Creation of a Digital Scanner

[M6MJM]

Hi Guys (and Girls).

It's been a few years since I was around the radio scene. I originally started with listening (scanning), then to CB, then progressed to Licensed Amatuer.

I've recently got back into it out of nowhere and I have a project planned on the listening side and I'd really like your opinions.

The scanning days have changed. I became involved about 2 weeks before the Police went digital (Encrypted TETRA), then had the Fire Brigade and Ambulance as well as the other bits and bobs out there and then they eventually progressed to digital as well, for which i can't blame them for operational purposes. This caused an absolute nightmare for us nosey people!

Let me get things straight, i'm NOT starting a thread of how to get into Encrypted Tetra... its not going to happen, END OF. I won't answer any daft question of that sort. But, a lot of the other stuff we listen too is going over to similar methods of comms... DIGITAL.

There is scanners out there that decode some digital modes but not all and they come with a massive price tag.

MotoTRBO is one of the modes that they won't decode and this is one of the most widely used formats BUT it's too expensive to include encryption.

My project is to create a scanner that will decode MotoTRBO and as many other digital formats as possible as well as the usual analog stuff.

At the moment I'm looking at an old base scanner with the space for some additions. I have almost all the equipment that i need sitting here, it just needs a lot of time and tinkering to bring (hopefully) a positive outcome.

I would just like some thoughts into and around this.

Thank you,

Michael.

26TM512
M6MJM

[Admiral]

Good luck, I tried stuffing a Raspberry Pi into a Realistic 2042 and it worked but was as choppy as hell. I think something that lightweight on processing power would need to be firmware driven rather than software.

[MrWeetabix]

an ambitious project Michael. Look forward to hearing about your progress :-)

[radio ga ga]

Just buy a 10 quid RTL dongle and run DSDplus alongside HDSDR to decode DMR ( mototrbo) job done,

[thelad]

https://www.amazon.co.uk/BCD436HP-Bearc ... B00LDTS3PQ
Then just get the Firmware update for DMR in the Uk.

[M6MJM]

The idea is to do away with the laptop/computer and have all automatic in one box.

I was under the impression from what i've read that even the newer Bearcats can't do MotoTRBO even with firmware... Can you confirm that it does as it would make this project completely pointless LOL!

[Admiral]

When say firmware rather than software I mean DIY firmware, unless someone can make the PI code 100 times lighter then I doubt it will ever be a goer.
I also used a snapdragon quad processor on a win10 board, that was worse than the PI.

I'm thinking you'd need some firmware on an EPROM as the heart of the code, way beyond my skillset.

[thelad]

I was under the impression from what i've read that even the newer Bearcats can't do MotoTRBO even with firmware... Can you confirm that it does as it would make this project completely pointless LOL!

http://forums.radioreference.com/uniden ... oming.html

[M6MJM]

Oh balls.

Well that idea was fun while it lasted.

*hangs head in embarrassment*

Thanks for the comments.

[Admiral]

No, no, don't give up on it, just because others failed it doesn't mean you will, I've just told you both of my angles of attack which are pretty primitive.

Personally I have found the best attck is to snag them with DSD+ and then whack them into a VHF and a UHF cheapo 380.

[radiosification]

It's called DMR, not MotoTRBO.
Yes that Uniden scanner can now do DMR for an upgrade which I believe costs $50 USD at the moment. Other manufacturers are apparently working on releasing DMR scanners or DMR upgrades too.

[Admiral]

And when you can get a sub-£200 DMR/DSTAR/P25/etc scanner that an idiot can use then all the good stuff will encrypt.

[radiosification]

And when you can get a sub-£200 DMR/DSTAR/P25/etc scanner that an idiot can use then all the good stuff will encrypt.

Yeah, I agree. Probably most new DMR systems will be encrypted from now on, and we may see older systems having encryption added too. I was hoping a DMR scanner would not come out, but that time has come, as I knew it eventually would.

[Metradio]

Depends on your idea of "Good Stuff", if you mean Shopwatch and Pubwatch, most went digital because of cost rather than privacy..
DMR (Mototrbo) gives you 2 repeaters channels for the price of a single channel.
Cheaper digital scanners should start to appear soon, it is not black magic - just slightly different radio technology..

Mike

[MrWeetabix]

Stick with it Michael. If you crack it, you can start knocking them out on eBay as 'digital scanners' and make a bomb from the black box brigade! :-)