blue5011
Member
You do not understand the MN ARMER system.
BearTracker 885
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You do not understand the MN ARMER system.
blue5011
Member
Correct.
But from what I have seen of an Sentenil-based scanner (Home Patrol), it stops needlessly on everything.
I do not want a scanner stopping on some god-forsakan DOT channel arbitrarily because "it" thinks I want to hear it.
blue5011
Member
The info is already there. RR refuses to properly "categorize" it. Look up Faribault County Talkgroups, lookup Faribault County Radio ID's. It's ALL right there, but simply not on the correct page...
I just looked, it's the same w/ Martin and Freeborn Counties. Every police, fire, ems, and county works have been on ARMER for years...
User error. Just turn off the Public Works service type. Or put an Avoid on that channel.
You have made it clear you don't even own a database-based scanner that uses Sentinel, nor do you understand the principles of operating them. You can choose what you want to hear based on location, by setting the scanner Range and either entering a zip code or connecting a GPS. You can also choose what categories of traffic to hear by enabling or disabling Service Types. You can also manually enable or disable channels, departments, or systems by setting or clearing Avoids.
In no case does the scanner decide what you hear, you are the one who controls that.
The same principles apply to the BearTracker, even though the user interface has been simplified, and you don't have the option of making custom Favorite Lists.
No.
Jacob
Member
I would think those sold here in the good old USA would be AM and those sold in Europe (if they do) would be FM.
blue5011
Member
Correct.
I have three Uniden BCD996XT scanners and one BCD396XT scanner. One the 996XT's which I have use is used for logging radio traffic, 24/7 at my home, by way of "Freescan".
I have tried helping three other indiviuals near me who have Home Patrol scanners "adjust" what they are hearing thru the Sentinel program. In my opinion, "Sentinel" is very difficult to work with. As an example, it puts my County, Fire, EMS, and City radio talkgroups under a separate entry completely, even though all are dispatched from the same County 911 dispatcher.
The organization of channels into Departments has nothing to do with Sentinel. That is a function of how the channels are grouped together in the RR database. If you have an issue with how channels (whether analog frequencies or trunked talkgroups) are grouped, submit a change request to the RR database to fix the problem (if there is one) for everyone.
Your criticism of database scanners such as the HomePatrol and x36 series is based on your ignorance of how to use Sentinel or the scanner menu to adjust settings to control what traffic you hear, as well as some fundamental misundestandings of how trunked systems work (including ARMER).
Sentinel isn't that hard to understand, once you grasp the relationship between Systems, Departments, and Channels, what Profiles are and how they work, how to edit Favorite Lists, and how to access the Profile editor to adjust scanner settings, such as enabling or disabling Service Types. There is a learning curve to become familiar with where to find all of the different options and how various settions affect scanner behavior and performance, but once you become familiar with Sentinel and the scanner menu, you can exercise a greater level of control over what you scan with a database scanner than what is possible with other types of scanners.
Your criticism of database scanners such as the HomePatrol and x36 series is based on your ignorance of how to use Sentinel or the scanner menu to adjust settings to control what traffic you hear, as well as some fundamental misundestandings of how trunked systems work (including ARMER).
Sentinel isn't that hard to understand, once you grasp the relationship between Systems, Departments, and Channels, what Profiles are and how they work, how to edit Favorite Lists, and how to access the Profile editor to adjust scanner settings, such as enabling or disabling Service Types. There is a learning curve to become familiar with where to find all of the different options and how various settions affect scanner behavior and performance, but once you become familiar with Sentinel and the scanner menu, you can exercise a greater level of control over what you scan with a database scanner than what is possible with other types of scanners.
Technoguy58
Member
Well, a couple of things I noticed about the listing on ARMER for Faribault county as well as Martin county. There are alot (probably about 80%) of the talkgroups are unidentified generic talkgroups. According to the RR rules, these unidentified talkgroups should not even be listed in the database. Every talkgroup that is unidentified has been "placed" in to the "Multi-Tac" tag without knowing what they are. That would be very frustrating because if "Multi-Tac" is enabled then who knows what you will hear. This is not right according to RR database rules. Looking through other counties in ARMER it appears that there are LOTS of unidentified talkgroups listed. Why, I don't know. So, I can see what you are talking about as far as ARMER goes. Your administrator for the ARMER database is not correctly administering the database. For my neck of the woods, the large state and neighboring states databases have NO unidentified talkgroups. So, I understand.
Second, on the Faribault county local page, none of the VHF frequencies are listed as being "deprecated" or no longer used. This is not RR fault. No body has taken the time to submit this info so nothing has changed in the listings. Just like life, you get out what you put in. Try submitting that these VHF frequencies are deprecated and maybe they won't show up in the scan list any more.
I am very surprised by the amount of unidentified talkgroups on ARMER though. That makes no sense at all.
Second, on the Faribault county local page, none of the VHF frequencies are listed as being "deprecated" or no longer used. This is not RR fault. No body has taken the time to submit this info so nothing has changed in the listings. Just like life, you get out what you put in. Try submitting that these VHF frequencies are deprecated and maybe they won't show up in the scan list any more.
I am very surprised by the amount of unidentified talkgroups on ARMER though. That makes no sense at all.
Multi-tac would never be enabled on a BearTracker 885 (we don't consume that service type for this product).
Technoguy58
Member
I understand that, but Blue911 says he has a HomePatrol2 and it would stop on that tag if it is enabled, correct?? Just trying to help out and after looking at ARMER I can kind of see what he is talking about. Take a look at ARMER for Faribault county.
marksmith
Member
Incorrect.
I have all the radios you mention, but your comments are limited by your non familiarity with Sentinel. Having programmed scanners for decades now, I would say that Sentinel represents the easiest way ever to program a scanner to do exactly what you want with channels, departments and systems laid out exactly the way you want. Comments about software or radios you are not sufficiently familiar with are unhelpful to others.
Mark
536/436/ws1095/996p2/996xt/325p2/396xt/psr800/396t/HP-1/HP-2 & others
blue5011
Member
I must disagree about "Sentinel represents the easiest way ever to program a scanner".
I use Freescan myself. Maybe if I had first purchased a Home Patrol when Minnesota switched to the ARMER system and used Sentinel programming, I would feel different.
But for the Minnesota ARMER system (statewide-mandated), Sentinel is waaay to complicated. If you use the "zipcode" method, there are four different "files" of talkgroups. One for the city, one for the county, one for the state patrol, and another for fire/ EMS. That is alot of needless scanning going on..., plus there will be entities which I have no interest in listening to being received as well.
Btw, here in Faribault County ALL (city, county, hospital) police, fire, and EMS is dispatched by the same office.
As far as my "Comments about software or radios you are not sufficiently familiar with are unhelpful to others", I am merely sharing my opinion.
I use Freescan myself. Maybe if I had first purchased a Home Patrol when Minnesota switched to the ARMER system and used Sentinel programming, I would feel different.
But for the Minnesota ARMER system (statewide-mandated), Sentinel is waaay to complicated. If you use the "zipcode" method, there are four different "files" of talkgroups. One for the city, one for the county, one for the state patrol, and another for fire/ EMS. That is alot of needless scanning going on..., plus there will be entities which I have no interest in listening to being received as well.
Btw, here in Faribault County ALL (city, county, hospital) police, fire, and EMS is dispatched by the same office.
As far as my "Comments about software or radios you are not sufficiently familiar with are unhelpful to others", I am merely sharing my opinion.
I can't really think of a situation where I would use the zip code method to create a custom Favorites List in Sentinel. Not sure what you mean by "four different files of talkgroups."
As to other entities being put into the FL, that won't happen when Sentinel is used optimally. Basically pick the channels you are interested in and add only those to the FL. Channels that belong to the same trunked system will be scanned one time per pass (all TGID's of interest are checked during that one pass).
I would really have to agree that you are not very familiar with Sentinel or HPDB based scanners.
As to other entities being put into the FL, that won't happen when Sentinel is used optimally. Basically pick the channels you are interested in and add only those to the FL. Channels that belong to the same trunked system will be scanned one time per pass (all TGID's of interest are checked during that one pass).
I would really have to agree that you are not very familiar with Sentinel or HPDB based scanners.
No.
Talkgroups are never scanned in trunked systems. The only things scanned in a trunked system are sites. Talkgroups are just database entries the scanner uses to define and categorize traffic it hears, to give a user-friendly label to the talkgroup ID and determine whether it fits the criteria you've specified to define what you hear. Talkgroups are grouped into Departments based on geographic and other commonalities to make labeling more logical and to enable Location Control to work properly. You can have 5000 talkgroups defined for a System and it will scan at the same speed as a system with 50 talkgroups, as long as both systems have the same number of sites within monitoring range.
Having separate Departments for city, county, and state agencies is necessary, because they have different service areas, and Location Control would not work properly if the Department service area didn't match the service area of the talkgroups contained within the Department.
Actually, you're sharing misinformation and bad advice based on your ignorance of scanning and scanners and the software used to program them. You're criticizing some of the core design elements required to make some of the most innovative and useful features of the newest scanners work properly, which is roughly analogous to criticizing an automobile because it doesn't have the kind of harness and buggy whip you like.
blue5011
Member
Obviously you are not familiar w/ the Minnesota ARMER system and how it is arranged on a Home Patrol-type scanner.
blue5011
Member
I see, only jonwienke can provide information here on this forum...
Why is my advice *bad* and yours **good**?
I am stating what my experience has been w/ HP scanners and software. Lookup the Minnesota ARMER system once, and look where the Faribault County and various local cities are scattered in the software.
Um if anyone would know how it is arranged on A HP type scanner it would be him.
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