796D Status Bits and Patches

[Anderegg]

I have some issues with my 796D. When the local sheriff's department or highway patrol agencies patch several talkgroups, I have a very difficult time locking in a channel. As an example, when the California Highway Patrol (CHP) patches their primary El Cajon dispatch with some lame "rural" dispatch, the main El Cajon dispatch talkgroup receives nothing on my 796D, and I must be locked into the lame rural talkgroup to hear any traffic from units transmitting on the El Cajon dispatch.

In my work as a news photographer, this hampers my ability to manually dial into a call with any certainty that I will hear the event. I was reading about status bits, and I wonder if they are configurable to solve my issue. I do not have this problem with my 396XT, as it will display the patched talkgroup number and switch over to the proper talkgroup whenever there is radio traffic. Currently, my status bit is set to on. Any ideas?

Thanks!

Paul

 

[JoeyC]

The 785/796 do not handle patches the way the 396/996 do. A patch will only come across on one of the 2 or more patched on the 785/796. Programming with the status bit off would only require you to program even more IDs into the scanner (to hear the various modes), but honestly I do not think even that will be the solution to you dilemma. The 396/996 handles patches as they should and you do not need to be held on the first talkgroup grabbed when the dispatcher initiates the patch (which is what I was led to believe is the talkgroup that would have to be listened to when a patch is initiated) on the older 796.