BCD325P2/BCD996P2: Enable/disable groups safely while driving

Hello,

I live in an area where various trunking systems converge, so I am setting up my BCD996P2 scanner by making full use of groups and group quick keys. What I need to be able to do, however, is quickly and safely toggle groups on and off while I am driving.

The manual says all you have to do is press the Function button and the keypad number that corresponds with the group. Well, that can't be right, because when you press the Function button, you get functions.

I've discovered that the only time this works is if you watch and wait for a transmission to occur on the group you want to disable, but this requires taking your eyes off the road and being really quick and accurate with your fingers to disable the group before the transmission ends. I can't imagine Uniden would build a mobile scanner to be this unsafe. Does anyone know a simple way to toggle groups on and off?

Thanks!

-Tom

1. You must be in scan mode not manual (manual is where you get the functions)

2. You must be scanning the System you want to change in order to enable/disable its Groups.

Thank you for the reply. I may be getting my terminology mixed up, because when I use Butel software to assign a quick key, the scanner takes the quick key number and makes it a group number. Let me try to rephrase what my needs are. (And please forgive me... I'm not new to scanning, but I'm new to DMA memory.)

My situation is unique because just to monitor agencies in my area, I have to simultaneously monitor select talkgroups in several different trunking systems. As I travel around my local area, I need to change the talkgroups I monitor in those same systems, and I need to be able to do that quickly and safely while driving.

This is a simplified example of my scanner setup, and how I would like to assign Quick Keys:

System 1 - Countywide Trunking System
Group: One particular local agency (QK 1)
Group: Other nearby agencies (QK 2)
Group: County Sheriff (QK 3)
Group: Agencies north (QK 4)
Group: Agencies south (QK 5)

System 2 - Statewide P25
Group: Two particular local agencies (QK 1)
Group: Other nearby agencies (QK 2)
Group: State Police - local district (QK 3)
Group: State Police - other districts (QK 6)

On my BCT8 scanner, all you have to do is toggle the DATA button and then you can turn banks and scanlists on and off with the keypad regardless of what you're scanning. I'm hoping there is a similar way to do that with Quick Keys on the BCD996P2,

Thanks for your time!

I would submit the best solution is to geotag each Group, and attach a GPS that will automatically perform what you want.

I know you said fast, BUT, If while you are in the scan mode, push and hold the function for 4 seconds it will lock on function mode. You can then turn to the system you want and turn on and off groups before resuming. I find this method a lot easier while driving instead of trying to catch the system you want to change as it goes by.

Voyager said:

I would submit the best solution is to geotag each Group, and attach a GPS that will automatically perform what you want.

Click to expand...

^^^ This. Really the only surefire and truly safe way. You won't even have to touch the scanner - just drive around and it will automagically switch groups for you all by itself.

-AZ

Thank you all for your replies.

The GPS idea is a good one, but it wouldn't be practical for me because I live right where three trunking systems converge (a three-county corner) and GPS would either have groups from all three systems going at once, or not going until I get further into the county. I need the ability to manually select the agencies I want to monitor depending on if I'm going to drive 1/4 mile west, or mile 1/4 north, etc. I would definitely use GPS while on an interstate trip, though.

Kenny's advice is what I was looking for, and it helped me a lot because it taught me something about the scanner that makes Kenny's advice work -- quick keys function exactly like banks and scanlists. They MUST be assigned to both systems and groups so that they display accordingly on the LCD screen, and only then will the scanner's DMA begin to make any sense.

I also discovered that once quick keys are set up, you can select enable/disable sytems by doing nothing more than pressing the keypad number. Perfect!

Since groups under different systems can't be combined under one quick key, I'm going to experiment with not using multiple groups at all, and instead creating lots of systems with one group each so that I can quickly turn systems on and off while driving. For example:

System 1 - Countywide Trunking System A
Group: One particular local agency

System 2 - Statewide P25
Group: Two particular local agencies

System 3 - Countywide Trunking System A
Group: Other nearby agencies

System 4 - Statewide P25
Group: Other nearby agencies

System 5 - Countywide Trunking System A
Group: County Sheriff

System 6 - Statewide P25
Group: State Police - local district

System 7 - Countywide Trunking System B
Group: Local agencies

System 8 - Countywide Trunking System B
Group: County Sheriff

It's kind of a strange way of using the scanner because it makes no use of groups, and instead requires multiple systems to be created out of the same trunking systems. But it will make it very fast and easy to select the agencies I want to monitor on the fly, since all I'll need to do is use the keypad and punch in the number(s). For example, if I want to monitor among three local agencies, I monitor Systems 1 and/or 2. When I want to monitor nearby agencies, I monitor systems 3 and/or 4. County and/or state police, 5 and/or 6., etc. It's like having a conventional scanner that has so many banks, you don't have to further divide the banks up by scanlists.

For your specific purpose, this is about "as good as it gets". If I was in your shoes, I'd probably do exactly what you have done, being in mind a downside.

The downside is that this is the least efficient way of scanning unless you are narrowly focused on receiving just one group at a time.

What could happen for example, you have both Systems 7 and 8 scanning at the same time. The scanner stops on 7 and is looking for Local Agency comms. While that is going on, a transmission happens on a County Sheriff talkgroup. You won't hear the sheriff because it isn't in the 7 list. After cycling through 7, the scanner goes to 8, but the sheriff transmission has concluded.

You may wish to do some research on "Priority ID Scanning" to see if that feature may be an alternative to you.

So use the GPS to select the Groups, and disable the Systems (TRSs) with System Quick Keys which would be a matter of one button press at any time while scanning.

>The downside is that this is the least efficient way of
>scanning unless you are narrowly focused on receiving
>just one group at a time.

It is very inefficient, but I am narrowly focused when scanning locally, and I scan locally 95% of the time. What I've done is successfully program my scanner so that I have just one police department on System 1, one police department on System 2, a few local police departments on System 3, or few other local departments on System 4, the County Sheriff on System 5, a neighboring county on System 6, state police on System 8, etc. As I get further away from my home area, the Systems grow more encompassing.

So now, with the single press of a keypad button while driving, and without even having to look at the scanner's display, I can turn a system on or off depending on if I am driving in my local city (System 1), going to work (System 2), tooling around and running errands (Systems 3 and 4), jumping onto the freeway (System 5), driving into a neighboring city (System 6), and so forth.

Gotta love the flexibility of dynamic memory allocation!