FM is the standard 2-way communications mode for most older Public Safety and business systems as well as ham radio operations.
WFM is used on low band (30 thru 50 MHz.) and some specialized operations.
FMB is used on FM Broadcast and TV audio channels.
The Auto mode selects the mode that is most often used on that range of frequencies, due to new rules, many operations will be converting to
narrower bandwidths over the next few years so you may need to change the mode.
The BCT15X does not handle digital modes, if this is needed consider the BCD996XT.
Encryption
Federal Law prohibits the monitoring of encrypted communications, and even if it were legal, it is nearly impossible to do so without
equipment much more expensive for anyone who doesn't work for a three letter agency.
Priority Modes
The BCT15X has new features for Priority, including the ability to set the interval from 1 thru 99 seconds. This tells the radio how long
between checks of the priority channel there should be. You can set any Channel or Talkgroup as a Priority Channel and as many as you need.
The more Priority Channels you set the less chance that you will catch important traffic however, so be careful not to set too many channels as
Priority.
In regular Priority mode the radio checks the Priority Channels at the intervals you specify, say every 5 seconds. The radio then reverts back to
whatever it was doing before if there is no traffic on the Priority Channels, or after traffic has completed if there was traffic.
In Priority Plus mode the radio checks only the Priority Channels.
You can also set the maximum amount of Priority Channels the radio checks in the MaxChs/Pri-Scan menu. This limits the checking of Priority
Channels to limit the disruption time while checking them.
Weather Alert
Most scanners these days, the BCT15X included, allow you to set them up to alert on NOAA Weather Radio channels with SAME or single
tone codes. SAME codes allow the radio to monitor weather alerts for a specific area, on a county basis. Enter the SAME FIPS Codes
(available from NOAA's website) for your county and, if you want, other nearby counties to have the radio alert you when there is a severe
weather alert in your area. Up to 8 county codes can be entered. You can also set up to 5 sets of FIPS codes as "Regions", helpful if you use the
radio at different locations.
Weather Alert Priority:
While most scanners allow you to monitor Weather Alert only to the exclusion of doing anything else the BCT15X allows you to check for
weather alerts while scanning, searching or in CloseCall.
Trunking
The BCT15X supports the 3 most popular analog trunking types in North America:
Motorola trunking
Within the overall title of Motorola Trunking are several variations. Older Type I systems are occasionally still seen, these will be phased out
as Motorola no longer supports them. Motorola replaced that with Type II trunking.
What does all this mean? Well, basically it was a way for talkgroups and radio ID's to be assigned. Early Type I systems used a more rigid
method, until they figured out how to relax these restrictions in Type II systems, during the conversion there were systems that had
characteristics of both Type I and II, these were called Type Iii or Hybrid.
