Also known as: Motorola Type II, SmartNet, SmartZone
Motorola Type II is a classic analog trunked-radio family (SmartNet / SmartZone) that pairs a digital control channel with analog FM voice channels. It was the dominant trunking technology for public-safety and business fleets before the migration to digital P25.1
Overview
The control channel (a 3600 bps data stream) issues channel grants, pointing radios in a talkgroup to an analog voice frequency. This makes it a trunked system even though the voice itself is analog FM. Each transmitting radio carries a radio ID.
Technical characteristics
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Access | FDMA |
| Control channel | 3600 bps digital |
| Voice | Analog FM |
| IDs | Talkgroups and radio IDs in control data |
History
Introduced by Motorola in the 1980s (SmartNet), later extended with multi-site SmartZone, and ubiquitous through the 1990s–2000s.1
Deployment
Many legacy public-safety and commercial systems; steadily replaced by P25, though some remain in service.
Decoding it with GopherTrunk
GopherTrunk decodes the Type II control channel and follows grants to the analog voice channels. See Status.
Sources
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Motorola Type II — Wikipedia, for the SmartNet/SmartZone analog trunking family, its digital control channel, and talkgroup/radio-ID signalling. ↩ ↩2