I need some advice

[Morgul]

I recently purchased a RS Pro-164, and I'm in the process of programming the Palmetto 800 trunk into it. What I'm running into is an issue with not knowing what all to put in.

I live in Lex. county, but I travel around the state, usually to Charleston, Greenville, and Florence. I'd like to be able to listen to those various areas. The thing is, there are so many frequencies and talk groups that I'm not sure what all to put in. I want to listen to police, fire, and ems, mostly. I've got 10 banks of 100 channels, and each bank can be tied with 150 talk groups. Obviously, I can't fit all of the talk groups into 1 bank. I'm picking up these other groups that didn't get listed, but they don't get identified other than the ID number, which doesn't tell me squat.

Is there a way to spread out the talk groups over multiple banks without repeating the trunk frequency?

Basically, what I'm looking for is suggestions on how other Palmetto 800 listeners have their scanners programmed/set-up/organized.

Thanks!

 

[brian]

I configure my scanners based on county. For example, I have a bank for my home area around Spartanburg, and I have a several banks for Spartanburg (Public Safety, City agencies, other local govt, business, utilities) as well as one for Greenville, Cherokee/Union, and conventional state agencies.

Within, for example, my Spartanburg Public Safety Bank, I have the 4 or 5 control channels for Palmetto 800 sites that cover Spartanburg. I then have 5 ID scan lists (your 150 groups are broken up into 5 lists of 30 each, I think). 1 list is for Spartanburg EMS, 1 is for Spartanburg SD, one is for SCHP, one is for other state agencies, etc.

I use a PRO-96 and a PRO-97 (which is very similar to your 164), and I have other configurations for other areas. I have one for the trip down I-26 to Columbia. It contains a bank for Laurens/Newberry, one for Lexington Co., one for Richland Co., 1 for Columbia, etc. Those banks each contain similar sets of conventional and trunked frequencies for each county, and the 5 talkgroup lists are similarly configured. For example, I always put the local control channel frequencies at the end of the bank (usually in the x40-x49 channel range) so I know where to find them. I always put SCHP in talkgroup List 4 and state agencies in List 5, so I can deactivate those if need be.

This works well for me. I'll be interested to see what others have done.

 

[LarrySC]

I PGM just about the same as Brian. If you travel the interstate then use controlls along that route. Talk groups must match the areas near the towers because not all talkgroups are on all towers. email me direct for local information: larryscan@charter.net

 

[Morgul]

Ok, so basically I need to have banks with the control frequencies for all of the counties that I normally travel through, and then the various trunk id's in the sub banks.

Should I duplicate trunk ids for say, the SCHP so I can track them no matter what end of the state I'm in?

Time to sit down and do some planning...

Thanks!

 

[brian]

Well, as Larry said, not all talkgroups are carried on all sites. There are some that are "state-wide", but even then you'll only hear them active on sites that subscriber radios are affiliated to that have also selected that particular talkgroup.

For example, I might hear State Air-ground 3856 on Site 19 because Regional 1 is affiliated with that site, but folks scanning site 42 wouldn't hear it unless a radio (a real radio associated with the system, not a scanner) has that particular talkgroup selected. State-wide means it's allowed to be used on any site on the system, not necessarily that it will be carried on every site every time.

However, most talkgroups are localized, or regional. For example, you won't hear Spartanburg Co. EMS talkgroups in Lexington, and I won't hear LexCo FD in Spartanburg.

A better approach, at least from my point of view, is to determine what counties need to be in their own bank, and which counties can share a bank. That's usually determined by population and the number of active talkgroups. Then, determine which control channel frequencies to program for each bank. For example, I'd program Sites 20, 4 and 3 for Lexington, and 19, 36, 16, 17 and 18 for Spartanburg. Then determine what talkgroups to program based on what talkgroups are likely to be active on those sites.

It's worth noting that the "multiple control channels in a bank" thing only works for GRE scanners that still adhere to the traditional bank/channel memory scheme (the PRO-164 falls into that category). It doesn't work so well with Unidens or scanners with dynamic memory schemes.

I have some configs for my PRO-97 that you are welcome to. Send me a PM.