Hi everybody! Does anybody know of a easy way to program all the counties (trunked or conventional) in a state at once instead of having to do it county by county in Sentinel? I normally do each county individually but was hoping somebody knew of a shortcut.
SDS100/SDS200: Question About Programming a Whole State
- Thread starter scottymcneill8657
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Is this a state where you live or spend a lot of time, or do you just travel through occasionally? If you don't live there, consider just using the database feature with a GPS and location based monitoring. If this is a state where you live or spend a lot of time, I would spend more time doing it county by county and consider creating favorites list etc.
I live in Maryland about 35 miles from DC. I'm looking for an easier way to enter about 8 different Maryland countries, DC, Delaware (which is only about an hour and a half drive) and a fair bit of northern Virginia.
Chris0516
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I moved from northern Montgomery County, in 2019. I could listen to, Montgomery, Howard, Frederick, and Anne Arundel, in MD. Arlington n' Fairfax in VA. But DC is totally encrypted. I tried to get PG County. But for some reason, they didn't come through. What scanner do you have, and what scanner programming software do you have?
Started off with a BCD325P2 , then a BCD436HP and now I have a Uniden SDS100 (best scanner I ever had), programming using sentinel. You can still get DC Fire and PG County is kinda weird reception wise- every once in a blue moon I pick it up (I go to the Kaiser Permanente in Largo fairly regularly, which is close enough to DC to pick it up.) Bizarrely enough I managed to pick up Franconia dispatch and the rail yard at Shady Grove last night using a tram magnet mount car antenna in my driveway (I live in Calvert county.)
Chris0516
Active Member
Looking at the attachment. You have Metro(WMATA) in there twice. First as a Motorola Type II trunk. Then as a P25 Trunk. Is Motorola Type II a system you hadn't deleted yet?
Nice catch- will fix that in in a bit. Was doing this fairly late last night and was very tired.
Chris0516
Active Member
I looked at the RRDB listing for the trunked portion of DC. I saw a lot of 'DE' on MPD TG's for things that have a lot of security. Like about, a crime in progress, or at the DC Jail. Also 'executive'(Chief, Deputy Chief, District Commanders) communications. That pretty much leaves the PW portion of the DC Gov't.
baker50021
Member
Why don't you try scanning the Full Database, using the ZIP location your at. Then do some refining by turning on/off the Service Types. I always like to let the scanner do the work...
You get out from the effort of what you put in. I like the "programming by county" because that gives me the ability to toggle on/off exactly what I want to monitor.
Sentinel works pretty well for this, but the programming is only for one scanner. I keep a master list in Excel, then I can export (even if it is cut & paste) into programs for each scanner I use. When changes appear on RR, I update the data in the spreadsheet; but only periodically update it into the programs (such as Sentinel) and upload to the radios. The task is daunting enough, trying to keep up on a daily basis is overwhelming.
But we each have our own way of listening, and you need to figure out what works for you. If you're only using the SDS, you could just keep Sentinel updated. That's organized as Favorites.Systems.Departments.... and I list States as Favorites and Counties (or trunked systems) as Systems. It's fairly flexible.
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The easiest way might be to use the built-in database, set the range to maximum, and make
a Favorites List with the current setup using "ADD CURRENT DB CHANNELS" in the FL editor.
a Favorites List with the current setup using "ADD CURRENT DB CHANNELS" in the FL editor.
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