[TrunkCom] EDACS 101

[David L. Wilson]

> I have been around Motorola SmartNet for years but have not had much
> exposure to EDACS.  I moved to Lincoln, Nebraska about four years ago and
> they have an EDACS system.  I would appreciate any help the group might 
> lend
> to a better understanding of EDACS.

One of the things you need to know about EDACS is that instead of 
talkgroups, you have AFS (which stands for Agency Fleet Subfleet).  For 
example, 02-031 would be Agency 02, Fleet 03 and Subfleet 1.  Note that 
would bet the equivalent of a single Motorola talkgroup if it were a 
Motorola trunk system.

A factor that complicates matter is that the above ( and all scanner makers 
and hobby lists) assumes the agency uses 4 bits (00 to 15 in decimal), the 
fleet uses 4 bits (again 00 to 15) and the Subfleet uses 3 bits (0 to 7). 
You will soon note that the AFS numbers do not seem to line up quite right. 
That is because the scanner makers got it wrong (and the lists have to be 
wrong in the same way to program the radio).  Almost all systems hav an AFS 
that uses 3 bits (not 4) for the Agency, 4 for the Fleet (as before)  and 4 
for the Subfleet (not 3).  So the AFS 02-031 (Agency 02 Fleet 03 Subfleet 1) 
is actually AFS is actually AFS 01-109 (Agency 1 Fleet 01 Subfleet 0).  If 
you take one of the published lists and do all the changes (the Monitoring 
Times website has a program to help convert--I wrote it), the system will 
make better sense.  But you will need to use the wrong numbers most of the 
time as the scanner makers got it wrong and thus all the published list are 
wrong in the same way.