Seattle-King County Public Safety Talk Group ID's missing

[Rescue611]

I'm a moderately experienced trunk scanner user, and I'm just getting a BCD996XT up and running. I bought a premium Radio Reference membership and am using ProScan software (wow is this easy!). But, I'm shocked how many talk group ID's don't seem to have alpha tags - like even Seattle Fire dispatch.

Am I doing something wrong or over looking something?

Plenty of alpha tags are coming in, so I didn't totally fubar something - in fact, I've made no modifications - just downloaded it an uploaded to scanner.

Anyone know why this is happening.

Thanks much.

[kd7kdc]

Well if you would like to help update the database for that system feel free to let us know what the missing data is and lowboy or I will get it entered.

Thanks,
Steve

[Rescue611]

Originally Posted by kd7kdc

Well if you would like to help update the database for that system feel free to let us know what the missing data is and lowboy or I will get it entered.

Thanks,
Steve

LOL. Sounds like a project. I'll work on it.

[kd7kdc]

Ok cool

[RBMTS]

Originally Posted by Rescue611

I'm a moderately experienced trunk scanner user, and I'm just getting a BCD996XT up and running. I bought a premium Radio Reference membership and am using ProScan software (wow is this easy!). But, I'm shocked how many talk group ID's don't seem to have alpha tags - like even Seattle Fire dispatch.
Am I doing something wrong or over looking something?

Rescue611 - compare your info against this page:
Seattle-King County Public Safety Trunking System, Seattle, Washington - Scanner Frequencies

As you'll see on this page, Seattle Fire is listed with an alpha tag. I'm wondering if the software is not pulling the proper data in the various fields.

[Rescue611]

Originally Posted by RBMTS

Rescue611 - compare your info against this page:
Seattle-King County Public Safety Trunking System, Seattle, Washington - Scanner Frequencies

As you'll see on this page, Seattle Fire is listed with an alpha tag. I'm wondering if the software is not pulling the proper data in the various fields.

Actually, as I've investigated this further, it seems the problem is twofold:

- That the whole King County-Seattle system overloads the dynamic memory allocations of sites and groups (probably not proper terminology) and so it just "dumps" a lot of it.
- Additionally, the King County-Seattle system includes many regional "sub-systems" (i.e. Seattle Simulcast, EPSCA, King County/Valley Com, etc), and that not all talk group ID's resolve across all these sub-systems.

So, I think it will just take a little bit of work sorting that all out - matching sites and regional systems with the talk groups on those systems, while also making sure you don't over-load the dynamic memory allocations.

While King County-Seattle is ONE system, it seems that Radio Reference would do it's members a service in breaking it down into it's component parts. If the 996XT can't handle it all at once, I imagine no scanner can.

I'm happy to help, but likely won't have the time to meticulously map the whole thing other than just handing over my database file to someone will to interpret it and break it into downloadable parts accordingly.

[RBMTS]

While I don't disagree with you that perhaps the system could be better broken out, it is currently functional. I am not very familiar with ProScan. What I can tell you is that with any Butel product for Uniden scanners or Don Starr's software for GRE/RS scanners allows the ability to chose what sites, and then what user TG's you want. Example, if I wanted to setup and listen to only Seattle Fire as it's own system, I can tell the software to download a specific site, and then select only Seattle Fire. Perhaps I want only KCSO - same thing. You don't have to download the entire database which then overloads the scanner. There should be some way that ProScan allows you do to the same steps.

Truth be told, you wouldn't want the user broken out into their own systems (which would repeat the Seattle/King system over and over again). If you setup your scanner to have each entity be it's own system, it could take forever to have the scanner go through each one (remember that scanners usually take about 3 seconds per system to lock onto and scan).

Perhaps what you might want to do is go into the "Scanner Programming Software" section and ask if ProScan has the ability to selectively chose groups/user TG's before downloading the entire system.

[Rescue611]

Originally Posted by RBMTS

While I don't disagree with you that perhaps the system could be better broken out, it is currently functional. I am not very familiar with ProScan. What I can tell you is that with any Butel product for Uniden scanners or Don Starr's software for GRE/RS scanners allows the ability to chose what sites, and then what user TG's you want. Example, if I wanted to setup and listen to only Seattle Fire as it's own system, I can tell the software to download a specific site, and then select only Seattle Fire. Perhaps I want only KCSO - same thing. You don't have to download the entire database which then overloads the scanner. There should be some way that ProScan allows you do to the same steps.

Truth be told, you wouldn't want the user broken out into their own systems (which would repeat the Seattle/King system over and over again). If you setup your scanner to have each entity be it's own system, it could take forever to have the scanner go through each one (remember that scanners usually take about 3 seconds per system to lock onto and scan).

Perhaps what you might want to do is go into the "Scanner Programming Software" section and ask if ProScan has the ability to selectively chose groups/user TG's before downloading the entire system.

I agree. Now that I've spent more time with with the ProScan software (long night last night!) , I'm more comfortable with breaking apart the system to fit my needs. So do I see the logic of having the whole, intact system, and I just need to spend a little time to modify it to my needs.

Thanks