How to Setup SDR Trunk

[@archlinux8390]

good video good explanation, you deserving more subs.. keep creating videos , a new subscriber

[@veteranchaos]

"I swear I work in IT." Lol

[@JoeEverett-yj3pi]

Great Info, I got it up and going, Video was very informative. Need a video on icecast streaming now!!.

[@nmgaming2588]

I've been known to do some of that too!

[@newtron9]

Nice job laying this all out NM, do the control channels always stay the same, or is there a rotating schedule. And also I am using a pair of V4's and SDRTrunk is only letting me list 3 of the 4 control channels in my county. Maybe I need a 3rd V4 to list all of the channels? I am wondering if I am missing out.

[@nmgaming2588]

I actually only use 1 of the 4 control channels in my county. I worried about the same thing but I think, at least here in IN, they only use the primary channel for the most part. You could experiment with just listening to those control channels and see if anything comes through.

[@jonathandayne]

I'm having trouble understanding the specific differences and uses of aliases vs groups vs channels vs playlists and how exactly they relate to each other... For example should an alias be a smaller, narrow focus group? Such as one for X county Fire, and one for X county Law, etc... So that each alias is a smaller frequency group? And then a channel is one or as many aliases as you would like to have playing (or listen to) at one time? Where does a group fit in to all this? And how should I think of playlists, etc? Should I go through my county and add any number of smaller, grouped aliases first? According to each department, or frequency range? And then once I have a catalog of all my alias groups, then I could build different channels and group aliases together under channels that I would like to listen to at once? Example... One group with one alias just for law. One group with one alias just for fire. But maybe one group with two aliases for law and fire together? And would any aliases in a channel have to fall within 2.4 mhz for one SDR to hear them? I do have a second one ordered and on the way now. Hope that makes sense... Not sure how to setup and structure the variety of different things I find in my county and how best to organize them. I'd like to have my organized and structured properly to make sense. I appreciate any feedback or clarification you can offer regarding this confusion! Thank you.

[@nmgaming2588]

I used Radio Reference to organize everything. I added all the aliases for my county first and once I had those categorized, I then added the rest of the state. I was then able to see what else I could hear with the my system and tagged those accordingly. I didn't type anything into this manually. The $15 I spent on Radio Reference was well worth it.

[@jonathandayne]

@@nmgaming2588 Yes... I do have a RR premium subscription, so I can easily find an import all my frequencies and talk groups. Just confused on how best to sort and organize them. Not sure for example how much should go into one alias. Should I put all my County talk groups into one alias? Or better to separate all the county frequencies into a number of smaller aliases? And if my County Services use a variety of frequency ranges, should I create smaller alias groups for each frequency range? That's the kind of stuff I'm trying to figure out. How do most people organize their frequency lists into aliases and channels for best organization?

[@jonathandayne]

@@nmgaming2588 For example, when you say you added all the aliases for your county, how exactly do you mean? How many aliases? Just one alias with all the frequencies for your county? Or multiple aliases? How were they broken down or divided? Curious how other people organize? Sorry for all the follow-ups and specific questions, but I do genuinely appreciate your time trying to help me understand. Thank you!

[@adamrodrigues6244]

where in the sdr program can you see the actual band plan of the system your listening too?

[@nmgaming2588]

Band Plan?

[@adamrodrigues6244]

@@nmgaming2588I managed to figure it out no worries

[@8b2M]

The bin folder only has 4 files and the bat file just gives me an error telling me there's missing java files... I'm so confused...

[@nmgaming2588]

@@8b2M it sounds like it was a bad download.

[@8b2M]

​@@nmgaming2588I downloaded several different versions several different times. The first version I could get to run was 0.4.0 but as far as I can tell its working properly. The the files on that version also seem to match the ones in this video.

[@averystewart1017]

Gr8 Video 😊

[@cruikshank8056]

I already had it set up just like yours but its being a pain finding / connecting on anything. Thinking i will reposition my antenna next.

[@nmgaming2588]

I definitely had to do that. Downstairs, I had issues connecting. Upstairs, everything came through like a charm.

[@cruikshank8056]

@@nmgaming2588 I think the part that gets confusing to me is having one radio monitoring the trunked system and the other dealing with the voice audio. I still don't know understand how that actually works. I still don't have things working consistently.... Although I somehow had it working for about an hour... Then it stopped and I'm not sure what I did. Pretty annoying setup lol.

[@jonathandayne]

Do you attach antennas to both SDR units? Or is just one fine and the other can pull signals through the first? Thx.

[@nmgaming2588]

I have individual antennas attached to each SDR.

[@jonathandayne]

@@nmgaming2588 Thank you! I only have one at the moment (RTL-SDR v4) and haven't gotten it to work yet. Why does it have to have two? I set up a channel, but don't hear anything when it tries to play. (Although I can hear the test sounds). I can get a second one, no problem. But why it requires two is the part I don't quite understand.

[@nmgaming2588]

@@jonathandayne I was the same as you and couldn't figure it out. When I did some research on the internets, I found that people were using 2. One for the control channel and one that did the scanning for the traffic.

[@jonathandayne]

@@nmgaming2588 Ah, ok... Makes sense. I decided to start over and followed your steps exactly and got it to work this time. Thank you for such a thorough tutorial, I appreciate your time and effort. Next project is adding a second dongle and learning how to add additional channels / aliases and better understand the difference. Regards!

[@nmgaming2588]

@@jonathandayne You're welcome!

[@chrissprinkles9595]

Cant seem to get audio working,any ideas?

[@nmgaming2588]

Possibly due to antenna placement. Check the messages tab and see if there are any errors there.

[@jeremycortese]

Is there a reason why you use two SDR’s? You can use just one?

[@nmgaming2588]

My setup wouldn't work with one SDR, at the time.

[@nickjonesofficial]

I think the reason is there is a constant frequency that tells where to listen in the trunk of frequencies with the other. Could be wrong but that’s my understanding.

[@nmgaming2588]

@@nickjonesofficial I think you are probably right about that. At least it makes sense. :D

[@KO4L_Lloyd]

you never said when to plug in the SDR's Its important to NOT plug them in before the drivers are installed

[@preuton]

Too complicated.

[@SunglassMaxxing]

Hope to manage to listen into some tetra comms here in the UK