Tagged: sdr-trunk

An Introduction to Radio Trunking Systems with a Focus on P25 and SDR Trunk

Thank you to Carl Makin (VK1KCM) for submitting a video that he produced for his local ham radio club in Australia. In the video Carl first gives an overview on radio trunking systems and explains why they are used to improve spectrum efficiency.

He goes on to focus solely on P25 digital voice trunking networks. Carl is based in NSW, Australia so he talks a bit about what P25 services are available in his area and which ones are unencrypted. Finally he demonstrates the SDR Trunk software decoding one of his local P25 networks with two RTL-SDR dongles, and explains what information we can see in the software.

Carl VK1KCM on P25 Trunked

Understanding, Listening and Recording Trunked Radio Systems with an RTL-SDR and Trunk-Recorder

Trunked radio systems for voice communications can be easily found when browsing the spectrum with an SDR. Listening to a voice communication is easy, but actually following a conversation along is almost impossible to do manually. This is because in a trunking system the frequency in use during a conversation can change often. The frequency of the voice is dictated by a control channel that all radios listen to. This allows multiple talk groups (Police, EMS, business etc) to share one chunk of the spectrum without having to allocate fixed channels for each user.

Over on his blog Andrew Nohawk has uploaded an excellent guide that explains trunked radio, how it works, how to use radioreference to look up trunked radio frequencies in your area, and how to use an RTL-SDR to listen in. He then shows how to use a program called "trunk-recorder" which will automatically record and upload trunked radio conversations to a site like openmhz.com for sharing. 

Voice Trunking Seen on GQRX with an RTL-SDR
Voice Trunking Seen on GQRX with an RTL-SDR