SDS100 manual

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Tim-B

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Is the SDS100 manual available for download? I know it is still being tested and tweaked but if we could read the manual and get familiar with it so we can just jump right in to using it when it is finally on the market that would be great.

Even if it is a preliminary manual without all kinds of neat little pictures. Just something to get familiar with the operation of the radio.
 
scan-pa

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Tim-B said:
Is the SDS100 manual available for download? I know it is still being tested and tweaked but if we could read the manual and get familiar with it so we can just jump right in to using it when it is finally on the market that would be great.

Even if it is a preliminary manual without all kinds of neat little pictures. Just something to get familiar with the operation of the radio.
Click to expand...
Yes the pdf was posted in the early section of the main sds100 thread.

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Tim-B

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So, after a quick review I see that the way the scanner handles the three different levels of quick keys with FL, Dept/Site, Channel is the same as the 436. Awesome. Thank you for this. I was afraid I would have to learn a whole new system again. Now I can use my same cheat sheet that I have folded up in my back pocket. It looks like the FL, SYS, Channel, and sites are displayed the same way that they are on the 436 with a number of new options to display more stuff. This is cool.

One question I have that is not covered in the manual. How many frequencies can you program for a site? Since I travel around the state quite often I program each "site" with all the control channels frequencies in a given troop area. I can just turn on and off those troop areas as needed by turning site quick keys on and off. Is it still limited to 28? It would be nice to program all control channels statewide into one site and just drive hands off and let the scanner switch control channels by itself as I travel. For now I can do that within each troop area but as I move to another area I have to mess with quick keys because of the 28 frequency limit.
 
jonwienke

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Tim-B said:
It would be nice to program all control channels statewide into one site and just drive hands off and let the scanner switch control channels by itself as I travel. For now I can do that within each troop area but as I move to another area I have to mess with quick keys because of the 28 frequency limit.
Click to expand...

That's a bass-ackward way to scan, because once the scanner finds a control channel, it will not switch to another control channel frequency on that site until it completely loses signal, even if there is another control channel available with a stronger signal. Get a GPS and use the sites as programmed in the RR database. Then you can scan several sites if desired, and can control how many you scan with the Range setting.
 
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Tim-B said:
So, after a quick review I see that the way the scanner handles the three different levels of quick keys with FL, Dept/Site, Channel is the same as the 436. Awesome. Thank you for this. I was afraid I would have to learn a whole new system again. Now I can use my same cheat sheet that I have folded up in my back pocket. It looks like the FL, SYS, Channel, and sites are displayed the same way that they are on the 436 with a number of new options to display more stuff. This is cool.

One question I have that is not covered in the manual. How many frequencies can you program for a site? Since I travel around the state quite often I program each "site" with all the control channels frequencies in a given troop area. I can just turn on and off those troop areas as needed by turning site quick keys on and off. Is it still limited to 28? It would be nice to program all control channels statewide into one site and just drive hands off and let the scanner switch control channels by itself as I travel. For now I can do that within each troop area but as I move to another area I have to mess with quick keys because of the 28 frequency limit.
Click to expand...
I was not aware the x36 had control channel only operation? Doubt the sds100 does either...

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I realize that my method is not how the scanner was designed to work but after 30 years of experimentation with the two different statewide systems that I have monitored the method that I described is what works best for me with the current statewide system. The closest tower site is not always the best one. This system has some sites that are barely over 100 feet tall that you can't hear from more than about ten miles away and other sites that are over 600 feet tall that you can hear from 40 miles away. So the GPS method does not work well with this system. I also do not want to check multiple sites at once. I find that I miss a lot of replies to transmissions because before the other person in the conversation has time to key up his radio and reply the scanner has moved on to another site where that talkgroup is not active. I want the scanner to lock on to one particular control channel and stay there until I move out of range and it finds another. Also when in a mobile environment you don't have to wait until a control channel is barely readable for the scanner to move on to another that is stronger. Sometimes just passing by some trees or power lines or going under an overpass will cause it to lose the control channel just long enough for the scanner to move on and find a stronger one. I have experimented this thing to death and the method I described works best for me.
 
jonwienke

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The method you're proposing is worse, because the scanner does NOT lock on to the strongest control channel. It locks on to the first one that has a signal, regardless of the strength or quality of the signal. And it will stay locked on to that frequency until it completely loses signal.

You can edit the range setting for each site to more accurately reflect the range it can be received, if the current values are incorrect. That will resolve the issue you're complaining about.
 
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Tim-B

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Okay, I understand what you are saying. But back to my original question. Does anyone know if you can program more than 28 frequencies per site?
 
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Tim-B said:
I realize that my method is not how the scanner was designed to work but after 30 years of experimentation with the two different statewide systems that I have monitored the method that I described is what works best for me with the current statewide system. The closest tower site is not always the best one. This system has some sites that are barely over 100 feet tall that you can't hear from more than about ten miles away and other sites that are over 600 feet tall that you can hear from 40 miles away. So the GPS method does not work well with this system. I also do not want to check multiple sites at once. I find that I miss a lot of replies to transmissions because before the other person in the conversation has time to key up his radio and reply the scanner has moved on to another site where that talkgroup is not active. I want the scanner to lock on to one particular control channel and stay there until I move out of range and it finds another. Also when in a mobile environment you don't have to wait until a control channel is barely readable for the scanner to move on to another that is stronger. Sometimes just passing by some trees or power lines or going under an overpass will cause it to lose the control channel just long enough for the scanner to move on and find a stronger one. I have experimented this thing to death and the method I described works best for me.
Click to expand...
If you properly program the radio for gps use, it will work much better than your plan

By putting small circles around those sites with low power or propagation and bigger circles around those 40 mile sites, the radios built in programming will provide much better monitoring of the best signal than 30 years of experimentation, most of which does not apply any more, and manually punching quick keys or whatever other method used.

The key is properly programming of the sites, circles and locations to enable the radio and gps to function properly.


Mark
536/436/ws1095/996p2/996xt/325p2/396xt/psr800/396t/HP-1/HP-2 & others
 
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Tim-B

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Well, I am gonna have to go back to the ol' drawing board and print out the map of the 100+ sites and label each one with the tower height to judge the circle diameter for each. If the SDS100 leaves room internally for a GPS receiver I just might have to ship it off to Jon for one of his installs. I guess we will have to wait and see on that one.
 
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Tim-B said:
Well, I am gonna have to go back to the ol' drawing board and print out the map of the 100+ sites and label each one with the tower height to judge the circle diameter for each. If the SDS100 leaves room internally for a GPS receiver I just might have to ship it off to Jon for one of his installs. I guess we will have to wait and see on that one.
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Start by looking at the current locations.

I'm assuming you mean LWIN.

Direct link to all sites location and range.

Easy to change if that's what you want.

Edit - think you need to be a premium subscriber to see it.

FWIW - many are already 10-15 miles, that is not much...
 
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Tim-B

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Yes, it's LWIN. I have the map with the site locations up now. I am just going to mess with the site ranges a bit when programming to tailor it better to the routes that I follow when travelling.
 
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jonwienke said:
It's the only way they operate on trunked systems that have control channels.
Click to expand...

I finally have to disagree with you, Jon. P25 systems are by design CCO systems (with one very rare exception - implicit P25 systems). Others CAN be CCO such as Motorola Type II. Yet others such as NXDN and DMR can not be CCO.

But you are dead on that programming multiple sites as a single site is not the right way to scan successfully.

As such asking for improvements that make things worse is not something I will expect to happen.
 
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