BearTracker 885

[mule1075]

When will you guys get real? This not a scannist toy. This is a CB with a scanner aimed at the mainly CB crowd. It is never going to be a powerhouse scanner. To do all the bells and whistles you want they would have to get rid of the CB half or rebuild from get go and price near a grand

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Thank You!

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[INDY72]

To steal a quote from a certain WE wrestler... Your welcome!

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[ot0tot]

When will you guys get real? This not a scannist toy. This is a CB with a scanner aimed at the mainly CB crowd. It is never going to be a powerhouse scanner. To do all the bells and whistles you want they would have to get rid of the CB half or rebuild from get go and price near a grand

I disagree. It is certainly capable of what I am requesting. The quality and reception of the scanner side is comparable to every other digital scanner I've used, and the GPS locks on quickly.

The execution is where the trouble lies. I understand it's meant to be a plug-and-play CB/public safety scanner, but it doesn't work as advertised.

Using the GPS location it should be able to select the local public safety agencies within a set radius of where you're driving. Sounds like a great idea! But it doesn't just scan the local agencies, it scans everything on the trunked system. And if that includes a large agency like state police or statewide public safety, then you are stuck listening to non-stop calls on the other side of the state (or water, or airport) and not getting any of the local public safety traffic the 885 is advertised to receive.

One solution would be to update the Sentinel software to support the 885 and give users the ability to select exactly what they want to monitor, based on GPS location. This is already possible with the 436/536/etc. True, the display is limiting as to the frequency info you can receive, but at least you wouldn't be stuck monitoring marine traffic.

A partial solution would be to use the 6 character alphanumeric display in the bottom right of the screen to scroll some sort of user-definable alpha tag instead of just "POLICE" or "FIRE". It seems like this would be easily implemented as well.

IMO, if they were to do this, the value of the unit would greatly increase and would be of much more general interest. And all it would require is a few tweaks to Sentinel, and maybe a minor firmware update to reign in which TGs are automatically monitored by GPS location.

 

[INDY72]

Again you don't get it. This requires a complete redo and add the home patrol system for sentinel. You want an completely different animal than what is already on shelves. That will not happen.

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[KE4ZNR]

Again you don't get it. This requires a complete redo and add the home patrol system for sentinel. You want an completely different animal than what is already on shelves. That will not happen.

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Thank you milf
This is what I have been saying all along..this is NOT a scanner+CB. This is a CB with a very limited scanner feature set. If you want a scanner where you can modify programmed info then purchase one of the HomePatrol models.

Marshall KE4ZNR

 

[UPMan]

I only scans departments/agencies that are within range (defined by GPS). It does not scan all channels on trunked systems unless you are inside the range of all departments on that system.

 

[ot0tot]

Again you don't get it. This requires a complete redo and add the home patrol system for sentinel. You want an completely different animal than what is already on shelves. That will not happen.

The 885 already uses the x36 file system/database, and is programmable by the Sentinel software. Obviously this is not officially supported, but there is clearly significant overlap between the platforms.

At a minimum, I expect the 885 to perform as advertised and be able to pick up only local PS broadcasts. The additional functionality I described would be great and trivial to add.

How is your 885 working?

 

[ot0tot]

I only scans departments/agencies that are within range (defined by GPS). It does not scan all channels on trunked systems unless you are inside the range of all departments on that system.

This is not the behavior I am seeing, unless the GPS radius is set to 40+ miles.

Can you clarify this?

 

[UPMan]

Should be working like this: How it Works: Location, Location, Location

 

[ot0tot]

Should be working like this: How it Works: Location, Location, Location

Each method for selecting your location uses a different sized circle. In addition to the 10-mile Zip Code radius, HomePatrol-1 will use:

20-miles radius from the center of a city when using city selection
30-miles radius from the location of the discovered radio tower when using Auto Locate
0-miles radius if you connect a GPS or manually enter your latitude or longitude.
Hold on, 0 miles? Well what that means is that your location is precisely known. So in order for a radio system to be selected, its little red circle would have to enclose your precise position. This setting is great if you are traveling…HomePatrol-1 will automatically select and deselect systems as you drive through each system’s coverage zone.

Want to hear more (or less) than what the Home-Patrol-1 selected? You can manually change the range setting to be bigger (to include more systems) or smaller (to include fewer systems) by tapping RANGE on the main screen and adjusting the range up or down. Just keep in mind that if you are not using GPS, the range will be from the center of the zip code, city or radio tower location…not your precise location.

So it should be a 0 mile radius when using GPS? This doesn't agree with my observations, unless the geotagging is way off.

Where can I view the geotagging data on RR? I found the location data report, but is there a way to view it on a map like in the above link?

Figuring out what agencies are incorrectly tagged is made difficult by the fact the 885 gives you no info about what it is receiving beyond PS category.

 

[UPMan]

I'd use the "Add Channels on Range" feature of Sentinel:

 

[UPMan]

Note that the above does not filter out out-of-state systems that overlap your location, regardless of your distance to the border. The actual scanner would not include those systems.

Also, you might see many sites that are far from you, because when the scanner loads the system into memory, it will load in all sites. But, it will only actually scan those sites which you are within the set range for.

 

[ot0tot]

I'd use the "Add Channels on Range" feature of Sentinel:

Note that the above does not filter out out-of-state systems that overlap your location, regardless of your distance to the border. The actual scanner would not include those systems.

Also, you might see many sites that are far from you, because when the scanner loads the system into memory, it will load in all sites. But, it will only actually scan those sites which you are within the set range for.

Thank you for the reply.

When I try to "Add Channels on Range", the location info is "0.000000" because there is no connection to the scanner/GPS when the memory card is attached to the computer.

Also, adding channels this way seems to introduce many encrypted or DMR/NXDN sites that the scanner stops on but can not decode. Is there a way to mute or lock out digital transmissions that are not supported?

 

[UPMan]

Type in your location. Double click on any spot in Google Maps, then look at the link in the address bar. The end of the link is the lat/lon (i.e. https://www.google.com/maps/@32.8930021,-96.9971251,17z).

 

[ot0tot]

Ok, I guess that would work in a single stationary location, but what about when moving?

Also, this does not address the issue the scanner automatically adding things it can't monitor.

 

[UPMan]

It was the closest I could provide in response to:

Where can I view the geotagging data on RR? I found the location data report, but is there a way to view it on a map like in the above link?

While not on a map, you can browse the channel selection this way.

 

[ot0tot]

Ok, that makes sense. Thank you for the suggestion. I will give it a shot.

I will try identifying and adding the offending channels to the perm avoid list for my home area, but this doesn't address the problem.

As feared, it looks like many of the statewide systems have TGs with a radius of 85 miles.

 

[kas1263]

What is SSB and how does it relate to the 885?

I see a lot of comments that the 885 does not have SSB and therefore many will not buy it or believe it should be added. What exactly is SSB and how does it relate to the unit operation?

 

[JamesO]

SSB = Single Side Band which is a modulation technique that usually allows further distance communication.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-sideband_modulation

 

[kas1263]

Thanks!