312 - Understanding the Radio Reference Database

Haskell Moore has spent approximately 50 years listening to scanner radios. He also brings 40 years of information-technology experience, including work as a Global IT Crisis Manager for BP, and continues to teach hurricane preparedness. In this episode, Haskell explains how scanner radio helped him navigate flooded streets in Houston, keep family members away from dangerous situations and intervene during a fire before a friend reentered a burning building. Phil and Haskell also discuss the evolution of scanner technology, including early crystal and synthesized radios, the Realistic Pro-2006, the Optoelectronics OS-456, computer-controlled scanning, the Uniden SDS100, the HomePatrol and the Unication G5. For beginners, Haskell shares advice about RadioReference, programming software, ham-radio education, building antennas and creating focused scan lists. The episode closes with the golden rule of responsible scanning: never publish sensitive information in a way that could endanger responders or contribute to additional encryption. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 Learn More About Haskell Moore 🌐 https://hidefromthewind.com 📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@HaskellMoore ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 Links in this episode 📕 Haskell's Book - Hurricane Preparedness for the Home https://amzn.to/4fwp6T8 💾 BuTel software https://www.scannerschool.com/butel 🌐 Radio Reference https://www.radioreference.com ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ❤️ Support Scanner School 🎙️ Patreon https://scannerschool.com/patreon 🎥 YouTube Membership https://www.youtube.com/@scannerschool/join 🎤 Want to be a guest on Scanner School? https://scannerschool.com/guest ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📭 MAILING ADDRESS Scanner School PO Box 1642 North Massapequa, NY 11758

Every month I answer your questions on the podcast. If you have a question you would like me to answer, please leave me a voicemail at 516-308-2885 or by visiting www.scannerschool.com/ask Questions answered on this week's podcast How can you monitor only 1 DMR talk group on a conventional frequency? Should I buy an SDS150 for Suffolk County, NY? ==================================== 🛒 Links ==================================== Here are links to the products we mentioned in the podcast. Some of these links may be affiliate links and Scanner School may earn a small commission if you use these links. BuTel Programming Software: https://www.scannerschool.com/butel Uniden SDS100: https://www.scannerschool.com/sds100 Uniden SDS150: https://www.scannerschool.com/sds150 Uniden SDS200: https://www.scannerschool.com/sds200

Digital modes, like P25, NXDN, DMR and others will use FDMA, TDMA, or both allow multiple transmissions to share a single frequency at the same time. FDMA or Frequency Division Multiple Access divides a current carrier frequency into multiple parts, allowing for multiple users to operate on the same time on the same frequency. TDMA or Time Division Multiple Access divides a current transmission over time, allowing for 2 or more users to share a the same frequency at the same time, depending on the digital protocol that is used. The ability for these digital transmissions to place multiple users on the same frequency allows for better management of the limited radio spectrum resource. Not only does this allow for more frequencies to be distributed, but allows for end licenses to do more with a single radio license. Learn the differences between FDMA and TDMA in this week's podcast. ==================================== 🛒 Check out our new Merch! ==================================== Squelchy opened his own store selling Scanner School merchandise! Show your love for the Scanner Radio Hobby and Scanner School. Pick up a hat, shirt, bag, or mug and help support Scanner School. 🔗 https://scannerschool.myspreadshop.com/ ==================================== 🎙 Join our new Scanner Radio Community ==================================== Join our FREE Discord server and connect with other Scanner Radio Users! By using Discord, a free, multi-platform community portal, you can now be part of the Scanner Radio Discussion! Chat real time, share photos, ask questions, and give feedback to other's in chat. 🔗 https://www.scannerschool.com/discord ==================================== 🎓 Check out our online courses ==================================== Our free Software Defined Radio course will have you up and running with a SDR in a weekend. Upgrade to our Advanced Course, and learn how to setup SDR Software like a pro. 🔗 https://www.courses.scannerschool.com ==================================== ⚠️ I want to answer your questions ==================================== I am always looking to answer your scanner radio question. If you have a question you'd like answered, please leave me a voicemail with your question: 📞 516-308-2885 🔗 https://www.scannerschool.com/ask ==================================== 🏆 Thank you Patreon Supporters ==================================== Thank you to all monthly Patreon Supporters. Supporting the podcast can be done for as little as $1 per month. Supporters at the $3 and $5 level will receive the podcast without the middle commercial break. Supporters at the $5 level not only receive the podcast early, but they also get access to discount codes, monthly zoom meetings, and Squelchy sticker packs. 🔗 Join our Patreon program at https://www.scannerschool.com/patreon ==================================== 🎥 Subscribe to our growing YouTube Channel ==================================== 2024 will be the year of Video for Scanner School Be ready for the upcoming videos by subscribing now to our YouTube channel 🔗 https://www.scannerschool.com/youtube ==================================== ➡️ Follow Scanner School on Social Media ==================================== ▶︎ Twitter - https://www.scannerschool.com/twitter ▶︎ Facebook Page - https://www.scannerschool.com/facebook ▶︎ Facebook Community - https://www.scannerschool.com/faceboo... ▶︎ Instagram - https://www.scannerschool.com/instagram ▶︎ TikTok - https://www.scannerschool.com/tiktok ==================================== All session notes with links to the items we talked about can be found on our website at https://www.scannerschool.com/session331

Imagine knowing that your scanner radio has a full signal, but you can't hear anything. Maybe you're listening to a p25 trunk system, but you can't listen to any of the activity. You can see your scanner is trying to go to a voice channel. It's trying to work. But you hear nothing. How frustrating does this sound? For many, this is a common occurrence when they try to listen to a P25 Simulcast site on their scanner radios. Let's figure out why this is happening and some simple solutions you can try to overcome simulcast.

The Nextel Conundrum: Originally established as a convenient communication solution for small businesses, Nextel swiftly expanded its services to include cellular telephony.