BCD436HP/BCD536HP: GPS not working correctly

Recently I took a trip through 2 states and about 7 counties and multiple towns. I had my range turned down pretty low, as to only monitor the jurisdictions I am traveling through. This was not the case. I received transmissions from areas over 50 miles away, in a third state.
How do I program my 436 w GPS puck to monitor only where I am?

phallout2000 said:

Recently I took a trip through 2 states and about 7 counties and multiple towns. I had my range turned down pretty low, as to only monitor the jurisdictions I am traveling through. This was not the case. I received transmissions from areas over 50 miles away, in a third state. How do I program my 436 w GPS puck to monitor only where I am?

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Very basic information because I don't have personal first-hand experience with GPS and the x36 series, but I'm sure the first thing folks are going to ask you is if you have location control set up properly in Sentinel. I know that if you create favorites lists for example, you can have Location Control turned on or off in Sentinel for each favorites list.

Set range to 0 load national datebase by default as long as database is up to date GPS will work great.i travel all over and pick up what and where it's designed to do


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Location control must be turned on in either favorites list or full database for gps to do its thing. I use favorites list to limit what I will hear to what I want.

Range is automatically zero when using location control and a gps. That way you only receive within the circles or squares.

You can also adjust ranges on systems if you use favorites lists.


Mark
WS1095/536/436/996P2/HP1e/HP2e/996XT/325P2/396XT/PRO668/PSR800/PRO652

GPS operation does not limit the receiver sensitivity. If frequencies are re-used in distant areas, you will still receive them. Also, if the range of a system is set too high, you will still receive it. Many systems are set way too high on RR, as many admins don't understand the range setting and set it to as far as the system can be heard as opposed to the geopolitical area of service.

phallout2000 said:

Recently I took a trip through 2 states and about 7 counties and multiple towns. I had my range turned down pretty low, as to only monitor the jurisdictions I am traveling through. This was not the case. I received transmissions from areas over 50 miles away, in a third state.
How do I program my 436 w GPS puck to monitor only where I am?

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In my experience, this happens when ranges are set too high in the Radio Reference database, or where you're in the circle because of the accidents of the area's geography. Your scanner is probably working correctly, only picking systems it thinks are local, but the database is wrong, or has some quirks.

This happens to me a lot with statewide systems. I live in Northern Virginia, but if you drew a circle to encompass Maryland for a Maryland statewide system, I would be inside it. So when I use the GPS, I keep getting Maryland transmissions. It's not because the scanner is choosing wrongly, but because the Maryland systems are defined as simple circles and I happen to be inside them.

It would be nice if official government systems could be defined by state or county borders...so I hear Virginia transmissions in Virginia, but no Maryland ones, and then when I cross the border it switches...but that's not how it's set up.

Since it's the OP's post - all the above suggestions - especially the way some of the data's ranges are set. Plus add this - since you may be new - the way state or large area trunking systems are set up, you can easily receive them at times , again depending on their talkgroups range setups.

Some are correct - many are not IMHO.

Let me give you an example. This is one is correct, but it is also a PITA.

The Ohio State Turnpike , range is 150 miles or so - that's the length of the turnpike -so if you are 140 miles south it will still load. Now knowing this I keep it avoided (when using the entire db) as I am no where near the TP. 140 miles north also and that would be past Lake Erie and into Ontario. You may see similar on states wildlife officers as in some states they have large coverage areas.

You can fine tune with a lot of avoids or if in the same area over and over, create a favorite list and fine tune it.

I always have range at zero - unless I'm in a very sparely populated area.

There was a mention about location control on/of on the entire database. I do not believe you can turn it off.

I'm also of the belief that it's the RRDB at fault. Even with your settings tightened down to "zero", there are some systems with ridiculously huge ranges.

phask said:

The Ohio State Turnpike , range is 150 miles or so - that's the length of the turnpike -so if you are 140 miles south it will still load. Now knowing this I keep it avoided (when using the entire db) as I am no where near the TP. 140 miles north also and that would be past Lake Erie and into Ontario.

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Looking at a map of the turnpike, it should really be a thin rectangle, since the radio supports that shape. If the RRDB doesn't (I forget if it does), then three smaller circles would be better than one gigantic one. Again I don't know if the RRDB supports it, but three smaller 50-mile radius circles side-by-side would obviously "intrude" into the state laterally (north and south) less than one huge 150-mile radius one.

As you say, there's plenty of other examples. I seem to recall having this argument with somebody on the east coast a few months ago. All the tower sites for a particular New York State trunk system have correct range radii, but the talkgroup radius for a "statewide" talkgroup group was something like 217 miles, causing it to be included throughout several adjacent states as well as Ontario.

phask said:

There was a mention about location control on/of on the entire database. I do not believe you can turn it off.

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I think you can only turn it off by disconnecting the GPS or disabling it. There's no point to having a GPS connected and not using it on the main DB. If you don't want the main DB, you can turn it off too...