Field Guide · term

Also known as: conventional radio

Conventional radio assigns each user group its own fixed frequency, in contrast to trunked radio.1 A conversation always happens on the same channel, so there is no control channel to coordinate assignments.

conventional Police → ch A (always) Fire → ch B (always) Public works → ch C trunked shared pool of channels any group on demand fixed assignment vs. assigned-per-call
Conventional radio gives each group a permanent frequency; trunking shares a pool on demand.

How it works

Groups simply transmit on their assigned simplex frequency or repeater pair. This is simple and robust but uses spectrum inefficiently, since each channel sits idle when its group is quiet.

Relevance to SDR

Conventional channels are scanned directly by tuning to the known frequency — no grant-following required. DMR Tier II is a digital example.

Sources

  1. Two-way radio — Wikipedia, on fixed-frequency conventional two-way radio operation. 

See also