Pro-106/ARC500: "Do you wish to duplicate Trunk System Objects?"

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McMurtry

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Greetings:

Recently obtained a Pro-106, ARC500 software, and premium access to the RadioReference.com database. I'm new to object oriented programming and am taking baby steps learning both the software and the receiver hardware.

I live in Colorado Springs and most agencies I'm interested in monitoring are on State of Colorado DTRS which in the ARC500 software is identified as being "P25 AUTO."

I downloaded 700+ talkgroups. At one point ARC500 presented the message (paraphrased) "You selected more than 32 talkgroups. Do you want to duplicate the trunk system objects?" I did not understand the implications of the message and found no reference in either hardware or software documentation. Since I don't yet know what I'm doing, and am having a lot of fun doing it, I selected "yes." Since then, I've performed several more talkgroup downloads and now have 766 talkgroups. In the software under "Trunk System Objects," I have a total of four; each is for the Colorado DTRS. Objects 1 and 3 include the same number of frequencies (32). Objects 2 and 4 contain 12 and 16 frequencies respectively.

So, when I downloaded the RadioReference database for the CO DTRS and various conventional channels, did I make a logical choice selecting to duplicate Trunk System Objects? Does it matter? FWIW, I seem to be receiving a good amount of traffic, of the types of communications I would expect from various talkgroups. I ask because I want to arrive at a full understanding of competently programming the receiver.

Thanks,

Bob
 

Spitfire8520

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The biggest impact of 4 duplicates of the same thing is that the scanner may take 4 or more times the amount of time to scan through the system, but this would only be the case if there were talkgroups assigned to the other 3 systems.

I have not dealt with ARC500, so I can only make a few observations. The number 32 (not accounting for talkgroups) is what stands out most for me. The only real significance I can see with that number in relation to a Trunked System object is that it has a limit of 32 control channel frequencies that can be programmed for each system due to limitations of the scanner itself. Most other radio systems will almost never hit this limit, but DTRS easily hits this due to it being a statewide system with hundreds of sites and frequencies. Therefore, it is possible that it prompted you to create more than one Trunked System due you importing more control frequencies than is allowed, but I have no idea how the software would decide to assign those 700 talkgroups to the different systems. If it did not assign talkgroups to the other systems, then it would have additional control channels into a Trunked System and would never check them. The result would be some talkgroups never being heard.

If it is the above issue, it maybe beneficial to subdivide your Trunked Systems into geographical locations yourself so that you can hear radio traffic from the local area instead of just dumping these control channels and talkgroups into the scanner and hoping you'll hear something. An example would be making a Trunked System for the Denver Metro area control channels and corresponding talkgroups and doing the same with Colorado Springs. You can then place these in separate scanlist. This would mean that whenever you are in Colorado Springs, you have a scanlist that will check for Colorado Springs area towers for Colorado Springs radio traffic. When you travel to the Denver area, you can have a scanlist that is set to look for Denver area towers for Denver area radio traffic.

While DTRS is statewide, it does not mean that all talkgroups will be found on your local are towers. This means that you will most likely never hear radio traffic distant areas on any of the towers that you can receive on a day to day basis. It would then be beneficial to create a different system for talkgroups with similar geographic location to search for towers for which radio traffic will likely be found on. The same is for the reverse as those radio towers in distant locations will most likely not carry the radio traffic for Colorado Springs. It can made so that the scanner will search frequencies of towers located in a certain region for talkgroups located in that specific region. This is generally a better setup as opposed to having the scanner search for 32 different control channels that is probably located all over the state for radio traffic that might not be broadcasted by the tower. Generally different zones or subsystems (100, 200, etc) would be a good way of dividing this, but I am not sure how this would work for Colorado Springs as 1 and 4 overlap as well as the size of Colorado DTRS.

I, however, do not have an idea to what it means by "32 talkgroups" if that is what it really said. I also do not know why it would prompt you to duplicate the system unless it were prompting you to organize your system better.

I hope that my post made some sort of sense (being written at an odd hour). If I didn't help you at all, then I'm sure someone else will come along with an answer who knows more about ARC500 than I do. If you ever have a specific question about Colorado, you may want to consider visiting the Colorado Radio Discussion Forum if you have not done so already.
 

Butelsoftware

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When you post an error copy the exact text. The warning reads
"Warning: You selected more then 32 trunk frequencies."

The message displayed is a warning and tells you that you selected more than 32 trunk frequencies. The pro106 can only store 32 frequencies per system so it asks you to duplicate the trunk system.

It is unlikely that you need all these trunk frequencies so I would reduce the number of sites.

Gommert
Butel Software
 

McMurtry

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Spitfire8520 and Butelsoftware:

Thanks sincerely for your replies.

Spitfire8520, there's a lot in your reply to digest, and I do think this begins to get into a discussion of list management. I will explore that branch with a post into the Colorado sub-forum which I'll title "Pro-106/ARC500: logically creating scanlists-request for ideas."

As to the "700+" talkgroups mentioned in my original post, once I discovered "get rid of duplicates, " that list was reduced to about 300 talkgroups.

Of course, the fun thing about this is, because of the ARC500 software, it's so easy to save the file on computer, then shash & burn the scanner's memory and just start again and try nother tactic.

Best,

Bob
 
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