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Trunksniffer Pro mpt1327 software
I Have been taking an interest in MPT1327 type trunked networks for some time now. The only problem with monitoring these types of transmissions is that there are no scanners available that will track the conversations. I have reviewed other software which does the job very well but also needs an external modem to follow these systems. The only problem I found with this to be perfectly honest was the price and that you had to send your hard earned cash to the other side of the world and just hope that you would get what you have paid for (Note: I have never heard of anyone getting ripped off by this company). So when I heard of some software that you could download and trial before you buy and not only that if you liked it You paid for it on line and a serial/code would be sent to make it fully open makes for a lot less hassle. Not only that but you don't need any external hardware, as Trunksniffer is software only, I really had to find out if it was as good as it sounded. The
Trunksniffer website boasts the following... For the professional user, decoding of control frames can help in diagnosing network problems (registration failures, call timeouts, RU roaming, etc.). TrunkSniffer Pro is now available,www.trunksniffer.com and a reduced, more economic version for the less demanding user will be available soon." I contacted Mike about reviewing the software and he was very keen which instills confidence to me as anyone who is keen for his program to be reviewed and then the results beeing read worldwide must be pretty sure it will stand the tests. What is required? Scanner, PC, Software and audio lead to connect to a soundcard. Also if you are using A Uniden 780 then an RS-232 cable for connection to the serial port.
First impression My first impression when I first looked at trunksniffer was "Oh my god" I had a play around with it but to be honest I found it very daunting I had a brief go at getting it running and must admit I nearly gave up. Mike chased me up asking if I had started the review and I relayed my findings to him and he soon had me up and running. I explained to him that I found it a little daunting. You see after using Ftrunk I found trunksniffer a completely different ball game when it came to getting set up . So what Mike did was create some video step by step help files in a flash format.(Incidenatlly these can be downloaded from the trunksniffer yahoo group) Using these I wanted to see if I could get going creating a "network profile" I opted for the option where you enter a control ch and Trunksniffer identifies the system in use giving its system code, network ID and other information required for the software to work. In use First
of all I searched on another scanner for an mpt1327 control ch. Once found
I entered this into the software interface and it automatically tuned my
780 to that frequency. Then by using the audio tuner function I was able
to see all the information that would be needed to program into the software
for my new network. Audio
tuner Armed with this information I went to the
next stage, Create edit profile. As I already knew the frequencies in use
by the system I entered them along with the control ch and then did a "network
hunt" as the system I was using a custom bandplan as opposed to a
logical one where the frequencies fall into a normal channel allocation. Ch
Allocations This was very interesting to watch as trunksniffer went
about its business identifying the channel numbers used for each frequency
and when it had found the allocated ch numbers it stored these. Now all
I had to do was save the the profile. The
profile can then be edited at any time by clicking on properties from the
drop down menu. One small gripe here, sometimes when I clicked on properties
the whole program would be switched off as though I had selected exit. Next
thing you have to do is monitor the system for a while to identify the radio
numbers used by the users I wished to monitor. As with just about all trunked
systems there were many different users on the system. Once I had this information
I was able to create a "Fleet".
With that created I could then filter out all other users and only monitor
their conversations. Or at a mouse click I could again monitor all users
to check if anyone knew had popped up on the system I wished to monitor
from the menu of available fleets that I had created. This was a feature I grew to really like, If I unchecked the fleets they would not be monitored so say if I deselected them all and selected "All others" I could monitor for any new users on the system. Or if I wanted to monitor just one user then I could easily just check the fleet I was interested in and all others would be filtered out. Brilliant! What's more You can at any time edit any of the fleets by clicking on their respective entries in the fleets list and then right clicking and select edit (Or Delete if you want). Sometimes I found this feature unstable, sometimes it would work when a track was in progress, sometimes it wouldn't, requiring me to stop the program from tracking the network. Sometimes this would not work either and I would have to completely close the program down and restart it only then would it work faultlessly. The only problem I see here is each frequency used is allocated a ch number by the network and trunksniffer requires this information for it to work. To get up and running you will need a base frequency e.g. a trunked system in the UK operating on the 440-445MHz band would require a base frequency typed in. The problem being (For me at least) is knowing the base frequency. e.g. A uk 440 mhz system at 12.5khz steps runs like this 440.0125= Ch1,440.025=Ch2 440.0375=ch3 etc. etc. so your base frequency would be 440.0125 as that is Ch 1. If you get stuck at this point then you can quite easlily ask on the trunksniffer Yahoo group (See link below). Some systems use a custom plan which means the ch numbers are not allocated in any logical format. Fortunately Trunksniffer caters for this with a feature called "AutoIdent" with this activated all frequencies used are scanned and identified and automatically stored.It is when using this feature you can see where the name "Trunksniffer" comes from. Like I said I found this software quite daunting at first and I struggled with it and it took a lot of asking questions to get it right but once I had it up and running I didn't look back and went off searching for new systems and users and creating fleets to my hearts content. Incidentally any profiles you create can be uploaded to the Trunksniffer yahoo group (See Link on bottom of page). In turn you can download profiles that have already been sent. One thing, I found a slight annoyance in as much as the control channel has to be reset every time you open a profile. This is no great task and can easily be done with a mouse click from the TSC's menu. Mike tells me this will be rectified in the next version. As well as adding user names to radios rather than just radio numbers identified by the system. With all your different network profiles set up and saved you can monitor any of them at will by using the drop down menu in the software. Ok some trunked systems change their control channel from time to time or continuously on some systems. No problem! Trunksniffer caters for this by doing an automatic "network hunt" when a control channel is dropped trunksniffer whizzes off searching for the new control ch and then when found monitors the system again with little or no interuptions of transmissions. Lovely! You can decide what you want displaying by either checking or unchecking certain selections from the fourth menu on the top tool bar. Incidentally I'm not sure that I like the look of the menu bar some of the images used for the menu's don't really mean a lot to anyone for instance one of the menu's id 3 building blocks which does not mean a lot to me, I would have prefered text to the images used. Getting back to what is displayed by clicking on the magnifying glass (See what I mean I think a text with a simple word like "Display" for instance would be much better) you are presented with a drop down menu and from there you can select what information you want displaying in the trunksniffer main window such as users registering with the network (Turning radios on) This I selected as I find that feature rather brilliant. Status, short data messages and other things can also be displayed if you want. Recording Another nice feature of this software is the ability to record the audio to the PC this can be done by saving either as an mp3 or a pcm file. I tried this out and found it worked faultlessly. The only thing I would like to see here is the option to leave it recording and the recording not to stop until you stop it. Perhaps I should explain a little better. As it stands now the recording feature will record one conversation at a time so if you leave it running all day when you come to view the recordings in the folder you specified for saving them to you will see lots and lots of mp3 files for each conversation as opposed to one file that has recorded continuously. Of course this feature would have to be vox activated otherwise there would be a lot of dead air between transmissions. I don't know if this is possible but it would be a lot better. Receiver display The receiver/decoder I used was the Uniden ubc 780 ( Boy I Love that radio ) The display on the 780 when tracking with trunksniffer was the frequency of the control ch when no voice was active.The alpha tags defaulted to "Trunksniffer.com". When the 780 was switched to a voice ch the frequency would be displayed along with the radio ID's or/and the fleet name.
Who uses trunking? Apart from law enforcement agencies in the united states (and some in the
UK. 2 to be exact) which uses a different protocol to mpt1327 the main users
of mpt1327 are. In the United Kingdom MPT1327 trunking is used by all Rail
companies as well as all Water, Gas and Electricity supply companies. Security
firms, taxis, plumbers you name it they use it. Also at the time of writing
news comes in that Dolphin tetra breathes its last breath at the end of july
2004 and most users are expected to switch to fleetcomm a nation wide provider
in the UK operating in the 170-184 MHz area. In the UK in the midlands area it is being used also by City centre Retail networks (Sometimes known as shopwatch however all the users of the trunked systems I am aware of go under the guise of Retail Radio). Another user of interest is the Scottish ambulance service. Final thoughts As I mentioned this earlier I found this software a little daunting at first but don't let this put you off I'm sure if I had to work it out myself and read the instructions properly then it would have all fitted in to place but instead I opted for the easier option and kept pestering Mike as to how each stage should be done and I'm sure I got up his nose a few times. "Thank you for your patience Mike" Now I have it running I can't stop playing with it. Watching the software at work is great as you can see messages being sent and even radios logging on, Pressel on pressel off etc. One thing that I found annoying and only happened on certain networks, I don't know if its a software error or not but I would get a "Voice call" GTC (Go to ch) 001 the software would do as it was told and go to ch 001. Obviously it would not find any transmission on Ch 001. Now it would sit on this ch until it timed out as the software obviously didn't receive data from the mpt1327 signalling to go back to the control ch. But like I say it didn't happen on most systems but feel it needed mentioning. It also needs mentioning that this only occured when I had "All others " selected in the list of users to monitor, so if you are interested in monitoring certain users/fleets then this problem will not arise. How does it compare with the competition? Well as far as I know there are only three programms available, this one and FTrunk are the ones I am familiar with and So I can only comment on them. Both work extremely well. I would have to say FTrunk is the easier of the two to operate at first but once you are up on your feet with trunksniffer then this will not be an issue. Ftrunk uses a modem which for all intents and purposes is supposed to make it more stable, but to be honest I did not find Trunksniffer unstable at all. (Unless you count the occaisional wrong goto ch command but that does not happen when monitoring selected fleets, only when monitoring all transmissions and only a couple of users I spoke to had this problem) Trunksniffer is software only, relying on a sound card connection. Both I believe can be run off one or two receivers. Also the editing in trunksniffer is done via the software interface which I really liked whereas with ftrunk it is done by going into the program files and editing with notepad. Also Trunksniffer has two big things in its favour. One you can trial before you buy. Which brings us to the next big plus.... The price! Trunksniffer sells for 90 Euros, I'm not sure what that is in pounds and dollars but its roughly near enough £100 cheaper than FTrunk. Not only that you can purchase it straight away. No waiting for the postman and no surprise import taxes. Doing these reviews scanners come and go and it's the same with software. But every now and again something will come along that you really get to love. I suppose it's a bit like having sex with loads of women, eventually one will come along that you really would like to settle down with. This was the case for me with Trunksniffer (and my wife ;) ). I grew to really look forward to using it and now I would be at a complete loss without it. Compatible receivers AOR 8000 ( Testing with this receiver has not been extensive, so it is not recommended for use with TrunkSniffer. If you are a registered user, and need to work with this receiver, let trunksniffer staff know ) AOR 8200 AOR 5000 AOR 8600 Icom IC-PCR1000 Icom IC-PCR100 Kenwood TH-F6/F7 Alinco DJ-X2000 (The Alinco DJ-X2000 features serial control, but is extremely slow. To tune a frequency requires each digit to be sent individually, with a pause of 20ms between digits. Use of this receiver with TrunkSniffer is supported, but not guaranteed nor recommended, so no complaints or technical support questions regarding this receiver will be answered.) Uniden U/BC780XLT. Update May 2005 I have just been sent the latest version 3.0 software to trial. The first thing I wanted to do was add names to the individual units. Following the instructions it looked a simple affair, right click the fleet name and select add unit. Put in the name and add the id and click OK. I was then met with an error message saying it was not within the limits of the fleet. To be honest I found this a pain in the proverbial, Ftrunk was never this difficult to add individual unit names Trunksniffer is available for download/trial/purchase
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