Programing DTRS to Monitor CSP on trip thru CO

I have been working on the DTRS system for a 996XT using GPS and a lot of the sites I have programmed have a 50 miles radius and it looks like I will be hitting over 10 sites in the Denver area with this 50m setting. Is this really accurate? Trying to monitor CSP along I-70 from east to just west of Denver.

Freqed said:

I have been working on the DTRS system for a 996XT using GPS and a lot of the sites I have programmed have a 50 miles radius and it looks like I will be hitting over 10 sites in the Denver area with this 50m setting. Is this really accurate? Trying to monitor CSP along I-70 from east to just west of Denver.

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In my view, the GPS feature is 100% useless for driving in the Denver-Metro area. HOWEVER others love the GPS feature for traveling, so you may want to try it yourself. In my experience driving and DTRS can be a nightmare, because the most "accurate" method of site selection is also the most dangerous: namely, manually switching between sites when you get low signal bars. In the Denver-Metro area there are DOZENS of DTRS sites; I suggest you program ALL sites in the Denver-Metro area which may be located 20-30 miles near your route. As a practical matter, if a you drive a particular route a lot you will eventually become familiar with which sites have good coverage in which locations.

Remember that "real" DTRS radios automatically switch sites based on relative signal properties (NOT GPS coordinates), but no scanners have this capability so you must switch sites manually.

We have a Colorado DTRS Interstate Travel Reference on the wiki if you would like to use that to reference sites you are programming. It looks like it actually recommends 11 sites from Kansas all the way into the Denver area. You can also reference the RadioReference Site Map in order to aid your programming, but you have to keep in mind that a lot of Colorado has to deal with terrain, so a simple radius on a map doesn't necessarily reflect the true coverage of a site.

As for Colorado State Patrol, it looks like you'll be driving through the Troops of 3B, 1C (not 100% sure if 1C patrols I-70 as it is the 3B/1C border), 1A, and 1D.

Spitfire8520 said:

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As for Colorado State Patrol, it looks like you'll be driving through the Troops of 3B, 1C (not 100% sure if 1C patrols I-70 as it is the 3B/1C border), 1A, and 1D.

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Also, you cannot listen to "discrete" Troop TG's in the Denver-Metro Area. CSP's Denver Dispatch Center doesn't have dispatchers for every Troop they cover, so various TG's for Troops 1 A/C/D/E and 3 A/B/C are ALWAYS patched together in random combinations that change frequently (i.e. multiple times a day). So, you basically have to program all the TG's for Troops 1 A/C/D/E and 3 A/B/C.

Thanks for the great info, will give it a try.

The Travel Reference worked like a charm, heard what I was wanting too, thanks.

natedawg1604 said:

Remember that "real" DTRS radios automatically switch sites based on relative signal properties ...

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To the contrary. Some Radio Shack / GRE radios can be programmed to pick up and drop sites based upon signal quality as a function of decode %. That can be very helpful when operating mobile!

ecanderson said:

To the contrary. Some Radio Shack / GRE radios can be programmed to pick up and drop sites based upon signal quality as a function of decode %. That can be very helpful when operating mobile!

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Do they switch between sites automatically within the same system, such that you can hold on a single TG continuously like with a DTR radio?

They do switch automatically between sites based upon decode %, but won't necessarily hold the TG. That would depend upon traffic and programming, so there is a benefit in having a commercial unit! The ideal situation would be to incorporate BOTH features into one unit (Uniden being the more likely to be able to pull it off) so that you at least stay with the local agency based upon location, switching towers only for signal quality. If there aren't patent issues, it would be a much easier transition for Uniden to make, quite possibly just in their firmware.