Scanner Frequency Input Organization

[n8qke]

I was curious to know how others organize their scanner frequencies. What determines if you enter police frequencies first, followed by fire, or a general mixture, etc.?

When programming my scanner for my county, I started with police then fire but honestly I'm curious as to how other people do it. Is it personal preference? Are there logical reason's I'm not aware of?

Thanks in advance,

Jenny-N8QKE

 

[NDRADIONUT]

I do mine in freq order...

 

[SouthernRoller]

I do mine Fire, EMS, Sheriff, Highway Patrol..

 

[ecps92]

Varies, my banks generally tho are in Order of:
1 - Local City/Town and those I regularly monitor
2 - Area Fire Mutual Aid networks
3 - Area Police Mutual Aid networks
4 - Boston Fire & EMS
5 - Surrounding Fire Dept's
6 - Surrounding Police Dept's
7 - 700 Mhz Overlay
8 - 800 Mhz State TRS
9 - NH Fire Depts (Regular Travel Destinations)
10 - NH Police Dept's
11 - NHSP, F&G, Forests
12 - Federal
13 - Mass DOT Low Band
14 - Mass SP Low Band

I was curious to know how others organize their scanner frequencies. What determines if you enter police frequencies first, followed by fire, or a general mixture, etc.?

When programming my scanner for my county, I started with police then fire but honestly I'm curious as to how other people do it. Is it personal preference? Are there logical reason's I'm not aware of?

Thanks in advance,

Jenny-N8QKE

 

[Voyager]

I've posted my methods several times.
http://forums.radioreference.com/un...1698-sentinel-versus-butel-2.html#post2484856

 

[sparklehorse]

I was curious to know how others organize their scanner frequencies. What determines if you enter police frequencies first, followed by fire, or a general mixture, etc.?

When programming my scanner for my county, I started with police then fire but honestly I'm curious as to how other people do it. Is it personal preference? Are there logical reason's I'm not aware of?

Thanks in advance,

Jenny-N8QKE

For me it depends on the radio. My older radios use banks, so those I set up a bit differently from the more recent DMA models, and then the x36 radios use yet another programming hierarchy, albeit similar. But as a rule I like to organize things by county, then service. So for conventional frequencies on a DMA scanner I'll have a system for each county, then within each county system there will be a group for Sheriff frequencies, a group for each city police dept, a group for all fire dept frequencies in the county, a group for the state police frequencies used in that county, a group for Forest Service and/or State Forestry channels used in that county, a group for DOT and Electric Utilities, a group for common VHF Marine channels if applicable. The idea is if something big happens in one of the 10 counties that I monitor I can quickly focus the scanner on just that one county and hear all the action. I can then add a second or third scanner to the mix if it's a big incident, keeping one held on the Sheriff possibly, another on the Fire ops channel, a third scanning everything else in that county.

.

 

[ShyFlyer]

There isn't a whole lot of stuff I monitor, mainly police and fire/rescue systems.

I organize my quick keys my county, mostly. However, I'll create a system for each agency in that county. For example, all of Sandoval County (New Mexico) is tied to Quick Key "2." It has three systems: Rio Rancho (Police, Fire), Town of Bernalillo (Police), and Sandoval (Sheriff & County Fire).

I keep it fairly simple like that because nearly all of my scanner listening is in the car on a 396XT w/o GPS. I like to keep button pushing to a minimum. Also, this method helps keep the display simple (i.e. the top line isn't alternating between county name and city name).

I listen to NM State Police as well, but I have a separate quick key for them. Each District has it's own dispatch and the district lines don't really mesh well with county lines. Most of my travels, though, only see me in either District 6 or 5 and I'm rarely in a spot where I can hear both at the same time, so it's not really an issue.

 

[n8qke]

Thank you all for the feedback.

 

[gewecke]

1. Counties 2. Pd's 3. Fd's 4. Mabas 5. Ems 6. Isp 7. Iema 8. Interop 9. Murs/ Gmrs 10. Air 11. Mil air 12. Military 13. Ittf 14. Cleartalk 15. Ameren 16. Low power 17. Business 18. Federal 19. Rails 20. Idoc. 73, n9zas

 

[ofd8001]

It really comes down to user preference. Whatever works best for you and helps you to remember how "things" are laid out. Trying to be as consistent as possible will also be helpful.

I haven't seen this myself, but there are some folks who've said that on conventional frequencies, scanning them in order (as in lowest to highest) may be more efficient. But I'm a guy who is willing to give up that little efficiency in favor of more logical organization by discipline (Fire, Police, EMS, etc).

 

[pb_lonny]

My 000 services are in bank 1, the rest are in frequency order.