436HP Logging

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jonwienke

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I see a scanner log mentioned in Sentinel, but it's always empty, and I don't see any way to enable it in either Sentinel or the scanner menu. I would like to enable logging so I can see which frequencies/systems are getting the most traffic. How do I do this?
 

jonwienke

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If I have to have the scanner connected to a laptop to do logging, that's not very useful when out and about with the 436HP. I could see the utility of doing that with a 536 set up as a base station, but going that route with a 436 is pointless.

Meh.
 

joeuser

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Right but I think from the OP he wants to see what gets the most use of what he's listening to. He's not looking for logging of undocumented fregs/tg's
 

kd7eir

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Right but I think from the OP he wants to see what gets the most use of what he's listening to. He's not looking for logging of undocumented fregs/tg's

He referred to the log mentioned in Sentinel, and that is the Discovery Log, so I referred him to that. I guess I misread his intentions.
 

jonwienke

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I'm looking to log date/time/frequency/location whenever squelch opens, so I can get a better idea of which channels/systems are most active. Talkgroup ad ID as well if it is a trunked system.

Incidentally, if all scanners did this and the info was uploaded to a common database, it would make an interesting Google Earth map overlay...
 

kd7eir

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I'm looking to log date/time/frequency/location whenever squelch opens, so I can get a better idea of which channels/systems are most active. Talkgroup ad ID as well if it is a trunked system.

Incidentally, if all scanners did this and the info was uploaded to a common database, it would make an interesting Google Earth map overlay...

I am not aware of any scanner that does this and stores it on the scanner itself.
 

JamesO

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I believe the newer GRE built scanners can do this. Also there were older Analog Bearcat scanners that could log hits, but not time or date as I recall.

The problem with logging hits in the GRE units it was killing the RAM chips with so many active writes to them. If you really logged a lot of info, the RAM chips were not lasting.

Best to use a 3rd party software for this, but this does not help for a portable or mobile device so much.

It is rather interesting that just looking at the audio recordings how short most transmissions are for Public Service communications. Fire dispatches tend to be the long duration recordings and they are still not that long.
 

ofd8001

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Logging hit count information on a portable scanner while out and about is unconventional.

There is a round-a-bout way of accomplishing this. Simply set the scanner to record all the transmissions. Then from downloading the recordings and seeing the file header information, some idea could be determined. Yeah it will be tedious and will definitely test the level of determination to have this information.
 

jonwienke

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The main motivation is to prune out stuff that isn't active, so I can refine channel selections better. Also, logging CC hits like that could give better info on unknown/new systems.
 

jonwienke

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The problem with logging hits in the GRE units it was killing the RAM chips with so many active writes to them. If you really logged a lot of info, the RAM chips were not lasting.

That's not an issue with removable flash cards with wear-leveling controllers. If you did wear a card out, a new one is $10 or so. Also, writing log entries causes less flash RAM wear than audio recording.
 

JamesO

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That's not an issue with removable flash cards with wear-leveling controllers. If you did wear a card out, a new one is $10 or so. Also, writing log entries causes less flash RAM wear than audio recording.

The GRE units had RAM failures due to the number of writes and they were surface mount chips that required unsoldering and resoldering.The number of hits on an active system can get rather high if left running continuously.

Removeable cards make things a bit simpler, but non of the non volatile memory is immune from funny stuff after many writes.
 
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