396XT Unit ID Maxed Out - Suggestion

Status
Not open for further replies.

cowand

Member
Joined
Jun 26, 2005
Messages
76
Location
Nashville, TN Area
It would be nice if the scanner would allow more than 250 unit IDs per system. Does anyone know if this will ever happen? I have had to split agencies up into separate systems to store more, and now I have some maxed out. I'm out of options now.

Thanks for any assistance!

cowand
 

KE4ZNR

Radio Geek
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Jan 21, 2002
Messages
7,254
Location
Raleigh, NC
It would be nice if the scanner would allow more than 250 unit IDs per system. Does anyone know if this will ever happen? I have had to split agencies up into separate systems to store more, and now I have some maxed out. I'm out of options now.

Thanks for any assistance!

cowand

Actually you can have up to 499 UIDs per system+ 1 actual TG. :D
The limit for Talkgroups or UIDs is 500 per system.
But considering you need at least 1 TG to use the UID feature....
Anyway, perhaps the limit will be upped in the next radio down the
road. The UID feature was added after the 396XT specs were developed
so it is what it is in the 396XT & 996XT.
But now that it is part of the feature set who knows for the next radios? :)
We can always hope!
Marshall KE4ZNR
 
Last edited:

cellphone

Silent key.
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Dec 28, 2002
Messages
1,811
Location
Ahwatukee, AZ (Phoenix)
I agree that 500 talkgroups/Radio IDs is limited. This does likely meet the needs of most scanner users, but those of us how monitor very large radio systems, it is a limitation especially now that we are also tagging radio IDs. For now the workaround is to split systems.
 

scanchs

Member
Joined
Dec 6, 2008
Messages
297
Location
SC Lowcountry
lets hope the next 396... maybe the 396XTS (I just made up the name) has 1000 or even 2000 TG/Unit ID

tk,

I really like the name you made up, because the "S" could imply that the extra memory to support those additional TG/Unit ID's is an SD chip of some sort... :wink:

ScanCHS
 

ofd8001

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Feb 6, 2004
Messages
7,890
Location
Louisville, KY
You might think about copying the system you listen to such as Nashville 1 as the first version/copy and Nashville 2 as the second version/copy. On 1 of the systems you could put police talkgroups and associated unit IDs with that, and on the 2 system it could be fire talkgroups and their associated unit IDs. You could actually do a third or fourth copy one of them for EMS and the other for other agencies.

I'm probably going to have that same challenge for the system we have in Louisville, and the above is my plan of attack on that issue. Another benefit of that is by system quick key arrangement. 1 could be for fire, 2 for police. That way you can easily lock out a group of talkgroups with just one key press action.
 

Skypilot007

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Dec 26, 2005
Messages
2,537
Location
Medford, NJ
I gave up trying to tag all the unit ID's on the local trunked system. There is no room for all of them in the scanner anyway, there are thousands of them on just our local county system. I just left a few key IDs in there and thats that. Lucky for me most of the unit ID's are the unit number or truck number already so no real need to tag them once I figured out the number scheme they used when programming their radio's.
 

cowand

Member
Joined
Jun 26, 2005
Messages
76
Location
Nashville, TN Area
Thanks to everyone that responded!

I had already separated the fire and police department's into separate systems a few weeks ago when I ran out of space. I have fire/police "scanning." I have about 80 talkgroups in the fire bank (Fire Dept./Hospitals/Interoperability Talkgroups), with a little over 250 Unit ID's. So it is allowing me, for now, to add more than 250 unit ID's in my "Radio ID's" group. We'll see how it goes.

I have all the fire engine's, most ambulances (front and rear radios), fire/EMS chief's mobiles and portables, hospital base radios, and Lifeflight's subscriber ID's. As for police, I have a few of the special units, and a few buddies radios listed. Regular patrol would be astronomical. I put all the radio ID's in a separate group "Radio ID's", and when they talk on a regular talkgroup they are displayed on that talkgroup respectively. It's a pretty neat feature.

I was wondering if a firmware upgrade could "unlock" more unit ID's per system since the scanner has so much memory for other systems. For example, I have a Motorola XTS5000 that had 850 or so channels, and when I think version 11 or 12 firmware came out, it upped it to 1000 channels when I had it flashed. Just wondering.

You can actually have a system with no talkgroups programmed in. The only reason for this would be for private calls (radio to radio). I monitor these pretty much daily. They don’t use a talkgroup when in this mode. You will just get a Unit ID come up, with no talkgroup.

I agree with "cellphone's" statement that 500 is limited. There are folks in public safety that use scanners as well, and could really "use" this, since scan lists are limited in two-way radios.

Again, thanks folks!
 

Kumba

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Apr 9, 2008
Messages
258
Location
Indian Head, MD
My theory on why Uniden "Fixes" certain limits into their scanners is probably because they rely on this hard limits to cook up efficient scanning algorithms to make their scanners quickly check the various frequencies. If they started allowing more dynamic limits, these algorithms wouldn't work or would be less efficient.

So I'd imagine that if they can just bump the firmware to change these limits, they wouldn't do so without extensively testing newer algorithms to make sure that they work decently with the expanded limits. If true, then it becomes a question of how high on their priority list is such a thing? Unit IDs are a very new feature, so they're probably in the early stages of customer feedback to evaluate what steps to take next.
 

KE4ZNR

Radio Geek
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Jan 21, 2002
Messages
7,254
Location
Raleigh, NC
Unit IDs are a very new feature, so they're probably in the early stages of customer feedback to evaluate what steps to take next.

Great post Kumba.
And I will agree 100% with the above statement.
People need to remember that UID Display was a feature added to the XT
series of scanners after the radios had been spec'd out.
Meaning that your statement above is correct in that we are still
in the infancy of this useful feature.
I do know that Uniden is very proactive and UPMan has stated
in the past he reads all suggestions for improvement. He many
not be able to comment for various reasons but he does take
seriously what the consumer wants to have in a radio product.
Marshall KE4ZNR
 

rdale

Completely Banned for the Greater Good
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Feb 3, 2001
Messages
11,380
Location
Lansing, MI
You might think about copying the system you listen to such as Nashville 1 as the first version/copy and Nashville 2 as the second version/copy.

That has a big problem though...

If the scanner is locked on N1 while a police call comes in, you don't get it until the scanner gets around to N2. And by that point, you aren't going to have the Unit ID come through. May not be a big hurt for you with 2 dupes, but you will definitely notice with 3-4+
 

wannabace

Member
Joined
Jun 16, 2004
Messages
12
Location
Clarksburg, WV
By reading this I am a little confused. Can you actually program in an alias to show up instead of the Unit ID's? If there is a way to do this please let me know. Thanks!
 

KE4ZNR

Radio Geek
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Jan 21, 2002
Messages
7,254
Location
Raleigh, NC
By reading this I am a little confused. Can you actually program in an alias to show up instead of the Unit ID's? If there is a way to do this please let me know. Thanks!

Simple.
A local PD uses UID (or RID) 732000 for their Dispatch console that I want
to store and alphatag.
1) I create a new group in this system called UIDs RIDs.
2) I store .32000 into a memory spot in the group I just created.
3) I alpha tag that .32000 with the Alpha Tag "DUR DISP 32000".
4) Profit.
Marshall KE4ZNR
 

dracer777

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Mar 26, 2009
Messages
738
Location
South Dacono, CO
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7E18 Safari/528.16)

What kind of system? This can't be P25....?
 

wannabace

Member
Joined
Jun 16, 2004
Messages
12
Location
Clarksburg, WV
Simple.
A local PD uses UID (or RID) 732000 for their Dispatch console that I want
to store and alphatag.
1) I create a new group in this system called UIDs RIDs.
2) I store .32000 into a memory spot in the group I just created.
3) I alpha tag that .32000 with the Alpha Tag "DUR DISP 32000".
4) Profit.
Marshall KE4ZNR

Will this work on a P25 system? The radio ID's I'm trying to tag start in the 1101 range. Thanks again!!!
 

KE4ZNR

Radio Geek
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Jan 21, 2002
Messages
7,254
Location
Raleigh, NC
Will this work on a P25 system? The radio ID's I'm trying to tag start in the 1101 range. Thanks again!!!

Yep. The example I gave was on an Analog or Analog/Digital Mixed Motorola 3600 System but should also work on a full P25 9600 system.
Marshall KE4ZNR
 

wannabace

Member
Joined
Jun 16, 2004
Messages
12
Location
Clarksburg, WV
Yep. The example I gave was on an Analog or Analog/Digital Mixed Motorola 3600 System but should also work on a full P25 9600 system.
Marshall KE4ZNR

So do I just add the decimal prior to the radio ID (.1101) or is there a certain number of zeros prior?? (.0001101)
 

jcpd9720

Member
Joined
Sep 27, 2005
Messages
282
Location
Okolona, Ky
Put the unit ID in as a tg, it doesn't matter the length (so no leading zeros), and yes it works on P25.

Radio ID 29999 is officer John Doe, the entry would be i29999 for the TG, and the tg name would be John Doe.
Radio ID 180321 is the firefighter that identifies on the radio as "8032-W", the tg entry is i180321 and the tg name is 8032-W.

When either of these encoders come across the scanner, it translates it to the unid ID you specified for it.

Like ofd8001 was saying, Louisville Metro's P25 800 system has a massive amount of radios, and would have to be put in as multiple systems to make it work. Here is something to chew on though... Louisville Metro Police alone would have to be 3 systems. The 20 fire departments in Louisville would have to be put in as 3 systems. It is unlikely that any good way could get the job done to have these in a 396xt or 996xt, so I personally wouldn't even worry about it!
 

avtarsingh

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Nov 3, 2004
Messages
613
Location
Cyberspace
is there any way to store or review unit id ? you can log tgid


i am guessing the answer is no
unless theres something hidden or a feature i dont know about
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top