Sentinel: Sentinel Database Update Questions

[shansmi]

This obviuosly updates the main database but it it necessary when writing to the scanner to foce the database? If a freq or group you have added as a fav is updated in a new version of the rr database, my guess is they need to be manually updated?

 

[hiegtx]

This obviuosly updates the main database but it it necessary when writing to the scanner to foce the database? If a freq or group you have added as a fav is updated in a new version of the rr database, my guess is they need to be manually updated?

Anything that is in one or more of your Favorites lists must be manually updated. Updating the main database does not also update any Favorites. Uniden does it this way because so many of the scanner owners customize the text tags in their Favorites. If updating the main database wiped all that out, forcing tags back to whatever was in the database, that would require that the scanner user go back & redo any customizations.

If you make any change to one or more of your Favorites, or adjust your location & range, enable or disable selected service types (basically do any modifications at all that you then write to the scanner), that also updates the main database if what is in Sentinel is a newer, more current, database than what is in the scanner. You do not need to do a separate "force write" of the database to the scanner.

 

[shansmi]

thanks.

so the only way to know for sure is to compare a fav list to the database manually.

 

[hiegtx]

Just make it a point to occasionally, once or twice a week, look at the Texas database home page. There you'll see any counties or state agencies that have been updated. If it's green, the update was within the past 24 hours. If yellow, within the last seven days. Click on the county to see which conventional channels, or trunked systems, were updated & modify your Favorites list as needed. Quite often, especially on trunked systems, the update is not something that affects how it should be programmed. It's 'background' details that don't show up, requiring no action on your part.

 

[shansmi]

Done. I only have a few fav lists mainly Collin CO, Rockwall CO and Denton CO. It is just as easy and time consuming to scrap them once a month and rebuild them. Now I ASSuME that if I have something avoided in the main database it will remain that way even if say the freq is updated?

 

[n1chu]

I remember the answer to your question like this… If I want to update my FL’s, I must first compare what I currently have in my FL’s with the latest data. The way that’s done is to update Sentinel with the latest “Full Database”, which is updated on a weekly basis each Monday. I then “Force Write” that update into my scanner, and then I can compare my FL’s to the latest data available, and make any necessary changes to my FL’s.

Your assumption that anything you have “Avoided” will stay avoided will not be a concern if you first (like you say) “Delete” the agencies and replace them with the newer data.

 

[mc48]

Premium subscribers just need to look at the home page to see counties and systems that they subscribe to have been updated and then update favorites lists as needed.

 

[n1chu]

Premium subscribers just need to look at the home page to see counties and systems that they subscribe to have been updated and then update favorites lists as needed.

Yea, I was relating MY process… not saying it’s the ONLY process.

 

[fxdscon]

This obviuosly updates the main database but it it necessary when writing to the scanner to foce the database?

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It's not necessary to check the "force write full database" in Sentinel unless you are trying to over-write the master database in the scanner with one of the same date from Sentinel. The only time you would need to check that box would be if the master database in the scanner had somehow been corrupted (for example... a bad SD card), and you were trying to re-write the same date database to the scanner again.... a very rare instance.

Once you update the database in Sentinel with the new weekly update, and Sentinel sees that it's newer than the one in the scanner, just writing to the scanner will always (force write) overwrite the one in the scanner without having to check that box.

When Sentinel sees that the scanner has the same date on the database that it has in your computer, it won't write that database to the scanner again. Each time you write to the scanner for adding frequencies etc, as long as the dates in the scanner and Sentinel match, the main database in not sent to the scanner again.

 

[n1chu]

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It's not necessary to check the "force write full database" in Sentinel unless you are trying to over-write the master database in the scanner with one of the same date from Sentinel. The only time you would need to check that box would be if the master database in the scanner had somehow been corrupted (for example... a bad SD card), and you were trying to re-write the same date database to the scanner again.... a very rare instance.

Once you update the database in Sentinel with the new weekly update, and Sentinel sees that it's newer than the one in the scanner, just writing to the scanner will always (force write) overwrite the one in the scanner without having to check that box.

When Sentinel sees that the scanner has the same date on the database that it has in your computer, it won't write that database to the scanner again. Each time you write to the scanner for adding frequencies etc, as long as the dates in the scanner and Sentinel match, the main database in not sent to the scanner again.

Good to know.