Uniden 346XT Memory Setup
Bcoray,
I have reviewed your Freescan file from last week. It looks like you did a very nice job, especially for a first attempt! Most likely your setup has changed a lot since then, but I do have a few observations.
1. The first system listed is 'SL Simo', but the only freqs are from Nelson Peak. You probably already fixed this. There are no talkgroups entered. That's OK, since you have it set to Search instead of Scan. The nice thing about including some TG's even in Search Mode is that if a given TG is in your list, you will see it's name instead of just the number. I do like how you entered only the Control Channels, and checked the box for 'Control Channel Only'.
2. The system named 'UCAN Nelson' has a site named 'Nelson Peak'. It is set for CCO, but has every freq listed. No harm done, but it gets way more messy than it needs to be. If your scanner supports CCO, as yours does, I say use it and keep things simple. All your sites are set for CCO (yeah) but most have all the freqs listed. All the Simulcast Sites will have 1 CC and 3 alternates. All the rest will have 1 CC and 1 alternate. All you really need is the current CC, but in case of that extremely rare event that an alternate is used, they probably should be entered as well.
3. I read somewhere that using ‘Motorola End Code’ is recommended. It is only checked on one of your systems.
4. I love Nelson Peak! In my opinion it is the very heart of the whole UCAN system. It's like a grab bag of TG's from most areas of UCAN, and there are very few members of this Forum who can not hear it (excepting Cache & St George). It's fun to listen to when my local area is quiet, but being more unpredictable I personally lock it out much of the time to focus more on my local area.
5. You are correct in that you don't really need more than one site per system, but I'll toss out a scenario where you might want to. I see you have a system named 'UCAN Nelson Summit' which has the Nelson freqs and the Summit TG's. I'm impressed that you noticed so quickly the 'anomaly' of Nelson having much of the Summit TG's active. It also has much of the Tooele traffic, and of course SL, Davis, and Utah Counties. For this system, why not include the Wasatch/Summit Simulcast site, and perhaps South Mtn and Wendover for Tooele? By the time you travel within range of these other sites, Nelson will almost for sure be gone, but now you can automatically re-use the same list of TG's when you travel outside the range of Nelson. Of course inside this system you would include TG lists for Wasatch/Summit, Tooele, and then whatever others to fill up the system.
6. I use the above strategy extensively to reduce the number of systems in my scanner, and to reduce entering redundant TG lists as much as possible. And in fact for my BR330 scanner which does not use a GPS nor does it support multiple sites per system, I took it to the extreme. I divided the CC's from all the independent (IR) UCAN sites into 4 separate groups, such that every CC in any group is geographically separated from the others enough that only 1 from each group can be heard at any point in the state at a time. (Yes, that was a BIG project!) This resulted in only 4 systems that cover the entire state (not including any Simulcast areas, which are each given their own system). Whenever I drive out of range of 1 CC, the scanner automatically starts looking for another to replace it. The same TG list is included (redundantly) for each of the 4 IR systems. The list is simply the most likely TG's to be heard while traveling in rural Utah. For my BC330 or a BC246 that is the Top 200. For you that would be the Top 500. I have already compiled both of these lists, of which you are welcome to use. All use Search mode so I hear everything, but if it’s in the list I see the name instead of the number. These systems are always locked out when at home, and always unlocked while I travel.
7. I can see that you do have a system containing all the UCAN sites. I have one of these as well in all of my scanners. The main difference is that I have removed all of the simulcast sites and all the very busy sites from that system for the sake of simplicity. They are all covered very adequately in their own systems. Examples of ‘Busy’ for me are Nelson Pk and West Mtn. For you that might be Nelson, Francis, & maybe others. I think the real reason this system exists for us is for when we travel outside our home area. In my mind, having all those ‘busy home sites’ included is missing the point.
8. I have assigned SITE quick keys to each site according to their site #. Most of the site #’s are burned into my brain already, so this works for me. I include in each of the simulcast systems the main simulcast site, which is always unlocked, then all the surrounding IR sites, which are normally locked out. Using Utah County as an example, the Simulcast and WestMtn are programmed in and normally unlocked. Also included but normally locked out are AF Canyon, Hobble Creek, Teat Peak, Levan, Black Crook, and Nelson. All of my Simulcast Systems are setup in a similar fashion.
9. We all pay a price for every active CC (every site) that we monitor at one time. That price is 1 second (the default) every scan cycle. As it turns out, 1 second can be a big deal if you are trying to follow some event, so you should not monitor all the IR sites all the time. On the other hand, if I am really interested in 5 or 6 sites all the time, then so be it. One point to note is that if a given CC is out of range of the scanner, you only pay a fraction of a second instead of 1 second. (That’s why the strategy with the 4 IR systems above works out.) In my opinion, we don’t pay a price for more TG’s in the system. The bottleneck, I believe, is in listening to enough of the CC data stream to see who is active -- finding each TG in a list from internal scanner memory should be much, much quicker.
10. As far as organizing the TG’s, I do what kc2rgw does with the concentric circles, but he was able to explain it better that I ever have. My philosophy is that I want to hear everything near me, but the farther away things are happening, I only want ‘the good stuff’ and sometimes nothing at all. Of course if I were affiliated with any agency in particular, that would be included in my locals or ‘favorites’, and I would listen for it on the site with the strongest signal and most likely site to always carry that TG. For example, if there is a Search & Rescue in the mountains somewhere, the searchers will affiliate with their nearest IR site, but I don’t need to monitor all those sites because for sure there will be a copy of all their traffic on their local Simulcast System. On the other hand, if I were in the same area as the search, it would be nice to have that IR site programmed in that same system, normally locked out, but available quickly just in case.
11. Did you download these systems from the RR database? If so, I didn’t realize how incorrect some of the Utah County TG’s still are in the database. I shall submit some updates shortly.
Pretty much anyone on this forum is welcome to any files I have, including my Freescan files, but some files I would prefer not to post publicly. Just send me a PM. I would also be interested to see a more current setup from you.
B.Christensen
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