BCD436HP/BCD536HP: Service Types

[Ensnared]

I have owned this radio for several years. Sometimes, it blows my mind with the things I mess up.

Here is the issue. I have 47 Favorites. I have three profiles: a) a trip profile to an area in Texas; b) home base for what is around my area; c) and a master list of all favorites.

In each of these profiles, I have checked all service types.

I was operating the radio with the trip profile with all service types checked. As usual, I toggled off the ones I did not want to hear on this trip. No big deal. I might have toggled these off with the "monitor full DB" on. I don't recall.

When I arrived at my location, I re-programmed the trip profile and added more favorites to the master list. I made sure that all of my profile had the service types checked. I made sure to save each profile.

Now, when I write to scanner, and open up the profile, there are dashes beside some of the ones I toggled off up here. Despite my checking and repeatedly loading these back, the service types still show dashes.

However, when I turn on the "monitor full DB", all of the service types are present.

What am I doing wrong. This is driving me nuts.

 

[troymail]

I believe dashes mean there are no current items of that service type in the actively scanned configuration.

 

[garys]

I think that's correct. Service types are a bit of a PITA if you "roll your own" Favorites Lists, systems, and so on.

Sadly, there is no option to disable that function, which is a legacy of the HP part of the scanners.

I believe dashes mean there are no current items of that service type in the actively scanned configuration.

 

[jonwienke]

I believe dashes mean there are no current items of that service type in the actively scanned configuration.

That is correct. You have to have at least one "Hospital" channel enabled in order to be able to select the "Hospital" Service Type. The main database has everything tagged already, and if you import stuff to a Favorite List, the Service Type tags will import as well. But if you program everything from scratch, you have to tag the Service Types yourself. If you don't, everything defaults to "Custom 1" and filtering traffic by Service Type won't work.

 

[ofd8001]

Also a Favorites List containing the given Service Type has to be active, as in not off via Quick Key, Avoid or Location Control function, I believe.

 

[Ensnared]

Thank you for the help. I am sort of new to understanding how these profiles work.

 

[ofd8001]

There is a lot of stuff to learn and just one little thing can throw everything off.

One item to be especially mindful of is the Download and Monitor Status. One create a new Favorites List with Sentinel when Profile A is opened. The FL may have Download and Monitor On in this Profile. However if you open Profile B, the Download/Monitor could be Off in Profile B.

 

[newatthis]

One more quick thing to check which I did not notice you mentioned. Did you change the location of your radio in preferences to match the trip location now. Radio may still think it is searching at home. Every favorite has a latitude and longitude plus max distance range specified up to 50 miles

 

[jonwienke]

One more quick thing to check which I did not notice you mentioned. Did you change the location of your radio in preferences to match the trip location now. Radio may still think it is searching at home. Every favorite has a latitude and longitude plus max distance range specified up to 50 miles

This is only partially true. When travelling, the scanner location needs to be updated regularly, or the scanner will be looking for stuff to scan that is not nearby. The easiest way to do this is via GPS--either an external GPS plugged into the scanner, or having a GPS installed internally (which makes scanning with GPS much more convenient and eliminates a bunch of wiring). If you don't have GPS, you have to constantly toggle stuff on and off manually, which is not a good idea while driving.

The 50-mile limit only applies to the scanner Range setting. The range setting for each individual database item can be much larger--hundreds of miles for channels or departments that cover an entire state or nationwide. The scanner Range setting + the database item range setting is what is used to turn each database item on or off.