Changes from 3.3 to 3.4

• Trunker now takes its "best guess" at mapping frequencies, assuming conventional schemes and 800 MHz band (only hex values 3BE and 3FF may appear.) You can carefully update the xxxxSYS.TXT file to correct the frequencies if your system uses a different map, or 900 MHz, or even 400-500 MHz. (More work is going on in the area of 400-500 Mhz characteristics...)
• Trunker can now drive additional models of scanners in "two scanner trunk tracking mode." The model used is determined by the environment variable "TRACKSCAN". The following values of TRACKSCAN are supported:

  Model         TRACKSCAN     Baud Rate
  -----------   ---------     ---------
  none          NONE          no output on serial port
  (default)     (not set)     9600 AR8000 by default
  AOR AR8000    AR8000        9600
  AOR AR2700    AR2700        9600
  AOR AR3000    AR3000        4800
  AOR AR3000a   AR3000A       9600
  Kenwood       KENWOOD       4800
  Kenwood       KENWOOD9600   9600
  
  If you want your model scanner to be included in Trunker's repertoire,
  it will be necessary for you to provide the information about baud rate
  and command set for the following functions (where appropriate) and
  test the capability during its beta phase
  
    Set scanner to VCO mode
    Set scanner to NFM
    Go to frequency xxx.xxxx
    Set step to 12.5 kHz

• Old systems previously considered 'un-numbered' are now handled by using the old-style system id in the range of 0x1F00 through 0x1FFF!!! This may not prove to be unique in your area if you have a number of these older systems, but I believe the convenience of automatically reading in the data files is worth taking a chance. Please be patient when an older system is being identified - the OSW that contains the ID does not get transmitted frequently, and it needs to be received several times to be sure it was accurately received.
• Considerable cleanup of the code was performed, and use of the 'scan marker' was eliminated because it was only reliable with very high accuracy signals and is not present in all types of Motorola systems. A three-OSW sequence has been identified that caused spurious frequencies to appear when Trunker monitored SmartZone systems, and was noticed both in Seattle and in some 400MHz trunked systems. This sequence is now handled properly. Also, with clear SmartZone signals, earlier versions of Trunker would flip back and forth between 'unnumbered' mode and 'numbered' mode.
• An additional feature has been included for networked systems - In addition to a xxxSYS.txt file which may exist for the system ID, each repeater's frequencies will be maintains in an separate file named xxxxRn.txt, where 'xxxx' is the SysId, and 'n' is a number assigned to each repeater. All repeaters will utilize the same Group and ID files.
• The filtering algorithm for new frequencies was enhanced to eliminate the spurious aggregation of random frequencies sometimes emitted by the trunking system (or cause by undetected transmission errors.) For a frequency to show up, it must occur a number of times within a window of several minutes.
• If you are moving from one system to another on the data input scanner, some number of OSWs from the new system can be associated with the old one until enough information is available to identify the new system. Now, Trunker detects the change of systems and inhibits the automatic writing out of the old system's data files, so they won't be contaminated with the newer system's data. If you plan to do this type of scanning and still want the data files saved, use the 's' keystroke to save the old data then flip the scanner on to the next system. Some people are in the practice of stopping Trunker first, tuning the new system, then starting it again. This should no longer be necessary.
• Affiliation assignments are also used to tag unknown radios the first time they are assigned to a known group. So now two possible events can tag new IDs - the first of A) the radio talks on the group or B) the radio listens on the group.
• Further information is displayed about the system being monitored. The "Flavor:" field will be either "Single Site (old)" for un-numbered systems, "Single or Multicast" for normal Type I and Type II systems that include "Scan Markers", and "Network Capable" for systems that announce the frequencies of their peers, such as SmartZone(tm), and possibly SmartSite(tm.)
• As beta testers successfully monitored SmartZone(tm) systems, the large number of IDs started to push the limits of available memory. Until some major changes can be made to address the memory issue, some new approaches have been incorporated into Trunker to reduce the memory usage. Un-identified groups and IDs will no longer be saved. Annotations to IDs will only be made for groups that have been identified with a title..
• A heuristic analysis is performed on the xxxxGRP.TXT file to identify from group numberings the allocation of blocks to Type-I and Type-II. If >95% of the groups in a block are multiples of 16, that block will be displayed as a type-2 block. If a mix occurs, a block-by-block list will appear, such as "11112??1". In this example, a hybrid system is theorized, with no allocations in blocks 6 and 7 (numbering them from 1-8.) These file-based results are computed only at initialization for the system, and are more accurate after longer-term collection is performed. During monitoring, a particular block's code may be updated to '2' if group activity with individual caller ID is seen in that block. This field is only updated during the Statistics refresh, when the %Accuracy field is updated. In future versions of Trunker, this data may be used to modify the interpretation of the group IDs and Type II Flags.
• This version of Trunker was tested under the Memphis Beta 2 release, and found to be functional. Those upgrading from Win95 should be aware that a known Memphis bug may put your CPU into a reduced power state, which isn't good for trunk tracking. Using the "Restart under DOS" shutdown menu item and starting trunker from the command line worked as well, without the powersave mode.
• When a call has priority > 50 (not tracked,) the details (group/radio ID & text) are always displayed in DARKGRAY.
• If a frequency cannot be scanned because its hex code to frequency mapping is not know, Trunker will no longer choose the dead frequency as its top priority.