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Motorola Type II SmartZone?

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Arroway
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Motorola Type II SmartZone?

#257293

Post by Arroway »

I'm looking to purchase my first scanner. since cash is very tight, i was thinking of either the uniden BCT7 or the BC350C.
My question is, will either of these pick up the Motorola Type II SmartZone or Smartnet?
I think that is what is used in my area; Palm Beach County, Florida.
any help is greatly appreciated.
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'Doc

Re: Motorola Type II SmartZone?

#257413

Post by 'Doc »

I have a feeling you are out of luck looking for a "Motorola Type II SmartZone" capable scanner. That's only because of what little I know about Motorola's system and a radio having to be "registered" with that system to work on the trunking system. I also have no idea what that "registering" consists of, so won't even guess at that part of it.
This type of system is designed to prevent unauthorized access to to it, so listening to it with a scanner isn't going to be easy. I'm sure that there are 'hacks' for this sort of thingy but I not only don't know what they are, I'm not too sure I want to find out (way to lazy!). I suspect those 'hacks' are not 'mechanical', but involve programming.
Good luck!
- 'Doc
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Circuit Breaker
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Re: Motorola Type II SmartZone?

#257721

Post by Circuit Breaker »

Arroway wrote:I'm looking to purchase my first scanner. since cash is very tight, i was thinking of either the uniden BCT7 or the BC350C.
My question is, will either of these pick up the Motorola Type II SmartZone or Smartnet?
I think that is what is used in my area; Palm Beach County, Florida.
any help is greatly appreciated.
I looked up West Palm Beach County and they are, indeed, on a Motorola Type II Smartnet. Information here: [Please login or register to view this link]

With that said, contrary to what the previous poster said, listening to such a system is very easy. You don't need anything that registers with the system to listen. All you need is a scanner capable of trunking. However, while the two scanners you listed will cover 800 MHz (which is the frequency range used by West Palm Beach), they cannot track trunked systems. Fortunately, West Palm Beach is analog so you don't need to spend a lot of money getting a digital capable trunk tracking scanner. For mobile/base applications your choices from Uniden would be either a BCT-8, BCT-15, BCT-15X or BC-898T. If you're looking for a handheld, Uniden only has one - BC-246T. All of their other trunking capable scanners also do the P25 digital format and cost a bit more.
Yaesu FT-950
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Icom IC-2820 (with D-Star capability)
Kenwood TR-751 2M all mode mobile
Kenwood TM-3530 220 MHz mobile
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Icom ID-92 HT
SteppIR 40-6M Yagi
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Arroway
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Re: Motorola Type II SmartZone?

#257731

Post by Arroway »

Thanks for the response. I have been reading as much as I can, and have been thinking the BCT8 is more what I am looking for. The pc interface, and numerical input looks to be more simple than the scan and add. plus trunking is a must have for some of the systems around here.
thanks for the help. now to figure out an antenna set-up.
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