SDS100/SDS200: Potentially missing transmissions on SDS100

[lomp]

Greetings!

I apologize for my ignorance on the matter, but recently purchased the SDS100 + trying to listen to my local Simulcast "Northwest Ohio Regional Public Safety System". I am able to hear transmissions, however my question is regarding when multiple departments are transmitting at the same time or within a few seconds of one another. Should the scanner be picking up multiple transmissions + playing them back in chronological order; or is it normal behavior to have the scanner only play back the first transmission by the first department? (ex. SDS100 has a call come through from Toledo Police Sector 1-4 @2:30:49am, then 2sec later @2:30:51am Perrysburg Fire gets a call, should the scanner immediately move to the Perrysburg Fire channel to play this transmission after the Toledo transmission has finished, or will it not play the Perrysburg Fire call because it's no longer a "live/real time" call.) I have just noticed I am missing a good amount of calls to this System because it receives multiple calls every few seconds. I hope this makes sense, any help would be greatly appreciated, thank you kindly

 

[drdispatch]

When you say "play back", are you referring to the recording feature of the scanner, or are you listening live?

 

[n1chu]

The basic nature of any scanner is to scan all programmed agencies and stop on the first busy channel/TG. Then resume scanning until it finds another busy channel. It will not/does not hear anything other than where it stopped. So, other transmissions happening while the scanner is listening to an active channel will not be heard (or recorded and played back after the transmission has stopped). You could increase the delay time the scanner holds on a particular channel so when the transmission drops it will wait to hear any response but that’s about it. Before scanners hit the scene you only had tunable receivers or crystal controlled receivers that needed to be manually set on a single frequency, you turned the dial or pushed the button for the next channel manually. This guaranteed no loss of transmissions on that frequency/channel as long as you didn’t manually change it. But that’s all you heard. Scanners gave us the ability to monitor more than one freq/channel, WITH the downside of missing other transmissions. Todays scanners possess an enormous amount of memory, allowing large storage of many agencies. This makes it common to miss much of the action unless you “Avoid”/“lockout” everything but the few agencies most important to you, and even then, when the scanner stops to listen it isn’t bearding anything else. Those who have the need to monitor numerous agencies and have the financial ability buy numerous scanners or manual receivers and dedicate each to one frequency/channel/TG. You can do this on the cheap by buying used monitoring radios or scanners but it still will cost both in money, physical space and antenna “farms”, you’ve got to put those extra radios someplace and each radio needs an antenna feed! I’ve seen pics of racks where a dozen or so radios are “stacked”. There’s also the antennas that feed all those radios… strong signal stations may require only the telescopic or rubber ducky antennas that come with the radio but those outlying stations that require outside antennas will require splitters, and they range in cost from cheap to expensive.

Hope this helps…

 

[lomp]

When you say "play back", are you referring to the recording feature of the scanner, or are you listening live?

I am listening live; playback was probably the wrong word choice, I do appreciate you responding, enjoy your day!

The basic nature of any scanner is to scan all programmed agencies and stop on the first busy channel/TG. Then resume scanning until it finds another busy channel. It will not/does not hear anything other than where it stopped. So, other transmissions happening while the scanner is listening to an active channel will not be heard (or recorded and played back after the transmission has stopped). You could increase the delay time the scanner holds on a particular channel so when the transmission drops it will wait to hear any response but that’s about it. Before scanners hit the scene you only had tunable receivers or crystal controlled receivers that needed to be manually set on a single frequency, you turned the dial or pushed the button for the next channel manually. This guaranteed no loss of transmissions on that frequency/channel as long as you didn’t manually change it. But that’s all you heard. Scanners gave us the ability to monitor more than one freq/channel, WITH the downside of missing other transmissions. Todays scanners possess an enormous amount of memory, allowing large storage of many agencies. This makes it common to miss much of the action unless you “Avoid”/“lockout” everything but the few agencies most important to you, and even then, when the scanner stops to listen it isn’t bearding anything else. Those who have the need to monitor numerous agencies and have the financial ability buy numerous scanners or manual receivers and dedicate each to one frequency/channel/TG. You can do this on the cheap by buying used monitoring radios or scanners but it still will cost both in money, physical space and antenna “farms”, you’ve got to put those extra radios someplace and each radio needs an antenna feed! I’ve seen pics of racks where a dozen or so radios are “stacked”. There’s also the antennas that feed all those radios… strong signal stations may require only the telescopic or rubber ducky antennas that come with the radio but those outlying stations that require outside antennas will require splitters, and they range in cost from cheap to expensive.

Hope this helps…

Greatly appreciate you taking the time to explain this + what I was kind of expecting to hear. Thank you so much + enjoy your day!

The only solution is to have a separate scanner or receiver set to each frequency or talkgroup you want to monitor. That will guarantee you don't miss anything. I find that you miss a lot less if you have one scanner monitoring fire and another monitoring police on the same system.

Makes sense, greatly appreciate it!

Simply put, there is only ONE receiver in your sds100. It can only listen to one thing at a time.

Great way to put it, thank you for clarifying!

 

[JethrowJohnson]

If you go into the settings and turn Priority on for the channels you want to hear most and then put the scanner in Priority or Priority DND, that might help, but you could still miss some transmissions.

 

[tvengr]

The only solution is to have a separate scanner or receiver set to each frequency or talkgroup you want to monitor. That will guarantee you don't miss anything. I find that you miss a lot less if you have one scanner monitoring fire and another monitoring police on the same system.

 

[donc13]

Simply put, there is only ONE receiver in your sds100. It can only listen to one thing at a time.

 

[PhillyPewPew]

Yes, that is a common problem and if you look at the "Pictures of your shack section" you will see people's comm rooms with many units or racks of units to listen to everything at once. There is a Project 25 Phase 1 system in Philadelphia and everything from PD, FD, Gas Works, Housing Authority, L&I, and Parking Authority... all using the same system so yes you will miss some action. This is why it's essential to set up your favorites in a way that is beneficial to your listening needs.
I have Project 25 Phase 1 as Favorite #0 with with a sub #0 or #1 depending on which simulcast is used then I have each individual precinct, region, or dept with its own sub # so I can easily enable or disable to cut down on wasted scanning.

 

[buddrousa]

@lomp Like posted above from my site I get THP traffic on the TACN System from 3 Districts 3 Nashville 4 Memphis and 8 Jackson I have a scanner only scanning each District so for THP I am running 3 Scanners as My Shack I am running 20 to 23 scanners at all times.
my shack 2.jpg | RadioReference.com Forums

 

[trentbob]

One of the things you can do poster is pare down what you listen to.

It's not so much how many talk groups you listen to It's how busy the talk groups are. There's an old saying we always use here on radio reference. The more you scan, the less you hear.

 

[PhillyPewPew]

One of the things you can do poster is pare down what you listen to.

It's not so much how many talk groups you listen to It's how busy the talk groups are. There's an old saying we always use here on radio reference. The more you scan, the less you hear.

So true, exactly why I have mine set up with districts/regions so I can pick and choose as I move throughout the city... In these troubling times, I want to know what's going on around me and not so much in neighboring communities.

 

[lomp]

Thank you so much for all of your responses, I greatly appreciate everyone taking the time to help me have a better understanding + even providing some additional tips on things to possibly try to help. I really hope each one of you have a lovely rest of your weekend!

 

[trentbob]

So true, exactly why I have mine set up with districts/regions so I can pick and choose as I move throughout the city... In these troubling times, I want to know what's going on around me and not so much in neighboring communities.

You are lucky that you still can.

I remember telling a cub reporter many years ago in the newsroom of the paper I worked at and retired from now... focus on the city, areas we can get too fast while the news is still breaking.

Don't listen to everything and every area that we cover, you will miss so many transmissions that could be important.

You don't want to miss a bank robbery down the street because you're listening to a car stop in the next County.

 

[GILLIG40]

I listen to NWORPSS. A lot of that system is not used or barely used. So if you are scanning all of it try assigning quick keys. Then you can toggle off what isn’t being used. I have 33 quick keys assigned and only scan 9 of them

 

[tvengr]

My local fire department has one dispatch talkgroup that covers the entire area. If there is anything serious such as accidents, shootings, and barricade situations, fire will dispatch equipment or medic units. You can then switch to the local police district to hear what exactly what is happening. What is your city and county and which systems do you want to monitor? Holy Toledo! There is a ton of talkgroups on that system.

 

[amcferrin90]

Have you adjusted the delay timer? It will hold on a TG for a programmed number of seconds before going back to scan.

Easier to Read SDS100/200 Digital Scanner Manual

Search for "delay/resume"

 

[NoahWL]

SDRTrunk and a $20 RTL-SDR dongle or two will do what you are describing. Listening in real-time, it will queue up a few transmissions if they're short enough and then play them back in order (you can even listen to multiple simultaneously, one on each audio channel of your headphones or speakers). Additionally, you can record or locally stream (e.g. to an Icecast server) and every single transmission will be queued and played in order of reception. If you're trying to listen to an entire system (as overwhelming as it can be to keep track of), you can't beat it. My SDS100 is reserved for less busy systems and road trips.

 

[ofd8001]

If you go into the settings and turn Priority on for the channels you want to hear most and then put the scanner in Priority or Priority DND, that might help, but you could still miss some transmissions.

This is a trunked radio system. There is no true priority on trunked system scanning from Uniden, though Joe Bearcat has said he will try to get that changed.

I think the original poster might be used to Broadcastify Calls Platform where it "ingests" traffic for future playback. Or what he is describing is how Broadcastify Calls seems to work. That involves SDR type equipment I believe. Scanners function differently.

 

[lomp]

SDRTrunk and a $20 RTL-SDR dongle or two will do what you are describing. Listening in real-time, it will queue up a few transmissions if they're short enough and then play them back in order (you can even listen to multiple simultaneously, one on each audio channel of your headphones or speakers). Additionally, you can record or locally stream (e.g. to an Icecast server) and every single transmission will be queued and played in order of reception. If you're trying to listen to an entire system (as overwhelming as it can be to keep track of), you can't beat it. My SDS100 is reserved for less busy systems and road trips.

Really appreciate this info, this is what I looking to achieve. Thank you kindly for your input + I will research this further!!

 

[lomp]

This is a trunked radio system. There is no true priority on trunked system scanning from Uniden, though Joe Bearcat has said he will try to get that changed.

I think the original poster might be used to Broadcastify Calls Platform where it "ingests" traffic for future playback. Or what he is describing is how Broadcastify Calls seems to work. That involves SDR type equipment I believe. Scanners function differently.

Correct, I was used to how Broadcastify "ingests" traffic for future playback + my lack of experience thought I was missing a way to do this directly on the scanner. Grateful for all the feedback though, have learned a lot!