EDACS Trunk Radio Systems (Enhanced Digital Access Communications System), is similar in ways to LTR Trunking, which we talked about in Session 8 of the Scanner School podcast. In Session 9 of Scanner School, we discuss the multiple forms of EDACS Trunking, how they operate, and how the talk group id’s are configured
EDACS is an older form of Trunking that is still widely used.
Just like a LTR System, each frequency needs to be programmed into your scanner in Logical Channel Number, or LCN. This means that frequency 1 needs to be in memory location 1 of the bank you are programming. Likewise, LCN 3 needs to be in the third channel of the bank.
Radios on the system are assigned a talk group and all radios listen to the control channel for information.
Talk Groups are setup in AFS format, or Agency – Fleet, Subfleet shown as ##-###
Each talk group in an agency would have the same first two digits on the system followed by the talk group id. Example, all Police talk groups could be 01-xxx. This is not a standard and it is not always followed.
There are several flavors of EDACS. There is EDACS Narrowband, EDACS Wide, EDACS SCAT, and EDACS-ESK. There are also digital talk groups that can be on the system. The first version was AEGIS which was replaced by PRO-VOICE.
Radios that will work on an EDACS-ESK and Provoice system are linked to lower in this post.
We discuss the high level details about EDACS in this week’s podcast.
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Show Notes:
Brent – KD8RBU – asked about a scanner antenna that he could use while operating from a portable setup. Brent likes to operate while backpacking, camping, or while setting up a field station. Brent would like to use a discone antenna but is afraid that the size might not be favorable to keeping with a portable setup. On the podcast, I suggested a Diamond D200R, a mobile discone antenna that does not require a ground plane to operate.
Brad was looking to install a discone antenna to his home setup and run coax.
For the coax, I would suggest using LMR-400. This is 1/2″ flexible coax cable that has low loss over the UHF spectrum. It normally terminates into N connectors and can be purchased pre-made . The one disadvantage to LMR-400 is it’s price. LMR-400 is just under $1.00 per foot.
For the external antennas, there are two Discone antennas that I would recommend. The Diamond D130NJ has a N connector, so if you are using LMR-400 no additional adapters would be required to connect the coax to the antenna.
| The Diamond D-130J discone antenna is available from Amazon and the link to the left is an affiliate link. This means that we will receive a small commission from Amazon if you use the link in the image to purchase the antenna. The D-130 will receive 30MHz to 1300 Mhz and has a PL-259 (UHF) connector on the antenna. |
| The Diamond D-130NJ discone antenna is available from Amazon and the link to the left is an affiliate link. This means that we will receive a small commission from Amazon if you use the link in the image to purchase the antenna. The D-130NJ will receive 25MHz to 1300 Mhz and has a N connector on the antenna. This antenna support transmit on 6M and is tunable for that band for transmit of 20w FM, 50w SSB PEP. On 2m, 70cm, 900, and 1200MHz, the antenna is rated for 200w. |
(Some additional Discone Antennas)
Finally, we talked about scanners that support EDACS-ESK. The following radios are current at the time this podcast was released and support EDACS-ESK.
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Podcast Transcription:
(Coming Soon)