Trunkview V1.3

[morfis]

The latest version of TrunkView is now available for download at:

http://www.linato.net/trunkview/

Quite a few enhancements, all of which are the result of user comments.

[Napalm]

Beat me to it, even though I hinted at in the 1.2 thread. Thanks

There's an unofficial Yahoo group available for Trunkview support:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/trunkview

Membership is open to all, the moderation for new memberships is just to ensure spammers don't get on.

[Jay911]

Anyone got any workarounds for the issue of having multiple systems with the same sysid? Luckily the radio IDs and talkgroups are different on each system in my area, but it's still labeled with the wrong sysid and text label, and cch frequency (though it does listen to the right cch if "use cch from clear down" is checked).

[morfis]

Not sure what you mean Jay? The latest version can cope with multiple systems with the same ID by use of the green triangle. Hopefully future versions will address this in a more robust way - though there is no way for the software to actually know which system you are listening to "automatically" as the system doesn't transmit any information which would uniquely identify it.

[Jay911]

I'd never heard of a green triangle. I see there's a red triangle below the control channel frequency which can be right-clicked and provides a list of systems to whom the current sysid matches. I'd never seen it documented before and don't know how anyone would know to click it. Wouldn't you agree that it'd be a reasonable expectation for the program to, if someone clicks on the "Site" pull-down menu and then picks a site from that list, that it would:

1. Check to see if the sysid matches the currently active sysid; if so, assume it is running on that sysid? (aka - the current behavior taken if you right-click the red triangle and choose a new system)
2. If the above is not a match, tune to the designated control channel frequency for the selected site and listen for data? (similar to the current behavior)

Originally Posted by morfis

there is no way for the software to actually know which system you are listening to "automatically"

Sure there is. As soon as the control channel is acquired, poll the scanner to find out what frequency it is on. This can be accomplished on Uniden scanners by the WI command on the older models or WIN on 396-era devices. Then match the frequency up with the first matching system in Trunkview's memory that has the sysid being sent.

So, if I have one system 2309 with frequencies 424.1625, 424.2625, and 424.5125 (any one of which may be the control channel, depending on the rotation), and another 2309 with frequencies 424.0375 and 424.2375 (same rule as above), the program should be able to pick the correct one every time, by sending to my 396 the "WIN" command immediately after receiving an ALOHA, and cross-matching the frequency received from the scanner with the frequencies saved in the sites.xml for each of those systems ID'ing as 2309.

I hate to always seem like I'm complaining about Trunkview, because I don't want to be. However, quite frankly, there are a lot of things like having to click on a green/red triangle vs. simply polling the scanner for its frequency that seem like easy, straightforward, and intuitive solutions that could be programmed in, instead of requiring interference from the end-user.

[Unitrunker]

Originally Posted by Jay

Sure there is. As soon as the control channel is acquired, poll the scanner to find out what frequency it is on. This can be accomplished on Uniden scanners by the WI command on the older models or WIN on 396-era devices. Then match the frequency up with the first matching system in Trunkview's memory that has the sysid being sent.

Jay ... I've done something similar in T4Win for EDACS (which has an even weaker identity compared to MPT1327). This approach has some pitfalls. T4Win would prompt the user with a popup message box asking that they either (a) type in the control channel frequency or (b) select from a list of existing logged systems.

The reason for (a) is the "tapped" radio may not be under computer control. You have to prompt the user for the control channel frequency. I was suprised to find many folks would just stare at the above prompt. They didn't understand why the program was asking for this information. Another problem is that you may not have a complete bandplan or map of channel #'s to frequency. The user has to be disciplined enough to type in the frequency of the active control channel every time a new system or control channel is logged. Each time a new control channel is found, the user has to guess whether this is a new system or just an alternate control channel on a previously logged system. That's a lot to ask.

[Jay911]

Understood Rick, but I have been led to believe that Trunkview is designed to be run with one scanner under control and receiving both control and voice (as explained to me last time, when I wanted to run Trunkview with an HT1000 as the control channel source and a scanner as the voice/controlled radio).

Even if polling the scanner is out of the question, I still think that choosing the site from the pull-down menu should do the same as right-clicking the triangle, and be much easier.

[Comint]

Originally Posted by Jay

. . I'd never seen it documented before and don't know how anyone would know to click it.

It is mentioned in the Changelog for Version 1.30

Comint

[morfis]

Originally Posted by Jay

I'd never heard of a green triangle. I see there's a red triangle below the control channel frequency which can be right-clicked and provides a list of systems to whom the current sysid matches. I'd never seen it documented before and don't know how anyone would know to click it. Wouldn't you agree that it'd be a reasonable expectation for the program to, if someone clicks on the "Site" pull-down menu and then picks a site from that list, that it would:

1. Check to see if the sysid matches the currently active sysid; if so, assume it is running on that sysid? (aka - the current behavior taken if you right-click the red triangle and choose a new system)
2. If the above is not a match, tune to the designated control channel frequency for the selected site and listen for data? (similar to the current behavior)



Sure there is. As soon as the control channel is acquired, poll the scanner to find out what frequency it is on. This can be accomplished on Uniden scanners by the WI command on the older models or WIN on 396-era devices. Then match the frequency up with the first matching system in Trunkview's memory that has the sysid being sent.

My appologies, I'm sure the triangle was green during beta testing (I haven't used the latest official version)!

This is a partial solution and an excellent idea - have you contacted the author about it? Checking the idents seen on a previously monitored network is another partial solution. Neither will work if the systems have the same SysID AND frequency (which is commonplace in the UK)