Hey everyone,
I'm an IT professional of 30 years. So, my father in law thinks I'm a P25 expert and asked me to program his scanner. Told him I would give it a shot.
I did some research, downloaded FreeSCAN, got what I believe to be correct loaded up, but I'm still getting "Finding CtrlChannel" on the P25S groups. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, and I'm getting a little frustrated. Any help/guidance/advice would be greatly appreciated. I've attached the current config.
I presume this is the system you are trying to program:
Seattle-King County Public Safety (KCERS) Trunking System Profile
www.radioreference.com
Looking at your file:
The first two 'sites' (highlighted) are not valid for the {25 system. Those two 'sites' have Vhf-high conventional frequencies that are not part of the trunked system.
The three groups are talkgroups on the system.
The King County Public Safety has about 15 sites listed. Some, such as the listed for Regional Justice System, are likely for specific departments, and would not carry radio traffic for other departments & agencies. Two of the sites are Simulcast, which can be a problem for the 325P2. It does not handle that well. More on Simulcast in the Wiki.
Simulcast Distortion - The RadioReference Wiki
The frequencies you have in the site labeled as King County match up match up to those listed for the King County/ValleyCom Simulcast.
Are you & your father in law fairly close to each other (your residences), or are you are in a much different part of the county than he is. If you program the site closest to him, but you are some distance away, then you might be out of range, so you would get the 'Finding CtrlChannel' message on the scanner.Similarly, if you programmed the clo0sest site to you, but it was significantly farther away from him, then while it might work at home for you, he, in turn would get the "Finding......" message.
Can you clarify where, in the county, you are, as well as he is? Like maybe a close highway intersection or something else that could be found on a map of the county? That would help determine which site might be best to program. You can delete those first two sites in your file (Renton Police and Tukwila Police) s they are not valid.
