Wolfforth, TX police, fire and EMS

toddf

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Is anyone here able to listen to the Wolfforth police and fire on the new Project 25, Phase II channels. I bought a brand new SDS100 and used the sentinel software to program the scanner. I am just not able to pick them up. I check radioreference and the talkgroups are correct as compared to sentinel.
I am also only able to pick up a few different Lubbock channels. I should be hitting on a lot more of those. The big thing though, is of anyone on here can hear Wolfforth. Thanks.
 

hiegtx

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I bought a brand new SDS100 and used the sentinel software to program the scanner.
When you created your Favorites list in Sentinel, did you, first, update the database in Sentinel? When your scanner is manufactured, as well as when you first installed Sentinel, the database will be well out of date. The database in the scanner, when the scanner is shipped to you, is usually from 2018, so it's by no means accurate as to what is currently in use when you look at the database via the website.You can see what is the date for the database in Sentinel by looking at the lower left corner of Sentinel's main window.
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Did you create your list, in Sentinel, by appending from the main database? Or did you use the "add channels in range" method.

If you are using Location Control, be sure that your location, in your Sentinel profile, is accurate, as well as selecting a range large enough to pull in Lubbock. (The range, as the scanner uses it, is actually a combination of the range you set in your profile, as well as the range of the system sites' and departments. Make sure that the Lubbock simulcast site is in your list.

If you post your Favorites list file, we can look to see if anything is out of place or missing. How to do that is covered in this Wiki page.

Wolfforth PD calls come through the Lubbock SO main channel
Thanks for providing that, I have not been anywhere near your area in a very long time.
 

toddf

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Yes the first thing I did was update the HPDB when I hooked my scanner up to Sentinel. I created my favorites list by appending from main database and Lubbock City-Co Mutual Radio System.

The date on my database is 11/09/2025. Firmware is also updated to current version. I thought that maybe Wolfforth PD and Fire also might still be using the old system, and had not moved to Phase II yet and those aren't active either. Originally it was 154.755 for police and 155.490 for fire. I also have download and monitor set to on before I write the favorites to scanner.
In the favorites list, there are also these other sites included.

I appreciate the help!
 

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hiegtx

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Yes the first thing I did was update the HPDB when I hooked my scanner up to Sentinel. I created my favorites list by appending from main database and Lubbock City-Co Mutual Radio System.

The date on my database is 11/09/2025. Firmware is also updated to current version. I thought that maybe Wolfforth PD and Fire also might still be using the old system, and had not moved to Phase II yet and those aren't active either. Originally it was 154.755 for police and 155.490 for fire. I also have download and monitor set to on before I write the favorites to scanner.
In the favorites list, there are also these other sites included.

I appreciate the help!
Looking at your file, I don't see anything that 'jumps out' at me for an error. You have the sites enabled, and have the listed talkgroups in place as well. While you are not using location control, you have that data in place in case you'd want to switch to location. If I were programming your area for a visit to Lubbock, my programming would be almost identical to what you entered.

Do you have a source of interference, such as a cell tower, or other tower near you? If so, that might be overriding the signals that you want. You might try changing the filter settings for your sites. I find that wide-normal works better on some of the systems that I monitor here in the DFW area. There are several different settings you can use.

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You might find that a different setting would help. It's worth a try, and no cost except a few minutes of your time. The 'Global' setting uses whatever is set in your profile for any site (trunked) or system (conventional systems) that is set to use Normal. (Normal is the default, but you can try other settings..) DO NOT Use Auto, That's something that we've asked Uniden to change, if possible, but no luck so far. Using Auto, the scanner tries each different filter setting whenever a trunked system site is scanned, as well as conventional channel frequencies. The downside of Auto is that it goes though the same cross check of all possible filter settings every time that site or frequency is scanned. That slows your scanning speed noticeably. That choice (of the best filter setting) is not saved, not even temporally, nor is it saved (like a temporary lockout is) if you read the scanner back into Sentinel. What we've asked for is that once the best setting is determined in a scanner use session, that it no longer is evaluated every time that system or site comes up; it would continue to use whatever setting was found to work best. Or, at least, enable editing the display settings to allow the chosen filter (best choice) to be shown. Instead, at present, it would continue to show "Auto", not what it found was the best choice.

I would also suggest changing the NAC setting for the site to "Ignore" or 'search', just in case that changed & not yet updated in the database.

I also would set those sites farther from your area, like Abernathy, to ignore, so that the scanner does not waste time trying to pick it up. Coverage for Abernathy (from the database) appears to be very marginal for your city:
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Also, turning off those more remote sites will speed up your scanning, The SDS100 & SDS200 take somewhere between a half second, to a full second, to acquire the control channel for a site then evaluate whether your chosen talkgroups are being used. (I've seen various quotes in the forums, calling a half second, 0.75 seconds, or a full second.) Take those more distant sites out and your scanner will run more efficiently.

I see that you have a lot of Lubbock Fire TGIDs set as avoid. I'd flip them back on, just to see if you can hear some of them. On the outside chance that some of the law enforcement TGIDs have started using encryption, but not yet submitted to the database, I'd "park" the scanner on, say, the Lubbock S.O. dispatch, or Lubbock city PD dispatch. While it's scanning either the county S.O. or city PD departments, if you use the Channel button (the one farthest to the right, just below the display) to 'hold' on a talkgroup, if they were encrypted, you would not hear "clear" transmissions, but you'd see "enc" (for encrypted) in the corner of the display if there was any traffic on the talkgroup. Radio_etc did not mention encryption, so that might be a false lead, but it would only take a little of your time to check it out.

Are you using the antenna that came with the scanner (it should not be a problem if you are, since you are close) or one of the 'gain' antennas from Remtronix. Also, in general, for most users, a squelch setting of 2 works well. That's what I'm using here.

Let us know if any of this helps. Good luck!
 
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