Scanner Banks/Management

[byronbb]

Lets say I want to put in a set of 5 channels and monitor them. I put them in a memory bank, say Bank B 1 through 5. That bank has 50 channels. What do people do to use the rest of the channels in the bank? Do you fill them up with other freq and then block and unblock blocks of freq so they can be monitored? Seems like it would be more convenient if my 400 channel scanner had 40 banks of 10 rather than 8 banks of 50....

Or perhaps I am missing something. I have an ICOM-R2.

[jfhtm350]

You definately do not want to just program a bunch of needless frequencies to fill up a bank. That will increase your scan turn around time. I have several lists (banks) that only have 5 or so frequencies in them also and does seem like a waste of a bank but I have the big city of Knoxville programmed into one that takes quite a few items with the fire channels, ems and trunked system but still doesnt come close to filling up the bank. I always to to make the most of all my lists (banks), that way I can break them up and concentrate on one certain thing instead of several if I have the room to do so.

[gmclam]

Welcome to the limits and fun when programming bank oriented scanners. My typical scanner has 10 banks of 100 channels each for a total of 1000. If I program a trunked radio system into a bank, that only required 4 frequencies. In that case, it is definitely best to leave the other 96 frequencies unused unless I plan to use that bank for a second purpose and lock out the first 4.

How you organize banks and frequencies depends totally on what you monitor and how. You must either monitor way more than you want to (because you've filled a bank), lock out most of what you've programmed into a bank (to keep scan time reasonable), or waste a lot of channel positions to avoid the first 2 scenarios.

[RDGDigital]

I don't think the OP meant he filled up a bank with useless channels. I think he meant that because he only has 8 banks he has to put more than he wants to in each bank and then toggle on/off the ones he currently wants to listen to.

Personally I don't have a scanner that use banks/channels. My scanners use scanlists, and yes I do wish my pro-106 or pro-197 had more than 20 scanlists. So in answer to the OP's questions, I don't know of a way to do what you're asking.

Fortunately for me I don't really have that much of need for more banks (or scanlists) since my needs are quite limited I can get by just fine with what I have.

(Okay, it looks like I took too long to respond and someone else has already answered. Oh, well I guess I just need to learn to type faster).