P25 Trunked Systems

[HHD1]

Just bought my Katie a Uniden sds100 for her B-Day.  She literally cried she was soooo happy.  I got it pretty well programmed with some help from YouTube.  But I've been trying to research p25 and trunked systems just to try to learn about it, and DUUUUUDE!!!!  Most of the info I find, I'll just say, I need to do research on the research.  I'm not sure why it's so hard for me to find info that's not designed to make things more confusing.  Maybe something with illustrations and not some monotone nerd staring at the camera whilst droning on like he reads a dictionary for fun.  

Anyhow, I'm super intrigued by p25 and trunked systems.  And I have a feeling it's easier to understand than what I'm finding so far. Does anyone here have any links to good sources of info to learn about these systems?

[tweiss3]

I guess what do you want to know about them? Does trunking radio make sense to you, or are you stuck on how that is done?

[HHD1]

The idea of trunking is confusing to me. Control frequencies, talk frequencies, DEC's... not sure how it all works.

[UncleYoda]

Maybe you're too young to remember the old phone system when AT&T (and then regional Bells) owned everything.  But back then every town of any size had a local phone office.  And there were more copper wire lines coming in from customers than there were between offices.  The lines between offices were the "trunk".  And it's one reason why we got the message all circuits are busy.  Public service and 911 dispatch have more officers in the field than they have frequencies for.  So trunking systems choose an available frequency for the officers/firemen/EMS to communicate without them having to switch around to find an open channel.  But, trunking isn't something we need or would even benefit from.  We are better off with our independent stations and the frequencies we have.  I knew firemen in my hometown who were buying UV5Rs to get around some of the limitations of their official radios.