Home Patrol Mini Review on Road Trip in CT/MA

[pwscott]

I took a trip from Southwestern Connecticut all the way up Route 15 to I-91 and I-84 and on to the Massachusetts Turnpike I-90 on Monday of this week. I continued East to 495. I thought it would be of interest to report how the Home Patrol worked on the trip and to pose a few questions that arose for me along the way. I'll just throw out what I saw along the way and call out questions I had along the way and mark them with a Question # like Q#1.

- I ran the HP with a Garmin eTrex Vista connected with a serial cable the whole time
- Before I left I set the Favorites to access the whole database
- I set the range to 5 miles
- I chose to hear all Law, Fire and EMS and related Tac
- When I plugged in the GPS and chose "Use GPS" the range was set to 0 (zero) and I left it there for most of the time

- I was most interested in listening to the Connecticut State Police for the whole trip (and yes I know I could have just selected CSP only in a favorite list and turned location tracking on but I like being able to hold on CSP and see a local cop or ambulance and open up to other systems in the area)

- CSP tracking worked very well with 'Troop G' on for the first hour of the trip in very heavy traffic and rain
- As I went North other Troops were automatically added with no intervention needed most of the time

- As I approached New Haven the county and city systems there came on, likewise Hartford and West Hartford.
- As I wanted to listen just to CSP, I reached over and touched the top of three screen segments and 'Held' on CSP- that dropeed out the very busy and noice Hartford and other county systems.
After driving for a while I looked down and the system was holding on Hartford instead of CSP...hhhmmmm....I guess I lost reception of the CSP Trunked Moto system and the HP went to the next system and held there....would rather it

didn't do that- this happened a bunch of times where I held on CSP in the North part of the State and it would 'fall' over to 'Tolland' and I would un-hold that, let it scan back to CSP and hold there....15 minutes later I would look down and it would be holding on Tolland....not a big deal, but would rather not have to look down over and over for this in a long trip.

** Q#1 ** can that behavior be avoided where it jumps to another system without me knowing??

- I was happy with the sound quality but needed it set on its loudest to hear it with rain happening in a fairly quiet older BMW SUV

- At 3 hours plus I got a warning that the supplied 2300MAh batteries, which I put in fresh and fully trickle charged from a Maha NiMH charger before leaving, were too low to make recordings so I plugged in the DC adapter. I had screen auto-dimming but set to brightest screen setting- I am not surprised by the battery life- hey they give you AC and DC adapters and batteries. I am using 2650 MAh cells in mine and slow/soft-charging them in a Maha charger.

- When I approached the Mass. State line on I-84 I was psyched to see the HP start receiving the MA State Police (MA SP). I crossed into Mass. and didn't see MA SP so I upped the range to 10 miles...no MA SP...20 miles, no MA SP....30 miles...nada.

** Q#2 **I have to think then that MA SP, at least the TGIDs in that Auburn to 495 30 mile stretch have no Geotags????

- A few miles into MA Worcester and Worcester Public Safety systems came on and I avoided them temporarily

- 20 miles into Mass still no State police

- All the way to Marlboro on I-495 I never heard or saw MA SP...I did turn them on manually on the way home and followed them quite well.

- It was very cool to be able to see the SITES for the CSP system and know what suite I was hearing, but this part of the HP seems pretty much undocumented to me. If you go to a trunked system and get the flyout menu and choose SITES, you see all the programmed sites and you can choose to avoid sites. Most of the sites are highlighted in Orange, some are not....the non-highlighted ones seem to be the site you are monitoring???

** Q#3 ** - what are we really seeing here? If I choose one of the non-orange sites I get info about whatit carries for TGIDs I think...can I choose a site---does it depend on whether the GPS is attached I guess...I get that I can avoid a site.

** Q#4 ** - I am seeing a behavior where I hold on a freq and want to replay and I hit REPLAY and it says unable to replay while recording- but it's NOT Recording...I also will sometimes at my desk hear a fire call or something and reach over and turn up the volume and hit REPLAY and it will give that same error...is anyone else seeing that?

Anyway...that's some of my experience traveling on one short trip...I do like my HP...going close to Yale University and hearing their calls when in the area and the driving away and having it not get scanned is super cool....following the CSP without a map of what site or 'quickKey' I need to press is way cool as well. Having cord plugged in to both sides for GPS, speaker, power was not so great ergonomically. I'd sure like to find a nice neoprene case for this
thing.

 

[Viper43]

#1 nope, nothing you can do there if using GPS and the whole DB or lots of systems

#2 A fix for no geotags is to turn off location control, then you will hear the TGIDS that are missing

#3 GPS will turn sites on and off. There geotagging comes though the county defaults if they don't have specific geotags

#4 it does do that in certain circumstances, 1 if you are recording 2 if there is a transmission ongoing. youmay not be recording but the unit STILL records so when you do record it actually starts recoding ahead of the time you hit record, so essentially you have to wait for it to stop the intenal record. It records what you replay.

V

 

[Tom_G]

Nice review

pwscott,
Thanks for this mini-review. Some good information here.
The audio is the thing that caught my attention. I was hoping that it would be loud enough to run mobile but it sounds like its not. Too bad
I don't understand whats so hard about putting enough audio power in these things, but there are always work-arounds...
Thanks, Tom/G

 

[Viper43]

Lawsuits for one. Under normal cicumstances audio is fine. It's with the window open I have trouble. Then I just hook it up to the stereo aux and no trouble hearing then.

 

[pwscott]

Questions Questions

Thanks for the reply Viper....clarification questions below inline with >>>>>> preceding them:

#1 nope, nothing you can do there if using GPS and the whole DB or lots of systems

>>>>>> I don't really see why that is Viper?? If you HOLD on a system why is it that it has to jump to other systems? Is that not a behavior that could be changed in the firmware...it's either dropping that hold because I have lost reception of any control channel or because I am outside the geotag radius of any TGID or channel right?? It'd be good to know which it is....I still think that if you HOLD on a system it shouldn;t UNhold w/o me unholding it....is it that I am telling it "HOLD unless you lose reception or I drive too far then just jump to some other totally unrelated system in the area"...?

#2 A fix for no geotags is to turn off location control, then you will hear the TGIDS that are missing

>>>>>>> Not sure I understand here either...so you're saying I shouldn't use a GPS if I drive in Mas and want to hear MA SP?? I fully expected the answer here would be that the MA SP system and the sites and TGIDs do not have Geotag info and that will get updated some time in the future.

Compare what is in the Location report from the DB for MA SP State Police Subcategory Location Data Report

....to what is in the CT SP report: Connecticut State Police Site Location Data Report
and
Connecticut State Police Talkgroup Category Location Data Report

....yes I understand I could turn off location but that totally seems to defeat the point of buying a HP-1 and having it connected to a GPS and getting it to work like it does in CT for me.


#3 GPS will turn sites on and off. There geotagging comes though the county defaults if they don't have specific geotags

>>>>>>>>>>> Yes, understand that....question #3 is about how the HP-1 displays the SITES info and what the orange highlighting and non-highlighting indicates and what the options are when you click on one of those sites besides avoiding that site. Just doesn;t seem well documented and hoping for more clarity.

#4 it does do that in certain circumstances, 1 if you are recording 2 if there is a transmission ongoing. youmay not be recording but the unit STILL records so when you do record it actually starts recoding ahead of the time you hit record, so essentially you have to wait for it to stop the intenal record. It records what you replay.

Does this mean you can only replay when no transmission is being received because it's writing to the replay buffer....makes sense- not exactly explained in the docs though but sensible.

V

 

[KC1UA]

MA is being worked on. I just completed Barnstable County this evening, and it should be part of the next DB update. I know there are others at work also on various other counties.

 

[Viper43]

Guess I missed the hold (3 hours of sleep last night) part, but yes, it should hold a system, department or channel. It may be that it was losing the signal but it still shouldn't change fom whatever you are holding on.

No, use GPS but in Manage Favorites (or in Sentinel) select Location Control NO. In Sentinel it's EDIT> EDIT PROFILE>FAVORITES LIST and there select Location Control NO by selecting a favorites list and then click NO next to Location Control just above the favorites list wondow. The sites should be getting geotag data through the county they are located, if not thats a poblem, but not hard to fix. As Scott points out the DB admin for MA are working on it. Turning off location control only affects talk groups not sites.

#4 thats the way I understand it and how it appears to work. It does seem to work ok though but I guess I have learned to time it so I miss the message now.... well, most of the time

 

[wise871]

Thanks for the awesome road trip review. I was on the fence last night but now I’m going too patiently wait until the database is fine tuned with correct Geotags and watch for other reviews. I have the money set aside already so there are no worries if I decided to buy one. I will do my part and submit geotags for my area. Thanks again and keep it coming.

 

[pwscott]

Updated CT > MA Road Trip Testing

So I repeated the same trip Tues/Wed this week, driving as far as Waltham from Stamford. This time as I approached MA I had the same experience where MA SP did not come in. ** BUT **, knowing UPman had said there was/would be a new db update last week or on the weekend, I used Sentinel on my laptop during my hotel stay in Framingham.
When I started up the HP and plugged in the GPS..BOOM...MA SP were there...at least transmissions around Boston were there...I could hear calls on I-93 for example. In that I was driving I couldn't really look too too carefully- I guess I should have recorded the whole way and played it back later...but it seemed MA SP on the Mass Pike I-90 were not coming in at all for my 40 mile drive there....
When I look at the updated info in the DB

MA SP TGIDs Report: Massachusetts State Police Talkgroup Category Location Data Report

MA SP Sites Report: Massachusetts State Police Site Location Data Report

I can see that LAT/LONs have been added! Hooray- that let me receive some of the MA SP...it looks like the MA SP Mass Pike talkgroups remain un-geocoded....I have to guess that's why I wasn't receiving them right?
So...what does the db admin do with talkgroups that cover 145 miles of roadway...? Do you pick a spot in the middle and put in a range of 70 miles may be? I don't have the answer but it does appear that there needs to be something in there for us to receive those TGIDs?? (Oh, and, YES, I do get that I COULD turn off 'use location' in the Favorites List area as suggested above, but wouldn't I much rather have my GPS on and have my HP toggle TGIDs that are relevant for the areas I go to?? I suppose I would want MAss Pike all the time in MA unless I decide to either temp avoid it or perm avoid it right??

Thoughts? What do we do with these TG?

 

[KC1UA]

I geotagged all of the MSP stuff...but apparently I missed Troop E. I just fixed it so it should be in the next update.

For statewide TG's I pick a spot in the middle of the state so the radius (usually about 108-109 miles) covers the entire state. No other way to do it unless I'm missing something.

Keep on providing specifics if you can about any issues you're having. It's going to take some time but it's my intention to have everything in Massachusetts properly set up as soon as possible. I think we're in good shape with a lot of the state, but there is also a lot to be done.

Thanks.

 

[pwscott]

Great!

Thanks for the super fast response on the MA SP!! Report looks great, will keep you posted next time I get up there.
Thanks,
Phil
N3KDJ

I geotagged all of the MSP stuff...but apparently I missed Troop E. I just fixed it so it should be in the next update.

For statewide TG's I pick a spot in the middle of the state so the radius (usually about 108-109 miles) covers the entire state. No other way to do it unless I'm missing something.

Keep on providing specifics if you can about any issues you're having. It's going to take some time but it's my intention to have everything in Massachusetts properly set up as soon as possible. I think we're in good shape with a lot of the state, but there is also a lot to be done.

Thanks.

 

[KC1UA]

Actually I just found a few more sites and a few more groups that weren't tagged. Everything on the MSP system is now done.