SDS Location Control-Control Channel Frequencies

[baker50021]

I am using location control on my SDS100 with favorite lists downloaded from the Master Database in Sentinel. Is there a way to only download the Control Channels?

 

[jasonhouk]

No, Sentinel does not provide a direct option to download *only* control channels (or trunking frequencies) from the RadioReference Master Database when building or appending to your favorite lists for the SDS100. The process always pulls the full system configuration for trunked systems, which includes:

- **Sites**: These hold the trunking frequencies, including primary/secondary control channels and alternate voice channels. You can't isolate just the control channels here—it's all frequencies for the site.
- **Departments**: These include talkgroup IDs (TGs) for the system, which are downloaded by default.

This structure mirrors the RadioReference database layout, and Sentinel's "Append to Favorites List" (or similar import tools like "Add Channels On Range") pulls everything together for a selected system or location-based search results. There's no built-in filter to exclude departments/TGs during the download.

 

[dave3825]

If you become a premium subscriber to Radio Reference, and purchase @ProScan, which blows Sentinel away, you can download only control channels.




But its not a bad idea to have all of the sites freqs because if they ever roll to a cc that's not marked as a cc, or if they make a new cc, you will not be able to scan the site.

 

[nessnet]

The radio only scans/parks on active control freqs....
It basically is a non-issue downloading all of them.

And... as someone previously posted, if the system does change control freqs, they are already in therew and the radio just 'parks' on the new one....

As to location control: it controls which sites to scan (within the RR specified range) and has nothing directly to do with control channels - just sites (and depts, etc)

 

[ofd8001]

On SDS scanners, I cannot think of a good reason to not program all of the frequencies associated with a site. Uniden probably had a good reason to include programming all of them, rather than those marked as control channels. In previous models, where memory limits were more tight, yeah you had to be careful how much "stuff" you programmed. SDS scanners have lots of memory.

Just for the point of saying it, scanning trunked systems is different than conventional. Once the scanner detects a control channel, it "remembers" it and stays with it. Only if the signal strength falls off will the radio scan for another control channel, which takes very little time.

 

[hiegtx]

On SDS scanners, I cannot think of a good reason to not program all of the frequencies associated with a site. Uniden probably had a good reason to include programming all of them, rather than those marked as control channels. In previous models, where memory limits were more tight, yeah you had to be careful how much "stuff" you programmed. SDS scanners have lots of memory.

I agree. While there is a one megabyte size limit on a Favorites list on the x36HP & SDS series scanners, you can have multiple Favorites lists, so the capacity for programming is all but unlimited.

On the the PSR500 & -600 object oriented scanners, you had a limit of 1832 objects per programming file. Each channel or frequency took an object, with some trunked systems taking 5 or so. So, Control Channel only, on those models, was a way to make the most of the limited memory capacity. The current Whistler WS1040 & WS1065 are essentially duplicates of the PSR500/-600, and have that same memory limitation.

 

[Ret_Batt_Chief]

On SDS scanners, I cannot think of a good reason to not program all of the frequencies associated with a site. Uniden probably had a good reason to include programming all of them, rather than those marked as control channels. In previous models, where memory limits were more tight, yeah you had to be careful how much "stuff" you programmed. SDS scanners have lots of memory.

Just for the point of saying it, scanning trunked systems is different than conventional. Once the scanner detects a control channel, it "remembers" it and stays with it. Only if the signal strength falls off will the radio scan for another control channel, which takes very little time.

I have heard that by scanning ALL the frequencies on a site will slow down scanning. By selecting only the control channels you are scanning less frequencies. Is that not the case?

 

[hiegtx]

I have heard that by scanning ALL the frequencies on a site will slow down scanning. By selecting only the control channels you are scanning less frequencies. Is that not the case?

It only finds, then focuses, on the active control channel’s signal. The next time, and thereafter, when that system (site) comes back up during scanning, it will go back to the last control channel found on that site. If (or when) the control channel changes, rotating to a different frequency, the scanner will look for the replacement then keep returning to that frequency as the system comes up in the scanning cycle.