Policy re non-listing of interop channels in db

[riflemin]

I submitted updates to the Gregg Co Texas db which included a couple interop fregs that are confirmed in use on a regular basis. As an experience scanner user (38yrs) I program interop in its own scanlist. However by not including for instance "car to car" on TXCALL1D you have effectively hidden that frequency from inexperienced owners of, for instance PSR-800 or Home Patrol. They are led to believe that all local freqs will load based on their location. In my own experience programing a PSR-800 using my location not only are some local freqs missing, but conventional freqs and talk groups from systems hundreds of miles away ARE loaded.

 

[wa8pyr]

I submitted updates to the Gregg Co Texas db which included a couple interop fregs that are confirmed in use on a regular basis. As an experience scanner user (38yrs) I program interop in its own scanlist. However by not including for instance "car to car" on TXCALL1D you have effectively hidden that frequency from inexperienced owners of, for instance PSR-800 or Home Patrol. They are led to believe that all local freqs will load based on their location. In my own experience programing a PSR-800 using my location not only are some local freqs missing, but conventional freqs and talk groups from systems hundreds of miles away ARE loaded.

Richard,

I'll look into this. However, from the Wiki it appears that TXCALL1D is a standard statewide frequency, in which case it will not appear in local listings but rather in a statewide listing, and our administrators will not add them to a local listing for that reason.

I just checked and they are listed in the Common/Shared database category at the Texas state level. Calling up a particular area in a PSR800 or BCD436HP-type radio using zip code or whatever will pull from the database the statewide and nationwide frequencies in addition to the local frequencies and systems.

However, the Interop service tag must be enabled in the radio for these frequencies to be scanned.

As to information from quite a distance away being loaded, its possible that the geo coordinates need some attention. If you could submit that information using the Submit tab for the offending system(s), the local administrators will make the needed corrections.

 

[riflemin]

PSR-800 location based errors

Tom, thanks. The list of errors would be large and cover several County dbs. Not sure if it is db errors or the way the GRE scanner handles the data. I need to look at a friend's Home Patrol to see what loads on it.
Where would I submit the suspected errors?

 

[riflemin]

By the way TXCALL1D and TXCALL2D did load in my Prs-800 but the majority of interop freqs did not. I submitted 8call90 which is a confirmed repeater here. It was one of the freqs that didn't load.

 

[wa8pyr]

Tom, thanks. The list of errors would be large and cover several County dbs. Not sure if it is db errors or the way the GRE scanner handles the data. I need to look at a friend's Home Patrol to see what loads on it.
Where would I submit the suspected errors?

Please use the 'Submit' tab at the top of each affected county-level page. A local administrator will pick up the submission from there and make the corrections.

 

[wa8pyr]

By the way TXCALL1D and TXCALL2D did load in my Prs-800 but the majority of interop freqs did not. I submitted 8call90 which is a confirmed repeater here. It was one of the freqs that didn't load.

8CALL90 and other nationwide frequencies are listed on the Nationwide database page and should load automatically in a Home Patrol, PSR800 or other similar scanner.

 

[riflemin]

Tom, I gathered that nationwide interop "should" load. The fact is only 8tac95D, 8tac96D, 8tac97D loaded in "Interop" along with about 100 TxWARN TGs from across the entire system. In fact most of what loads when I try programming by location are TGs from TxWARN sites nowhere near my location.
I don't mind custom programming all my radios, but when I travel I use the location-based programing. I'm just saying it doesn't seem to live up to what was promised by GRE. I can't speak for Uniden or Whistler radios with this feature. Correcting each county db would probably make me very very unpopular with administrators!

 

[Jay911]

Channels like the 800 and 700 interop frequencies are continent-wide (US and Canada) and should not be listed locally anywhere. As stated they're in the countrywide data. It would not be a 'correction' to put the frequencies in counties anywhere in the US or Canada.

I don't recall on the PSR800 how they're handled - it's been too long since I owned one - but on the HomePatrol radios, you go into the menus and "Select Nationwide Systems" to open up the interop channels (among others). Now that I think about it, the PSR800 might be the same way.

 

[riflemin]

Jay911 somehow you misunderstand the previous posts. When programing my PSR-800 using my location it's not loading the nationwide interop channels some of which are actively used in my County. Also it loads hundreds of conventional and trunked TGs completely inappropriate for my location. THIS is what Tom suggest correcting.
Like I said, I really only use location based programming when traveling, but when I saw how poorly this feature works when i used it to program for my location I think it's next to useless when I travel. And having experienced this I objeced to having those interop freqs scrubbed from our county db. I do grasp the reason why it's done. BTW I prefer my other scanners.

 

[Jay911]

Please read the last paragraph in my post again.

 

[riflemin]

Jay911, we're not on the same wavelength. You are describing, as far as I can tell, choices under "Browse Library" in the PSR-800 main menu. I'm talking about "Set Location" menu. NO nationwide options there. You chose your city,County, or zip (postal) code and the radio automatically loads. I was talking to a Home Patrol user and he said there are more options for location based programming, but I haven't seen what's loaded on his HP.
BTW this menu only shows US locations, so I guess it wouldn't do you any good!
Kinda feel I got my answer from Tom and the thread should close.

 

[Jay911]

Jay911, we're not on the same wavelength. You are describing, as far as I can tell, choices under "Browse Library" in the PSR-800 main menu. I'm talking about "Set Location" menu. NO nationwide options there. You chose your city,County, or zip (postal) code and the radio automatically loads. I was talking to a Home Patrol user and he said there are more options for location based programming, but I haven't seen what's loaded on his HP.

You can want the nationwide systems to be in a different place than I told you, but it's not going to change anything.

The only way to access frequencies which are common nationwide is to access them the way I've described.

Just because a nationwide channel is in use locally does not mean it should be contained in the local part of the database. You must separately enable nationwide frequencies in a process completely different from setting your geographic location. That is quite plainly all there is to it.

 

[riflemin]

I already understand the policy from Tom's posts. Oh, and according to him, the nationwide freqs "should" load automatically. You don't have a PSR-800 in your hands and you speaking from memory. But the more i think about it, we agree that no matter how it "should" work it just doesn't and you gotta work around it. I dont know why you got rid of yours, but i bought this radio for this feature because it was cumbersome to sit at the computer and program my radios for all the waypoints and destinations when i travel. Now seems like a worthless feature. Is it because of the db or the radio? I opened this thread to point out that this feature doesn't work as GRE advertised (and therefore any intorp freqs removed from a local db were effectively hidden.) IMHO, if a manufacturer tells the customer "this is how our product works", it should work that way! But hey, GRE can't be held responsible. I don't know if these same radios marketed by Whistler or Radio Shack act the same way, but the only help I could get from Whistler was an offer to take my GREs in trade toward a new Whistler. On a positive note, I didn't know that Canada uses the same interop freqs until you mentioned it.

 

[riflemin]

Rather than re-edit my above, two comments:
I have programmed scanners for maybe a dozen folks over the years and found that even hams, electrical engineers and technicians are dumbfounded by programming newer scanners. When elderly aunt Mildred buys a scanner that promises,"Just enter your location/zip code and hear all the action!" It should work. Most scanner users are not gonna visit radioreference, and look at dbs or forums. This is who I am speaking for.

There are freqs which have been used for years as a car-car simplex or fireground, and are STILL used. But now that they have been relabeled as interop freqs they are booted from the local db? Sorry, but I don't agree with that.

 

[DaveNF2G]

This is the same problem as exists in many aspects of using the RRDB. Actual local usage should rule, but it does not.

 

[wa8pyr]

This is the same problem as exists in many aspects of using the RRDB. Actual local usage should rule, but it does not.

Local usage rules where it's appropriate. The reason for having common statewide and nationwide channels in a single location is to avoid multiple duplicate entries of common statewide or nationwide frequencies, and it's a very good policy.

Prior to implementing this arrangement, one of the most frequent complaints we received was that frequencies like 8CALL90, 8TAC91 and so on were being downloaded into scanners multiple times (or were contained in multiple locations for Home Patrol-style scanners), once for each county and/or municipality in which they appeared in the database. In some large metropolitan areas where these frequencies are heavily used, each could easily show up in a scanner dozens of times.

This was also the case locally where a particular frequency/squelch combination was entered for every agency which had a license for a specific local frequency such as fire dispatch.

What this added up to was a big waste of resources in a scanner as well as outrageously duplicative, and confusing; it wasn't at all unusual to hear Agency X talking on 8CALL90 when the scanner display said it was Agency Y.

To streamline things, frequencies like this are now entered in a single location, either statewide or nationwide as the case may be. Duplicate entries for local frequencies were consolidated under a single common listing for that locality.

Nationwide and statewide data is always available via the software API as well as library downloads to the various location-based scanners like the Home Patrol and PSR800, and it should show up in the radio without any prompting by the user unless they've disabled nationwide or statewide frequencies. However, because this capability is utilized differently by the various scanner manufacturers or software providers, it does not necessarily work in a consistent manner. Either way, the data is always available for use as long as it's implemented properly once it leaves RR.