Someone willing to help me?

[CelticRavenVA]

Ok I will admit, I just unboxed my first scanner tonight BDC396T, I programed the frequencies from loudon I got off bearcat1.com, and to be honest I am not even sure what I am doing wrong. I loaded everything though the uniden software, however I am starting to think I am not as smart as I thought I was.

I have two requests.

1. Does anyone have a System file for at least Loudoun to get me started?

2. Anyone near by that might show me what I did wrong in setting up my system for the county?

I am wanting to program a bunch of others into this, however not even trying those yet.

Very confused,

CR

 

[freqhopping]

I have a file, however I can not access it because the computer it's on isn't working.

Can you post some screenshots of the programming menus?

Also, use the information from the database on this site. It is more complete and up to date.

 

[CelticRavenVA]

Freqhopping,
Thanks, I will post the screenshots tonight. Here is a description of what I have in there and I haven't gotten a peep out of it, so I know something is wrong. For the frequencies I have:
866.5500 866.5875 866.8000 867.0375 867.0750
867.3250 868.0500 868.6625 868.7750 868.9125

I then created two talkgroups in the system: Fire and Police.

I input a common name and then the TGID.
Information based on the following:
Loudoun County Fire (Annoucement) 3408
Loudoun County Fire (Incident 1) 3280
Loudoun County Fire (Incident 2) 3312
Loudoun County Fire (Incident 3) 3344
Loudoun County Fire (Incident 4) 3376
Loudoun County Fire (Disp) 3216

I also have a another group setup for police based on similar info.


I have the system set to Apco 25,
Hold time 2 sec
Delay time 2 sec
I have tried ID scan and Search with no luck
The Band Plan, are all blank (is this the problem? I couldn't find any data on this)
I-Call is set to off
P25 Level Auto
Modulation set to Auto
ATT off

Thanks for any and all help. Sorry still very new to this but trying to learn.

 

[hankv]

Ok I will admit, I just unboxed my first scanner tonight BDC396T, I programed the frequencies from loudon I got off bearcat1.com, and to be honest I am not even sure what I am doing wrong. I loaded everything though the uniden software, however I am starting to think I am not as smart as I thought I was.

I have two requests.

1. Does anyone have a System file for at least Loudoun to get me started?

This should get you started:
http://radioreference.com/modules.php?name=RR&sid=1611

by uniden software I assume you mean UASD.

1. Start a NEW system - Call it anything you want, but define it as Motorola 800 Mhz Type II STANDARD (Smartzone is only one "brand" of Type II Standard)

2. Use the frequencies from the link above.

3. Make sure you use ID SEARCH not ID SCAN for now - you can change later if you want to. This is to get you hearing something at the start.

4. Load it and try it. The system is mostly Digital with some encryption so it will make strange noises sometimes and show ENC on the display if it's encrypted.

5. Once you get it going, you can enter the Talkgroups from the above links so the scanner can tell you who you are listening to, but they are not needed just to test the setup.

I just saw this in another post
"I have the system set to Apco 25, "
That's the problem! System Type IS Motorola Type II SmartZone you only use the P25 type if the Data Base shows System Type: Project 25 Standard.

 

[fmon]

I have the system set to Apco 25,

Bingo, the system is not pure APCO 25. Use another trunking mode.

 

[CelticRavenVA]

Motorola 800 Mhz Type II STANDARD, Ahhh ok will re work this when I get home. Thank you very much!!! Ok now the stupid question so I know in the future, what did you reference on the DB page to tell you that?

 

[UPMan]

System Type: Motorola Type II SmartZone

APCO 25 systems will have

System Type: Project 25 Standard

 

[hankv]

Motorola 800 Mhz Type II STANDARD, Ahhh ok will re work this when I get home. Thank you very much!!! Ok now the stupid question so I know in the future, what did you reference on the DB page to tell you that?

At the top of the page:


System Name: Loudoun County
Location: Ashburn, VA
County: Loudoun
System Type: Motorola Type II SmartZone <<<<<<<<-------Right here
System Voice: Analog and APCO-25 Common Air Interface
Sysid: 6B1D
CT: 128.57
Uniden DSP: 0333 1985 3542
Last Updated: Changed talkgroups
Hits: 9623

 

[CelticRavenVA]

Thank you all so much, just setup a system for howard co, which is the same system type and that is working.

Now to clarify when I am in the software creating this for real before writing it back to the scanner.

I can define the "Group" Then set the tgid's and only listen to the people I want to hear when I set to scan correct? Is it better process to set all and lock out the ones I don't want or only set the ones I want?

(Again thank you so much to everyone.)

 

[UPMan]

Depends on what you want to listen to. I generally program all PD channels, but lock out talkaround and supervisor channels...if a comm is moving to one of these and I want to hear it, I "HOLD" then scroll to that locked out channel.

I don't at all program the dog catcher, water department, etc, as I have no interest in hearing them.

On some systems, programming all channels isn't even possible (more than 200 channels in many systems...200 channel trunked system limit on the 396).

 

[hankv]

I can define the "Group" Then set the tgid's and only listen to the people I want to hear when I set to scan correct? Is it better process to set all and lock out the ones I don't want or only set the ones I want?

(Again thank you so much to everyone.)

Here we fall into the realm of personal preference.

I use ID SEARCH and as I identify TG's I don't want, I lock them out ( even in ID SEARCH the scanner ignores Locked-Out TGID's), then I save it from the scanner back to the UASD Data Base. Otherwise you start over every time you reload the scanner.

I do this because as good as the RR DB is, there are bunches of TG's that are not in the DB because:

1. They are only used on rare occasions and just got missed
2. They are newly assigned
3. The system has a major re-assignment of ID's This happened on my local system and the new TGID's were not in the same number range as the old one - it took me a week to realize what happened and two weeks to recover.

 

[CelticRavenVA]

So when you first connect the scanner, you write the config from the scanner back to UASD, and work off of that for changes you make? Hadn't thought of that, that is a great idea.

 

[hankv]

So when you first connect the scanner, you write the config from the scanner back to UASD, and work off of that for changes you make? Hadn't thought of that, that is a great idea.

It's best if you dump all your preloaded systems to UASD and then only Load the systems you are following back to the scanner - saves a lot of memory

 

[tglendye]

...however I am starting to think I am not as smart as I thought I was...

CR

Looks like you're doing a lot better than most people when they started off (including me)

 

[JESSERABBIT]

Looks like you're doing a lot better than most people when they started off (including me)

Ditto here as well.

 

[CelticRavenVA]

Well with the assistance of the people here I was able to get rolling pretty fast. The technology and concepts aren't elusive to me, I thought one thing ment something else entirely. There is a lot of new stuff here I don't understand yet but trying to learn and searching the fourms has helped a lot.

Hanky,
Thanks for the advise, I dumped all the preloaded stuff and actually programed all the channels for two of the 4 major areas I am in last night, Loudoun Co. and Howard Co MD. The Howard Co, stuff thank got I was finally able to lock out all of village bus crap, which was usually just an open mic while someone was driving down the road. I ordered what seems to be the popular diamond antenna, to see if I can get better reception, on a few pieces but it is going well.