On Jun 12, 8:51 am, wrote:
The radio I bought had been used. It was $580. I looked up the prices
on the links mentioned, what a difference. I thought it was nice to
buy it in the store so I could get some help, but that was a mistake.
It could be the radio wasn't working correctly, or my squelch was too
high. I had to look up this term, since it wasn't explained in the
manual. You can look i nthe online manual and see it wasn't explained.
Only mentioned to set the squelch, but nowhere it explains what it
was. I know now... thanks.

You're right, I should be able to hear Martinez, Concord, Antioch,
Oakley.... I'm wondering. Should I be able to hear a lot of
frequencies on the conventional system? And if squelch was too high, I
would have heard nothing?

Also, maybe the frequency I was listening to was trunked. How would I
know. I entered the following frequencies in my scanner but heard
nothing:
Frequency Input License Type Tone CH Description Mode
460.15000 465.15000 KLP745 BMRF 127.3 PL 1 Dispatch FM
460.25000 465.25000 KLP745 BMRF 127.3 PL 2 Secondary FM
460.55000 465.55000 WPKV955 BMRF 127.3 PL 3 Tactical FM
154.71000 155.67000 KMC308 F 123.0 PL CLERS Diablo FM

How can I tell from this data if it is digital, trunked, or
conventional? I couldn't find a chart on radioreference that explains
these codes.

Last night I was listening to a live scanner feed on the web from
Sacramento,CAand I heard non-stop conversations going on. I know I
was doing something wrong, just don't know what.

I will keep reading guides until I understand and then probably buy
another scanner again and give it another try.

Thanks so much for the advice and guidance. You've all been a really
great help and encouraged me to go on solving this.

Michel

I just was able to find out if my PD or FD uses conventional or not.
It seems they use conventional. When I clicked on the license link
that is shown in the frequency table it tells me what kind of system
it is I believe. So, going back to the original question, why I
couldn't hear anything still makes me wonder. I thought I had set the
squelch somewhere in the middle, maybe around 4 or 6 or so. probably
more on the lower end. I did an automatic search and throughout the
whole scanning range it only stopped once or twice. Maybe the scanner
was bad.