Q&A: Listening in.

Q. I was wondering how to program the linked below system to listen to. It is Dmr Tier 3 standard. How would i program it? https://www.radioreference.com/db/sid/11661

A. You would not be able to program a MOTOTRBO radios to listen to this system. The limitation is not because of the radio as such but mostly because the system owner would need to grant you access. 

To listen to communications, your radio would need to register on the system. For this to work, the system owner would need to allocate you a radio ID amongst others things. If this were a Capacity Max system, you would not be able to copy a known-good radio ID since the registration also uses the radios serial number and an optional authentication key. The radio would also notify the system which talkgroup(s) it is expecting to listen to.

It would not be possible to access the system using a radio without it registering (i.e. transmitting the above identity information) on the system.

If the system owner uses Enhanced Privacy or AES-256, you would not be able to hear any voice or see any data, other than call processing information.

In my assessment, your only option is to use a scanner or SDR that can support DMR Tier 3.

Image credit: Downtown Melrose Park by Dennisyerger84 at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=51162511