Newbie (to GPS connected radios) question -
I will need to update to a phase 2 compatible scanner soon as my county is going tp P24 type II.
I understand that if you have the GPS link, the radio can update itself from a stored Database as you travel.
Generally, I don't generally travel very far, say 5 or 6 counties in central Florida.
so:
1) is that DB stored on a SDcard (assume an SDS 100 or maybe a 996) or is it stored in internal memory?
2) how often do you find that you need to update the data in the radio from the RR database?
3) as it moves from area to area what types of info, frequencies, or talk groups does it add and not add? (ie: fire/ems/le, others)
4) does it also auto-load older analog and other info from the DB (besides the P25T2)?
Thanks in advance
Technically, the radio is not "updating itself" as you change locations using a GPS. What it
is doing is looking at the location data on the systems in it's programming file (or the database, if using that type of scanner) and determining which systems are now in range & enabling them, while disabling those that no longer are in range. See this:
How it Works: Location, Location, Location
The stations enabled, or disabled, via location data from the GPS can be conventional, or trunked, systems. You set service types to control what you want to monitor.
For Uniden, the Home Patrol series scanners have the database available on an internal memory card. Those include the HP-1, HP-2, 436HP, 536HP, along with the SDS100 & SDS200. The 996P2 (as well as the 32P2, along with earlier models such as the XT series scanners) do not have the internal database. For those, you can include location information in your program, and if that is present, then you can use them with a GPS. But if you get into an area with none, or only a few, of the area systems in your programming, you will be missing transmissions.
In the GRE/RadioShack/Whistler line of database scanners, you can program the database scanners to make use of location information in setting up your file, but the scanner will not use that information to decide what is, or is not, in range while on the move. You do not have the ability to utilize a GPS.
Updates, from Uniden & Whistler, are provided weekly for the database scanners. But quite often, the updates are not significant enough to affect your scanning. In many cases, the 'update' is simply a minor housekeeping issue, dealing with background information or a text note that does not affect how your scanner needs to be programmed. For Premium Subscribers, such as myself, create your own "MyRR" home page, that includes the counties, agencies, & trunked systems of interest. Any system, county, or agency, on that page, that has had it's information updated in the last 24 hours will be flagged with a green highlighting of the text. If it shows yellowish, there has been an update in the past week. I review those that have changed, and if needed, update my Favorites lists (for the database scanners) or programming file (non-database scanners such as the P2 series). Without a Premium Subscription, you can simply look at your state in the database, and see if any of the counties you are interested in have had some sort of the change. Click on the county to look at it's page and see what changed.
