Below are the primary users of each site on the RWC:
-Simulcast A - Phoenix PD & Phoenix City Services
-Simulcast B - Phoenix Fire & Phoenix Public Works [Secondary Roaming for neighboring Agencies]
-Simulcast C - Chandler, Maricopa (City), Phoenix PD 400
-Simulcast F - Tempe
-Simulcast G - West Valley Agencies (Avondale, El Mirage, Glendale, Goodyear, Peoria, Surprise, Tolleson) [Secondary Roaming for Phoenix PD & Fire]
-Simulcast H - Scottsdale
-Simulcast J - Buckeye
-Sky Harbor - All Sky Harbor Airport operations
-New River - Outlet Mall & Anthem area
-Quintero - Quintero Community
-High Sites (South Mountain, North Mountain, Far North Mountain, Sacaton Mountain, Thompson Peak, Towers Mountain, White Tanks Mountain) - Backup for Simulcast Sites, "Ocean Deck", and Roaming for Outlying coverage area
Some other notes:
-Simulcast A&B are co-located on the same transmitter locations. This provides a complete coverage backup radio system for Phoenix PD & Phoenix Fire. This also provides for additional capacity in the Phoenix area.
-Users can "Roam" between sites when they are outside the coverage areas of their primary coverage area. (Therefore, we often hear Glendale on Simulcast B, and Phoenix PD 200/800/900 on Simulcast G)
-Talkgroups are only active when there is a system user that "affiliates" to the site. (Therefore, if there are no El Mirage PD officers near Phoenix, El Mirage PD talkgroup will not be carried on Simulcast B)
-RWC System Admins control what talkgroups have access to what sites. (Therefore, we do not normally hear Sky Harbor Dispatch on Simulcast A/B even though there are Simulcast A/B transmitters at the airport. This is also why we don't hear Phoenix PD on the Sky Harbor IR).
-Phoenix Regional Fire agencies can use K Deck talkgroups across all Simulcast sites.
You can use what is above as a loose guide. Where we hear talkgroups can change if there are system transmitter outages, planned maintenance, changes in agency coverage requirements, large events in the valley, etc.
For scanning, certainly lockout or avoid sites you cannot receive, or have interest in hearing. On my primary antenna from home, I can only receive 5 of the 17 RWC sites. Say it takes my BCD996XT about 500 miliseconds to scan a site that I cannot receive. It would be inefficient to have the 12 sites that I cannot receive unlocked and in the scan list. There will be about 6 seconds of NOTHING every 15 seconds it takes my radio to complete a scan cycle. 40% of the time, my scanner would be silent! That is a lot of wasted scan time. If I listen for 8 hours while working, that turns out to 3.2 hours of hearing nothing!
The newer Uniden scanners like the Uniden BCD436HP & BCD536HP do not take as long as a BCD996XT to scan a site that it cannot receive so, it is not a big deal. Even with the newer scanners, it still adds up to time listening to nothing.