Oregon State Radio Project Programing

[Learner251]

Please forgive me if this has been asked before. I am rather new to this.

I live in Dallas (Polk County). There are five OSRP sites near me--Doane Creek; Salem (West); Bald Mountain; Wipper Hill; and High Heaven.

None of the sites' frequencies overlap. So (if I understand Simulcast correctly), distortion should not be an issue, correct?

Should I program my BCD536HP with all five towers? Or just Salem (West)--as it is the one closest to my location?

THANK YOU!!!

 

[gmclam]

Sometimes the stronger signal comes from a tower that is not closest. I'd start by programming them all, pay attention to which you receive from. If you wish, you can later lock out the sites that you're not receiving from. It's handy to have them already programmed as you never know when you might want to just unlock one to get a signal from there.

Different radios handle multiple sites differently. In my PSR-500 I had to just add the frequencies to a single list. In my SDS-100 I can assign quick keys to each site so they can be easily toggled on/off. There are also other settings that determine things how to handle when receiving from multiple locations (scan them both, use the strongest, etc). I am not familiar with the BCD536.

 

[ScanRite]

Personally, I have all towers statewide programmed. I frequently take my 536 mobile when traveling. Also have a 436, so makes sense.
I use Favorites 0, and since it's a 700mhz system, I assigned it as System Quick Key 70. I then have all sites programmed in using their normal site number. So for me, Site 24 Powell Butte, in central Oregon is the best for me. Strong signal but it also relays almost all traffic in the area. If I switched to a local tower here in Redmond (owned by Deschutes County, not Oregon), some of the talkgroups aren't relayed. So it's a balance of power and talkgroup relays. Your Salem West tower probably relays all local traffic.

Using my numbering, I can easily turn off Powell Butte by entering 0.70.24 then turn on Salem West by entering 0.70.3. Obviously there's a lot of sites to remember, so I only keep a few around me in my head. But when I travel, I note which ones I'll make use of and write it on a sticky note or something. I don't use GPS with mine as I like to control what I'm on.

If you're interested, I can send you my current HPE file for the OSRP system.

 

[ScanRite]

Also, something to be aware of. The 436/536 doesn't distinguish between Department and Site keys.

So if you program Site 1 - Chehalem as "Site Key 1" and also program, let's say a police department, into "Department Quick Key 1", you'll also be scanning Chehalem. If you turn off Chehalem, you'll also turn off Police. So for this system, I put departments in the 90's. And since the radios don't support 3 digit dept/site keys, the Deschutes county sites don't align with my system as they're all sites in the 100's. For those, I assigned them to the unused 81, 82, 83, 84 and 85 site #'s. If the system is ever expanded, I'll have to rethink how I do it all, but for now it works great.

Snippet of what my programming looks like attached. I also name my sites with an _ at the beginning so they're all sorted after the Departments in the editor.