Im a retired firefighter and ham radio operator and I drive all over west central Florida for work and have used ProScan to set up the trunk systems for all the counties I cover, however I cannot for the life of me figure out how to easily have the scanner scan ONLY the county I’m in at any given time. There’s over 1200 talk group IDs across the ten counties I have programmed, and it takes the scanner nearly ten minutes to run through all of them. I’d really like to be able to select only one county at a time and change it as I drive. Is there any way to do that? Each county is in its own unique system.
BCD325P2/BCD996P2: Help with BCD996P2 scanning
- Thread starter davidbeis
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ka3aaa
Member
use the gps function that is easy to program after you find the required information.
Without having a gps puck, though, I don’t think I can make the gps function work. And at the moment I can’t afford the $80 for the gps kit from Uniden. Any other ways to easily force scanning of only one system at a time?
Make favorite lists with just the sites and TG’s you want to listen to.
tvengr
Well Known Member
The OP has a BCD996P2 which does not use favorites lists.
If the counties use separate systems, you can assign system quick keys to the site or sites in each system. If the counties are in a single statewide system, you will need to create several systems since you are limited to a maximum of 500 talkgroups per system. Which counties and agencies do you wish to scan? Here is a PDF file which will answer all of your questions about using quick keys:
You are 100% correct. My apologies.
Your scanner doesn't scan through all 1200 TG's. It's the multiple systems that your scanning that slows it down.
tvengr
Well Known Member
No need to apologize! Thanks for all of your help. You will never catch up to the number of errors I make.
N1EXA
FT8 Huntin Mudd Duck on the deep end of the pond !
On the 996P2 you can scan or search talk groups.
Set up a site with just the Talk groups you want to scan not everything or make the whole list and shut them off except what you want to listen to.
In my case I scan the Mass State police zone 3 but only want to hear from troop D talk groups which there is 5 out of the say 100+ on the trunk.
Pete N1EXA
Set up a site with just the Talk groups you want to scan not everything or make the whole list and shut them off except what you want to listen to.
In my case I scan the Mass State police zone 3 but only want to hear from troop D talk groups which there is 5 out of the say 100+ on the trunk.
Pete N1EXA
What @tvengr said, 10 "systems" in and out via quick keys. Each with only the sites and talk groups you are interested in.
By limiting both sites and talk groups in each "system" it will scan much faster.
The way it scans is to scan for an active control channels (presuming a trunked systems) and then seeing if the active talk group is one you have entered as a talk group you wish to hear. By limiting the talk groups you limit that search systems time checking them.
By limiting both sites and talk groups in each "system" it will scan much faster.
The way it scans is to scan for an active control channels (presuming a trunked systems) and then seeing if the active talk group is one you have entered as a talk group you wish to hear. By limiting the talk groups you limit that search systems time checking them.
Thanks, I think this may be what I'm looking for, however I'm having somewhat of a mental block in how to set it up. In ProScan I see a Quick Keys/Search Keys tab, however everything is "off" and the system - site row is grayed out and I don't have an option there to assign anything.
I've attached the ProScan database file I have set up, not sure if anyone cares to take a look and see if you can help guide me better.
So when I import systems from RadioReference into ProScan, obviously it brings EVERYTHING in and I then go through and I've unchecked all the junk I don't care to hear (utillities/school systems/airport/etc), however my main county where I live (Hillsborough) has both EDACS and P25 systems... is there a way to manually build a system in ProScan that would include the sites and TGIDs from both EDACS and P25 in the same system?
In the post above this I've linked the database file I built with ProScan... I'm very new to the trunked stuff, and barely have an understanding of it, so it may be much more simple and I'm just complicating it in my mind.
No. Different trunking systems can not be in the same system.
The reason the 'System - Site' column is grayed out is because you don't have any SQKs assigned to the sites.
There's two ways of doing what you want to do:
1. You could delete all the sites that you will never want to monitor. Don't delete any TGID groups. That way you don't have to mess with the SQKs.
- or -
2. Set the SQK on each site that is in your county. You could use the same SQK number so when you turn on a specific SQK, all the sites with the same number will turn on. On the sites that you don't want to monitor should be set to a different SQK so they will not scan all the time unless the SQK is on. To set the SQKs, go to the System tab then if the sites are not showing, expand the System. Click the Site node then assign the SQK on the right side.
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ka3aaa
Member
only program in what you can hear within say maybe 30 miles from you, all else is junk and will slow the scanning speed down big time.
program all systems independently with their own talkgroups that are associated to that system.
conventional frequencies can all be in a separate system from the trunked stuff or each frequency by themselves like weather with one frequency that you can lock out since it transmits constantly and will stop the scanner from scanning.
program all systems independently with their own talkgroups that are associated to that system.
conventional frequencies can all be in a separate system from the trunked stuff or each frequency by themselves like weather with one frequency that you can lock out since it transmits constantly and will stop the scanner from scanning.
Just watched a video from The Scanner Guys on using Quick Keys and I think I've just made myself more confused... at least in terms of how I'm looking at things through the lens of the ProScan software I'm using.
I see how to set a Group Quick Key, and I've done so, selecting each county's primary TGIDs and giving them the same group (so everything I want to hear in Hillsborough County is GQK 1, Tampa City is GQK2, Pinellas County is GQK3, etc... on through GQK 9.)
However I cannot for the life of me figure out how to assign System Quick Keys... At the system level I have an option to allow for the group quick keys that are assigned within that system to be toggled on/off, but nothing I do sets an SQK number within the SQK column. (And for Trunking purposes, is a "site" the same thing as the frequencies, which are separate from the TGIDs?)
Also, something that The Scanner Guys said that now has me wondering... all those groups that aren't assigned a GQK will scan by default... so do I need to assign everything that I don't want to scan on a regular basis to another GQK, maybe 0, so that they won't scan unless I enable 0?
I feel very lost, lol... and I'm not someone who usually gets lost with this stuff! Me-thinks I should just invest in the GPS receiver and be done with it.
Last question (for now)... As it stands now I'm scanning EVERYTHING I have loaded in there, and I've spent several hours out driving around with the scanner running. I'm receiving some things, but not most things that I expected to be receiving (for example, I'm getting NOTHING from Hillsborough county Fire or Sheriff's departments, other than the EMS ALS to Hospital frequencies). I found a separate listing on radioreference.com of known encrypted departments, and none of what I'm (trying) to listen to is listed as encrypted. Any ideas on why I wouldn't be picking it up? I would think with several hours in a place as big as Hillsborough County I'd hear at least some stuff (and I did used to hear quite a bit when I had the scanner in my shack and I would hook it up to my 2m/70cm dipole mounted 20' in the air). Now in my truck with a Tram scanner antenna mounted on the back window, I'm not getting any of that "good" stuff, just the boring junk.
The number of Talk-Groups does affect the scan speed.
The S in SQK means System, Site, or Search depending on the context. The SQK (System Quick Key) is set at the system level on conventional systems. The SQK (Site Quick Key) is set at the site level on trunking systems.
Yes. Site frequencies.
{edit}
The groups are not per county or city but more per type of group or service. One group may be police, another fire, another animal control, another maintenance, and so on.
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When it checks the CC, it gets the active talkgroup channels, It has to lookup (or look through) the talk groups you have programmed to see if any programmed talk group is active... In the OP's first message he said he had 1200 of them. That takes time, not a lot, but it does take time.
Ok so then I need to figure out which of the specific frequencies I need to tag for my SQKs? None seem to be called out as control frequencies over another.
But if it is an indexed lookup, checking for 1 in a list of 12 or 1 in 1200 will be the same. I don’t know if it is indexed but I would hope it is.
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