Also known as: rest channel

A rest channel is the channel currently carrying control signalling in trunked systems that rotate the control function around the pool rather than dedicate one frequency to it.¹ When a call is assigned to the current rest channel, control moves to another idle channel — the new rest channel.

With a rotating control channel, the "rest channel" is wherever control currently lives, and it moves as calls are assigned.

Overview

Rotating control (used by Motorola Capacity Plus and some DMR systems) complicates monitoring: a scanner must follow the rest channel as it hops, rather than camping on one fixed control channel.

Sources

1. Digital mobile radio — Wikipedia, on DMR trunking modes that rotate the control (rest) channel. ↩

See also

• Control channel
• Channel grant
• Trunked radio
• Capacity Plus
• Digital Mobile Radio (DMR)

Learn it step by step

• Finding & identifying systems

From the blog

• SDR Internals, Part 11: The trunking engine & event bus