Help With StarCom21

[XSSkeet]

Hey all

I recently purchased a Uniden BCD536HP and have been using the Sentinel software to create favorites lists. I live in St Clair county and am trying to add ISP District 11 only.

If append the "ISP District 11 - Collinsville" talk group folder to a favorites list it adds the Dist 11 talk group folder, but also pulls dozens and dozens of folders named for locations across the states. I assume these are all control frequencies, but nearly all the locations are outside of the District 11 area.

If I leave all these folders in the list it seems takes a long time to scan through them all. I have gone through and deleted or set to "avoid" all location folders that I believe are outside of District 11 and it speeds up scanning dramatically, but I'm afraid I may me missing some local communications.

If I delete all the folders except for the District 11 talk group folder will the scanner know the control frequency with just the talkgroup info? Should I leave all these folders in the favorites list or was it an acceptable practice to remove the folders for locations that are clearly out of district 11 area?

Please be kind. I have spent over 20 years reading fairly complex wiring diagrams to maintain aircraft electrical systems, but for some reason manually programming a digital trunked system seems to be beyond my comprehension. I long for the days when my BC780XLT was king.

 

[tvengr]

Use the St. Clair County Simulcast site only. Remove the letters "c" and "a". That indicates the control channel and alternate frequencies.

3 (3)	059 (3B)	St. Clair County - Simulcast	St. Clair, IL	851.075	851.175	851.225c	851.5625a	851.700	851.800	852.0875
				852.1625a	852.1875	852.5875	852.700	852.750	853.1375	853.6375
				853.750	853.850	857.7375

 

[hiegtx]

Hey all

I recently purchased a Uniden BCD536HP and have been using the Sentinel software to create favorites lists. I live in St Clair county and am trying to add ISP District 11 only.

If append the "ISP District 11 - Collinsville" talk group folder to a favorites list it adds the Dist 11 talk group folder, but also pulls dozens and dozens of folders named for locations across the states. I assume these are all control frequencies, but nearly all the locations are outside of the District 11 area.

If I leave all these folders in the list it seems takes a long time to scan through them all. I have gone through and deleted or set to "avoid" all location folders that I believe are outside of District 11 and it speeds up scanning dramatically, but I'm afraid I may me missing some local communications.

If I delete all the folders except for the District 11 talk group folder will the scanner know the control frequency with just the talkgroup info? Should I leave all these folders in the favorites list or was it an acceptable practice to remove the folders for locations that are clearly out of district 11 area?

Please be kind. I have spent over 20 years reading fairly complex wiring diagrams to maintain aircraft electrical systems, but for some reason manually programming a digital trunked system seems to be beyond my comprehension. I long for the days when my BC780XLT was king.

That's one "gotcha" of the Sentinel software. If you try to append one or more departments from a trunked system, it automatically adds all of the sites in the system, including those far out of range.

You should only keep the site(s) that are in range from your location, as those would be the ones that carry radio traffic from the various towns and agencies around you.

tvengr has already suggested removing all but the St Clair County site. However, you may be unsure as to whether one or two other sites might be useful. The sites are not always named after specific towns or counties. Some may be named for a local road or hwy, or a geographical feature such as a hill. Looking at the STARCOM21 system in the database, if you click on the County header in the sites section, you can resort the list of sites by the county they are in, which makes it easier to spot what you may need to remove or keep.

For the sites that you want to drop, you can do that by using the Favorites List editor.
Or, in the Sentinel initial screen, if you click on the system name in the left window pane, you can see all the departments and sites in the right pane. There, you can hold down the <Shift> key, and click on the first, and last, site in a consecutive group, highlighting the ones selected. Then, if you <Right> click in the selected group, you can choose Remove from Favorites List from the poop-up menu to delete them en masse, You can also hold down the <CTRL> (control) key, and pick and choose sites individually. Then, with them still highlighted, right click and select Remove to delete from the list.Once done editing your list, then b sure & write the corrected Favorites to the scanner.

 

[werinshades]

poop-up menu

 

[hiegtx]

DOH! Missed that typo. Going stir crazy stuck at home, with nothing interesting being open.

 

[tvengr]

DOH! Missed that typo. Going stir crazy stuck at home, with nothing interesting being open.

Did you mean poop-down menu?

 

[XSSkeet]

Thanks all...That was helpful. I was able to narrow it down from about 50 to the following few sites that are all in District 11 territory.

I wish there was a way to tell exactly what frequencies a particular talk group ID uses. Perhaps a mobile unit will switch to the frequencies of the closest sites? I figured out how to use the wifi option of the scanner to send to my phone's Siren app. That app does show the control frequency when it receives a transmission, but it does not show on the scanner.

Thanks again

St Clair County Simulcast Madison County Simulcast Columbia Waterloo