West Central Ohio programming help needed

[dsn252]

I have been scanning for years but cant master this SDS200 programming. Here is my problem andIm proud that I finally found way for my 71 year brain to get it.
I want to listen To montgomery Greene Clark Champaign Madison all those around but when I put is Marcs Statewide I get ALL site not just the one for the COUNTY, what is the thing I am doing wrong as. Thanks

 

[amcferrin90]

I have been scanning for years but cant master this SDS200 programming. Here is my problem andIm proud that I finally found way for my 71 year brain to get it.
I want to listen To montgomery Greene Clark Champaign Madison all those around but when I put is Marcs Statewide I get ALL site not just the one for the COUNTY, what is the thing I am doing wrong as. Thanks

I'm sure there's another way with using quick keys but my 51 year old brain never could get those to work for me. Because I also had to remember what numbers were for what sites or agencies or whatever. The easiest for me was to use the Sentinel program and create a favorites list from the All Sites section. Then weed out what I didn't want. Usually I just weed out the sites down to my interest and leave all the talkgroups and agencies. That way if someone roamed into my area or there was a chase in Toledo and all the OSP dispatchers and troopers all tuned in to listen statewide, I could hear it too and know what talkgroup they were on.

From there if I want to listen to only one site, I press the top side button which gives you the SITE softkey and I could lock to only one site. That way if I ever travel somewhere and need to change my listening, I can always turn on the all site scanlist in the menu. You might find better help in the Uniden forum here. Just to stay on topic.

 

[maus92]

I have been scanning for years but cant master this SDS200 programming. Here is my problem andIm proud that I finally found way for my 71 year brain to get it.
I want to listen To montgomery Greene Clark Champaign Madison all those around but when I put is Marcs Statewide I get ALL site not just the one for the COUNTY, what is the thing I am doing wrong as. Thanks

Make a Favorites List for just MARCS. Then Avoid (or delete) every site that you do not wish to monitor. Do the same with your talk groups of interest. It will take some time to set up for a huge system like MARCS, but it is worth the effort.

 

[dsn252]

Make a Favorites List for just MARCS. Then Avoid (or delete) every site that you do not wish to monitor. Do the same with your talk groups of interest. It will take some time to set up for a huge system like MARCS, but it is worth the effort.

so every little burg that has MARCS all over the state has to be removed but at what stage do I do that Ive had fits trying to maually do programming and JUST figured out Sentinel but all Marcs site get programmed in. and what site do I save to know it is the correct location??And Marcs is the only system I am using

 

[maus92]

You will need to know what MARCS sites are receivable at your monitoring location, aka local knowledge. The RRDB database does indicate where sites are located by city and county name. All other out-of-range sites can be locked out (Avoided) or deleted from your Sentinel Favorites list. Do not try to program an SDS radio by hand - it is extremely difficult / tedious and easy to make mistakes. You will need to learn how Sentinel works. Youtube is your friend. You made a significant financial investment into most sophisticated scanner on the market, now you will need to make an investment of time to learn how to use it.

 

[dsn252]

I still need to figure out how to enter enter locale example Champaign cty is Urbana but what do I need to append that like Greene is cedarville but at what point do I click and what partcvulat order. I make favorite list and try one dep at a time to see I just cant get there

 

[maus92]

Attached is a Favorites list for MARCS only - MARCS.txt - with only the Greene Co Simulcast, Urbanna, and Springfield sites enabled. Any active non-encrypted talk group carried on the sites will play. You will need to download the file to your computer, change the file extension from .txt to .hpe, import the now MARCS.hpe Favorites list into Sentinel, then download to your radio using Sentinel. I have a feeling that this might be too complicated for you to grasp at this point in your "training" but hopefully somebody can help you if you get stuck. Good luck.

 

[dsn252]

Im not able to understand what you have asked me to do, one more things to clarify if someone can speak up, when I put in the State Ohio Marcs system I want to see the frequencies available and the SITE TOWN they are with, how do I select one town without MARCS listing all sites in Ohio Ive done it before and it cant be that hard to eliminate all the sites across the state BTW Ive been programming these since the old Bearcat 101 996 396 and so on but this sds 200 has me tied up and it just sits here as I put in all the state on marcs it never picks up Dayton area I want to hear HELP!!!

 

[wa8pyr]

Folks, this topic seems to be taking on a life of it's own so I've moved it out to a separate thread.

 

[maus92]

Im not able to understand what you have asked me to do, one more things to clarify if someone can speak up, when I put in the State Ohio Marcs system I want to see the frequencies available and the SITE TOWN they are with, how do I select one town without MARCS listing all sites in Ohio Ive done it before and it cant be that hard to eliminate all the sites across the state BTW Ive been programming these since the old Bearcat 101 996 396 and so on but this sds 200 has me tied up and it just sits here as I put in all the state on marcs it never picks up Dayton area I want to hear HELP!!!

Normally I would offer to do a remote session, but I'm thinking this would not work for you. You really need to find somebody local who can sit down with you and teach you how the SDS and Sentinel work together as a system - it is complicated compared to older scanner technology. Where did you buy the radio? Perhaps they can program it for you / send you a new preprogrammed SD card? Do you travel with the radio, or does it stay in a fixed location? Where do you live generally? You might be able to meet up with someone nearby.