially in large cities with many different simultaneous transmissions.
A trunking scanner allows the listener to lock on to a particular user in a frequency pool. This means that, when using a digital trunking scanner, the listener will be able to follow everything that is going on in a trunk radio system. Trunk tracking scanners level the playing field and make it possible to monitor trunk radio systems.
There are many websites that offer great deals on trunking scanners. Anyone interested in scanning local frequencies should most definitely consider investing in a digital trunking scanner. As more and more agencies switch to trunk systems, these trunking scanners will be the only way to monitor the airwaves.