325P2 trunking: Explain to me System/Site/Group?

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ErikVanR

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Ok... I am a skilled user (fire dept) of a Motorola digital Smartzone UHF T-band trunked system: XTS5000 portables, XTL5000 mobiles, etc. For the past 12 years, I've been using GRE/RS PRO96/2096 scanners to monitor my system when off-duty. I program the CC primary/secondary freqs and custom tables in the bank (bank 0, in this case). Then, I program all the TG IDs in the trunking subgroups (0 thru 4) for that bank. When I scan the system, I use the 50 channel subgroups to organize the services that I listen to (subgroup 0 = north & central fire TGs, subgroup 1 = south & west fire depts, subgroup 2 = law depts, subgroup 3 = law & local govt, subgroup 4 = medical TGs). I can lockout/unlock the subgroups and the individual TG IDs within to determine the exact TGs I monitor.

So... How do I transpose this to programming the BCD325P2? Should I make a 'system' for fire, a system for law, a system for local govt/medical, and then make groups within those systems such as: Fire System: North Fire Group, Central Fire Group, South Fire Group, West Fire Group. Then: Law System: BigCity PD Group, LittleCity PD Group, Sheriff Group. And: Local Govt System: Medical Group, Public Works Group?

Or should I make one 'System', divide the Fire into a 'Site', and then the depts into 'Groups', Law into a 'Site', and the depts into 'Groups', Local Govt into a 'Site', and the individual sevices into groups? To a Motorola system user, 'Site' means a fixed location repeater site (or two close sites) in the trunked system. Is that what Uniden sees 'Site' as, too?

The system uses two main zones: East simulcast (a CC and 10 voice channels) and West simulcast (a CC and 6 voice channels). Three IntelliRepeaters (each with a CC and 4-5 voice channels) cover the fringe areas. Normally, with the PRO96, I scan the CC freq pool and unlock the one with the strongest signal, and then trunk scan. If I travel to an outlying area, I'll scan the freq pool again and see if I need to add one of the freqs as another CC.
 

marksmith

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Any department can transmit on any site, so separating things by sites will not work. A system uses all sites for all departments except certain talkgroups that may be determined to only affiliate with some sites. These are usually highly localized services. Things like police and fire would use every site on the system.

You can put in one system, add all sites, and break out the services using groups (controlling via quick keys for depts)

You could enter a system for each type of service (police, fire, etc) but you would definitely want to include all sites in the system that you are likely to be in range of or travel to. Then use system quick keys to select subdivisions of the specific service, and departments for subdivisions under that.

It depends on how you wish to monitor. It can be done many ways, but just wanted to clarify that your use of the "site" does not make sense because any service can use any site on most systems. Site is more defined by location than type of service.

536/436/ws1095/996p2/996xt/325p2/396xt/psr800/396t/HP-1/HP-2 & others
 

jonwienke

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A System is an actual system, like Ohio MARCS, West Virginia SIRN, etc.

Sites are actual physical locations where system broadcast towers are located.

Departments are logical groupings of talkgroups that cover a particular area.

You can choose how you organize talkgroups into Departments, but Sites and Systems MUST match the actual system or you will have problems when scanning.
 

a29zuk

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Having the Uniden 396T and the 325P2 I was in the opposite situation that you are in when my neighbor wanted his 2096 programmed for him. It took a few days to understand the platform for the GRE/Radio Shack scanner before I could program the scanner for him.

From the information in your post you seem to monitor your scanner while being mobile. It is easier to use the system quick keys to turn them off and on when you are in your vehicle. The system can be easily turned off and on by pressing the quick key assigned to that system while the receiver is in the scan mode.


So, in your case, I would put all five zones in five different systems. Then use the system quick keys to control which zone(s) you want to monitor.

The groups in each system could be divided up by type of service. As Mark mentioned above it's all about your priorities of what you want to listen to.

As stated in Jons post above the site is a physical location with local talkgroups assigned to it. In your area the East simulcast is a site, the West simulcast is another site, and the three repeaters are three different sites. Monitoring a site in the "ID Search" mode will allow you to find out which talkgroups are used by that site.

Good Luck
Jim
 
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jonwienke

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So, in your case, I would put all five zones in five different systems. Then use the system quick keys to control which zone(s) you want to monitor.

Actually that is a really terrible idea, as it will make the scanner take 5x as long to scan.

The scanner needs about 1 second to scan a system site to get acquainted with what talkgroup(s) are currently active on that site. It doesn't matter whether there are 5 talkgroups defined for the system or 50,000, it takes about 1 second. If you duplicate the system 5 times, you're guaranteed to miss at least 1 second of 80% of the traffic on the system, 2 seconds of 60% of the traffic, 3 seconds of 40% of traffic, and 4 seconds of 20% of traffic.

OTOH, if you program the system once, and use Location Control to turn sites on and off, and use Service Types and/or Department Quick Keys to choose which talkgroup(s) of the system you want to hear, you'll miss zero traffic unless there are multiple simultaneous conversations going on.
 

a29zuk

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Actually that is a really terrible idea, as it will make the scanner take 5x as long to scan.

The scanner needs about 1 second to scan a system site to get acquainted with what talkgroup(s) are currently active on that site. It doesn't matter whether there are 5 talkgroups defined for the system or 50,000, it takes about 1 second. If you duplicate the system 5 times, you're guaranteed to miss at least 1 second of 80% of the traffic on the system, 2 seconds of 60% of the traffic, 3 seconds of 40% of traffic, and 4 seconds of 20% of traffic.

OTOH, if you program the system once, and use Location Control to turn sites on and off, and use Service Types and/or Department Quick Keys to choose which talkgroup(s) of the system you want to hear, you'll miss zero traffic unless there are multiple simultaneous conversations going on.

I agree with the scan time issue, but the gist was to monitor only one site at a time depending on location.

I'll have to do more research on the Location Control as I pretty much transferred my programmed systems with modifications from my 396T to my 325P2 via Freescan.

Thanks for the info.
Jim
 

ErikVanR

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Actually that is a really terrible idea, as it will make the scanner take 5x as long to scan.

The scanner needs about 1 second to scan a system site to get acquainted with what talkgroup(s) are currently active on that site. It doesn't matter whether there are 5 talkgroups defined for the system or 50,000, it takes about 1 second. If you duplicate the system 5 times, you're guaranteed to miss at least 1 second of 80% of the traffic on the system, 2 seconds of 60% of the traffic, 3 seconds of 40% of traffic, and 4 seconds of 20% of traffic.

OTOH, if you program the system once, and use Location Control to turn sites on and off, and use Service Types and/or Department Quick Keys to choose which talkgroup(s) of the system you want to hear, you'll miss zero traffic unless there are multiple simultaneous conversations going on.

Ok, now I think I'm making progress. Our system is zone simulcast, so if any TG is affiliated with a site in the zone, you will hear traffic on that TG if it is in your radio's scan list. Affilliation occurs when a radio is turned on, channel knob is moved, or it is returned to normal operation after programming the scan list. Any single radio in the system that has a specific TG in its scan list will 'enable' that TG to be transmitted from the site(s) in that zone or from the specific IntelliRepeater that the radio may be affiliated with.

So, I don't think breaking up the system into sites will help, as all the sites simulcast systemwide. As long as my scanner receives a good CC signal, it will hear any affiliated TGs in that area.

Now I need to figure out how to best 'subdivide' the TGs into cohesive 'zones' so I can quickly and easily lockout/unlock TGs that I want or don't want to monitor at that time. Yes, I use my scanners mobile quite often. As I travel in and out of areas, I want to not hear some or all of the jurisdictions that I just departed, and I want to then hear the jurisdictions that I am now entering or heading to.
 

jonwienke

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If the system sites are true simulcast (all sites broadcasting on the same set of frequencies) then you can program one simulcast site with the simulcast frequencies, rather than breaking out each physical site.
 

ErikVanR

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If the system sites are true simulcast (all sites broadcasting on the same set of frequencies) then you can program one simulcast site with the simulcast frequencies, rather than breaking out each physical site.

Yep, I just figured that out. I can do two sites: East zone CC freqs and West zone CC freqs. I guess I should do a third site that has the 3 IntelliRepeater site CC freqs, too.
 

ofd8001

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The scanner needs about 1 second to scan a system site to get acquainted with what talkgroup(s) are currently active on that site. It doesn't matter whether there are 5 talkgroups defined for the system or 50,000, it takes about 1 second. If you duplicate the system 5 times, you're guaranteed to miss at least 1 second of 80% of the traffic on the system, 2 seconds of 60% of the traffic, 3 seconds of 40% of traffic, and 4 seconds of 20% of traffic.

OTOH, if you program the system once, and use Location Control to turn sites on and off, and use Service Types and/or Department Quick Keys to choose which talkgroup(s) of the system you want to hear, you'll miss zero traffic unless there are multiple simultaneous conversations going on.

I agree with most of this, but with a little clarification. I believe the OP mentioned a 325P2. Location Control is not applicable unless a GPS device is connected and Service Types are not a feature of this scanner.

If it was me, I'd program each site to have its own unique System Quick Key. (Yeah it sounds a little wierd a "System Quick Key" toggling sites, but that's how it works in this model scanner). That would allow me to toggle which sites are being scanned.

Having separate Systems would be a challenge to maintain.
 

a29zuk

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I agree with most of this, but with a little clarification. I believe the OP mentioned a 325P2. Location Control is not applicable unless a GPS device is connected and Service Types are not a feature of this scanner.

Thanks, I was ready to do research on the Location Control but I don't use a GPS device.

If it was me, I'd program each site to have its own unique System Quick Key. (Yeah it sounds a little wierd a "System Quick Key" toggling sites, but that's how it works in this model scanner). That would allow me to toggle which sites are being scanned.

This is a good idea, I'll change the way I have my scanner programmed.

Thank You,
Jim
 
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