Thoughts on Organizing Zones

[radiochuck]

I live in Phoenix (west valley/Sun City) and I'm trying to determine a good, logical way to arrange analog repeaters in zones on my Anytone HT.

I'm inclined to do this in a geographical way, perhaps West Valley, Central PHX, East Valley, South Valley, Southeast Valley, or something like that, but I'm open to suggestions. I suppose some repeaters could appear in multiple zones, depending on coverage outside of their "home zone."

My main goal is to not be monitoring or trying to access repeaters that are not within range, especially on the TX side. I also don't want to have to keep a physical list (or little black book, spreadsheet on phone, etc.) of the locations and coverage of each repeater.

Anyway, I'm just soliciting some feedback from anyone who has actually had experience with this can give me some suggestions and help me come up with a good system.

Thanks!

 

[tweiss3]

I have the entire state in my radios. I have my home and most traveled zones split up into 2 or 3 county zones, then in the less traveled areas I have larger groups of counties (NE, NW, SE, SW).

 

[radiochuck]

I have the entire state in my radios. I have my home and most traveled zones split up into 2 or 3 county zones, then in the less traveled areas I have larger groups of counties (NE, NW, SE, SW).

That sounds cool. I'm definitely trying to keep the zones small so I don't have repeaters in there that I would never hit with my HT. The terrain here in Arizona also makes it better for me to keep the zones small. I like the idea of having larger zones when away from my home area. I might even use GPS to control those. Thanks for the reply.

 

[sloop]

I have a home bank with repeaters that I can easily access from home. I then have travel banks with repeaters along the routes that I normally take when traveling. Last I have a bank for repeaters where each of my kids live that I can access when I visit. Last I have a bank for Skywarn repeaters that are linked to the National Weather Service offices.

 

[radiochuck]

I have a home bank with repeaters that I can easily access from home...

That's pretty much what I'm thinking. I have a zone called "Home Analog" and I'm creating zones for the surrounding areas and places that I travel to. There are also zones for each of the DMR repeaters that I use.

I really don't know anything about Skywarn. I need to educate myself on that. Thanks for the reply.

 

[mjdewey]

I have mine setup with zones for areas and or cities, counties I regularly travel to.
Home for local analog, DMR local and statewide. Then DMR zones for repeaters and analog for those cities and counties. I have one zone setup with all analog from the ARRL and FCC files. I have a zone for a neighboring county that operates Public Safety on DMR to monitor only. I have a Public Safety interoperability and common Public Safety frequencies to monitor only.

One zone is for monitor only for all railroad analog frequencies.

One zone is for all NOAA weather. I have another zone for local, area and statewide Stormnet frequencies.

I try to keep the zones to around 25 to 30 channels for the scanning to work effectively.

 

[radiochuck]

I have mine setup with zones for areas and or cities, counties I regularly travel to.
Home for local analog, DMR local and statewide. Then DMR zones for repeaters and analog for those cities and counties. I have one zone setup with all analog from the ARRL and FCC files. I have a zone for a neighboring county that operates Public Safety on DMR to monitor only. I have a Public Safety interoperability and common Public Safety frequencies to monitor only.

One zone is for monitor only for all railroad analog frequencies.

One zone is for all NOAA weather. I have another zone for local, area and statewide Stormnet frequencies.

I try to keep the zones to around 25 to 30 channels for the scanning to work effectively.

Wow! It sounds like you’ve really got things dialed in.

I need to add a zone for NOAA WX. Other than that, I guess there’s really no “one size fits all” approach to setting up zones. I’ll just have to give a lot of thought to how I want everything setup. Thanks for the reply.

 

[a417]

I guess there’s really no “one size fits all” approach to setting up zones. I’ll just have to give a lot of thought to how I want everything setup. Thanks for the reply.

There is not, you do you.

 

[GlobalNorth]

I did mine by county, city [alphabetical], etc. Some counties such as Apache, Graham, Greenlee, Navajo go on regional SD cards due to far fewer repeaters.

 

[ladn]

Not all of my radios have the capability for zones (but I wish they did). On my Anytone 878, I've set up zones for:

• Analog Ham (all my analog ham frequencies in one zone, organized in the same order as my other analog radios
• PAPA repeater system, one zone for all the analog repeaters, then one zone, each, for most of the DMR repeaters with various talk groups.
• Several other zones for misc DMR repeaters with talk groups
• NWS weather radio (Rx only)
• LA area news media (mainly assignment desks and IFB) (Rx only)
• One zone, each, for other analog repeater systems that I sometimes use
• Several zones organized geographically

 

[VK6NCB]

I have mine setup with the following.

commute - the 3 repeaters I use most often, plus APRS and 146.500 (calling channel here in Aus)

metro - commute plus the other metro area repeaters I dont typically use.

then I have 3 statewide zones, North, East, South, and while theres a bit of overlap on repeaters near the city, they have repeaters for their respective areas.

this system may not work for you, as we have one major city on the coast, and everything else is small towns with a lot of space between them.