BCD436hp HELP NEEDED

Hi everyone - I am @ the end of my rope with my scanner. I have had this scanner for about 3 years now and it worked fine up until recently. I have never dropped it or exposed it to outside elements.

I mostly scan my favorite list. My scanner can sit idle for 5 minutes before anything comes over the air. It seems that the scanner takes so long to go through all of the sites in each favorite list. I live in Houston, Tx - 4th largest city in the US, so there is tons of radio traffic. No need for the scanner to sit idle for 5 mins before I hear anything.

Here are the points of interest:
- I live in Harris County
- My city is Houston, Tx
- I do my radio ref updates once a month
- I do not have my Favorite List numbered.
- My range is set to zero miles
- I only scan PD's
- I have my types set up to law dispatch / law tac & interop
- I do not avoid any sites
- My favorites are a mixture of P25 & Txwarn

**Do I need to reset my scanner to factory settings or throw it away?**

my new bcd436 will do that.if i load all the sites for my county it will sit on each site a couple of seconds, so to check all the sites adds up to alot of missed transmissions. what i had to do was only program my local site since i use it at home most times. in my car i have my pro651 with all the control channel frequencys ( instead of sites ) and it scans them all in a millisecond. some guys say to asign the sites their own quick keys but its still a pia. probably didnt answer your question but im frustrated the way the programing is

Thanks for the reply. It did help out...at least I know i'm not the only one experiencing this problem.

Uniden customer support suggested that I don't avoid any sites. But given that it takes so long to scan through favorites list, I may have to do that again.

Thanks

i have a love/hate relationship with it. the data base is great .. display large lotsa info . but the audio is horrible p25 phase 2 sounds so muffled i cant understand what is said and unless i hook it up to my home discone it will not recieve anything.

cuelc001 said:

Thanks for the reply. It did help out...at least I know i'm not the only one experiencing this problem.

Uniden customer support suggested that I don't avoid any sites. But given that it takes so long to scan through favorites list, I may have to do that again.

Thanks

Click to expand...

A "factory reset" would not accomplish anything other than make you reload everything.

Be sure that you have the correct sites loaded for what interests you. I've seen comments, both here and over on the HoustonScan Yahoo group that some of the TxWARN sites are roamers (see this thread for an example).

You might also attach your Favorites list to a post so that someone can take a look to see if anything jumps out that needs to be changed.

Attaching an *.hpe file to a post:

If possible, use Sentinel to "read from scanner" if you have made changes on the scanner that were not also made in Sentinel.
Then, export the resulting Favorites list(s) into an *.hpe file. Then, attach that to a post and upload so that we can take a peek & see if anything is out of place. The Export is listed under the File drop-down menu.

Note: To upload an *.hpe file, to the Forums, you must change the file extension to one acceptable per forum requirements. To do that, note where your exported *.hpe file is saved on your PC.
Using Windows Explorer, find the file.
There are two ways to do this. You can either change the file extension itself, or compress the file using 7-Zip or other file utility. The *.zip file extension can be attached to a post and uploaded to the Forums.

Or, using Windows Explorer, rename your file one of these two ways:
For illustration, let's call your exported file 'MyFile.hpe' (without the quotes).
<Right><Click> on the file & choose Rename from the pop-up menu.
You can then rename your file to MyFile.txt, or MyFile.hpe.txt in order to attach it to a post. Whoever views the file will need to reset the file name back to MyFile.hpe, then it can be imported into Sentinel for viewing.

Thanks for the message. I will do that & upload.
The more & more I’m reading about this makes me very frustrated that I
Can’t just turn on my favorite list & listen. I don’t anything about different layers
Or how that should be setup.

Thanks again

Your description of your favorites list programming sounds alot like when happens when you do zip code programming -- the scanner loads waaaaaaay to much stuff (and lots of junk) that slows the scan rate down so much that you almost never hear anything. This is more so the case when you have alot of conventional channels and/or extra sites that are not even in range.

I've seen/heard several suggestions recently from even Paul (in certain cases) to just program all/lots of sites for systems. I've never seen this as a good idea for obvious reasons (mentioned above).

Additionally, probably more so for simulcast systems than with any other, I routinely watch the 436 "scan right through/past" a system without stopping on anything while I'm listening to activity for that system on another radio. I'm fairly confident that I can say this is a not a simulcast specific issue and I have felt in the past that the 436 (and similar) seems to have trouble "shifting" between system type modes (i.e. P25, Motorola, EDACS, conventional, DMR, etc.). I honestly do not know what is really happening but I do know the radio will scan right past things it should be stopping on.

All of this can be compounded if/when using location controls. If you're not using location control, skip the reading of the rest of this paragraph (except maybe the last sentence or two). Location control can result in severely limiting what the radio will stop on - be it because the database admins have set the range on certain "departments" to tiny values as low as 1/2 mile. In contrast, if you set your range to something large (i.e. 10 or 15 miles vs. 0), the radio will try to scan a bunch of stuff that isn't even in range to be received. Of course, this will slow the scan rate and impact on performance. And finally in the category of location control -- on an almost daily basis, I find simply bad or missing location data in the RRDB that results in you not hearing what you think you should hear. On the other hand - location control against your favorites list(s) (and not enabling the Full Database) could actually help. I believe setting the range with location control to 0 will more or less automatically remove system sites that are out of range (for the most part anyway) -- but doesn't account for and could be impacted by bad location data in the RRDB source.

Keep in mind that real subscriber radios are typically not only set to monitor a single system and site at any given time - they also typically are locked on to a single talkgroup (but may have a limited "scan" setting for some of the system's talkgroups). Nearly no scanner user is operating a scanner in this way (unless holding on a channel or talkgroup to monitor something juicy that is currently happening). Your scanner is typically trying to monitor many times what a normal radio is monitoring and it can only scan over that stuff just so quickly.

Adding quick keys won't help unless you plan to disable lots of stuff to improve the scan rate. Removing things (more or less the same thing) will help - particularly sites that are not in range (I'd typically stick to the local site and maybe 1 or 2 just beyond that site for that system at most). Adjusting service types might help but only if those "services" are causing the radio to stop on those talkgroups and/or you have lots of conventional channels loaded for those service types.

Sometimes increasing the system/site hold time from defaults of 0 (stay only as long as it takes to check the control channel, etc.) can help. However, again, this will impact receiving other than that system by slowing the scan rate.

Limiting what you are trying to scan is the best solution. Sometimes I program a NOAA weather broadcast frequency to test the amount of time it takes to "cycle through" the entire set of programming. Of course, this will be impacted when the radio stops on any activity on that pass through your programming.

I agree with Steve -- load up your configuration and we'll take a look. I'm certain we can find a few things that might help.

Hi - Attached are 2 of my favorites that I normally scan. This morning my scanner sat idle for more than 30 minutes with no radio traffic on it. I made sure my range was set to zero. Thank you for taking a look @ this for me.

So the biggest issue I see is that you have all of these sites loaded -- and, in a quick look, it seems the Walton FL has all of the sites enabled twice (shouldn't be necessary if I understand what you are trying to monitor). In actuality, it looks to me that you are scanning (or trying to scan) all of the sites three times between the two FLs.

You mentioned in your first post that you have your range set to 0 -- however, these FL do not appear to have location control enabled so range, zip code, GPS will mean nothing to these lists.

Without enabling location control on the FLs, under what I would call normal conditions, you should be looking for the site (or 2-3) that are closest to your location and only programming or enabling them.

Having said that - I do know of some systems that have sites that are area wide and carry selected talkgroups. I don't know if this might apply to TxWARN.

I'd consolidate all of this into a single favorites list and then either (a) select only sites closest to you (once!) and remove or lockout all others or (b) enable (and use) location control on the FLs and then use a zip code or apply a GPS (without enabling the Full Database).

So I ran a simple test on your 2 FLs (unchanged) with NOAA weather frequencies added.

I let the radio scan and it was taking about 12-15 seconds to cycle through. During the scan, I could see that at least one of the the programmed system/site/frequencies was matching a local control channel frequency in my area (I could see DAT, etc.).

NOTE: I know this may not make sense to try to scan a Texas system in North Carolina - I just wanted to see how long it takes to scan the entire set of programming assuming nothing is found except the NOAA frequency.

It's likely that in your environment the scan cycle would take even longer assuming that more sites are in range and the radio is spending addition time checking those sites and control channels for activity that matches your programming. I believe you can add about 1 second for each live/in range control channel the radio detects.

Add to this known issues with simulcast and other observations I've seen on my 436/536 where (at least from my observations) when scanning lots of systems/sites, it isn't uncommon for the scanner to "scan right past" activity of interest (for exact reasons I do not know other than simulcast, if applicable).

cuelc001 said:

Hi - Attached are 2 of my favorites that I normally scan. This morning my scanner sat idle for more than 30 minutes with no radio traffic on it. I made sure my range was set to zero. Thank you for taking a look @ this for me.

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cuelc,
Where in Houston are you located. I don't need a street address, but give me a landmark of some kind, or major highway intersection.

What I'd like to see is which of the TxWARN P25 sites are close to you, then look at your Favorites list and suggest ones you may want to drop, or else avoid.

I am located near I-45 & Patton. Very close to Downtown Houston. Thanks

troymail said:

So I ran a simple test on your 2 FLs (unchanged) with NOAA weather frequencies added.

I let the radio scan and it was taking about 12-15 seconds to cycle through. During the scan, I could see that at least one of the the programmed system/site/frequencies was matching a local control channel frequency in my area (I could see DAT, etc.).

NOTE: I know this may not make sense to try to scan a Texas system in North Carolina - I just wanted to see how long it takes to scan the entire set of programming assuming nothing is found except the NOAA frequency.

It's likely that in your environment the scan cycle would take even longer assuming that more sites are in range and the radio is spending addition time checking those sites and control channels for activity that matches your programming. I believe you can add about 1 second for each live/in range control channel the radio detects.

Add to this known issues with simulcast and other observations I've seen on my 436/536 where (at least from my observations) when scanning lots of systems/sites, it isn't uncommon for the scanner to "scan right past" activity of interest (for exact reasons I do not know other than simulcast, if applicable).

Click to expand...

**Can you check my Walton FL again to see if I have updated it correctly? Thank you**

cuelc001 said:

I am located near I-45 & Patton. Very close to Downtown Houston. Thanks

Click to expand...

Wow - using zip code 77009 and 0.0 range, Sentinel loads 74 sites! That's just messed up.

EDIT: ok - took more effort than I think it should have but doing zip code programming via the radio directly, Zip 77009 with a range of 0 now lists these TxWARN sites:

Pasadena
Reed Road
Harris County Central Simulcast
Highlands
Houston General Government Services Simulcast
Houston Public Safety Northeast Simulcast
Houston Public Safety Northwest Simulcast
Houston Public Safety Southeast Simulcast
Houston Public Safety Southwest Simulcast
Houston Transtar
Huffman

11 of 74 - still seems like alot but better than 74!

The 11 site "rings" on a map...

cuelc001 said:

**Can you check my Walton FL again to see if I have updated it correctly? Thank you**

Click to expand...

Attach it and I'll take a look

My HCSO favorite works great now since I used the location control. Yes...you feel my pain with all of these sites!

cuelc001 said:

My HCSO favorite works great now since I used the location control. Yes...you feel my pain with all of these sites!

Click to expand...

Ah - That's good to hear! Probably not much need in checking this then?

Yes..please check that one. This is the Walton FL. I have location control enabled but each channel has its sites that come with it. So I don't know if i have too many sites on Walton FL.

Thanks

cuelc001 said:

Yes..please check that one. This is the Walton FL. I have location control enabled but each channel has its sites that come with it. So I don't know if i have too many sites on Walton FL.

Thanks

Click to expand...

Is location control enabled in that Walton FL? It's not enabled in the file you just posted (best I can tell).

cuelc001 said:

Yes..please check that one. This is the Walton FL. I have location control enabled but each channel has its sites that come with it. So I don't know if i have too many sites on Walton FL.

Thanks

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Looking at the site map for your area, I'd guess that you would use the Houston Public Safety Northeast Simulcast, Harris County Central Simulcast, and the Houston General Government Services Simulcast. I think those would cover the traffic in your area. From what I've seen noted, some of the sheriff/constable talkgroups may normally only be on the site for their assigned area. While I'm closer to Houston than Troy, TxWARN in your area is still just a best guess for me. Haven't been down there in who knows how long.