ARC536: ARC536PRO - What am I missing?

[mccleway]

First, I'll start off by admitting, it may be me. There, I said it!

I consider myself a "tech-savvy" guy, and I pride myself in being able to figure out any tech issue I decide to tackle. I've been in the wireless/telecommunications business for 25+ years, and I'm comfortable with any operating system I sit down to whether it's command line (preferred) or GUI. Anything from Windows, Linux, Unix, iOS, Android, and even some proprietary systems over the years. I'm fine dissecting bash or python scripts as well as HTML or XML files. I'm just trying to say that I'm comfortable with technology......until today.

I was able to quickly become comfortable with the Sentinel s/w and understand it's limitations. In looking around, I found the ARC s/w from Butel, and liked what I read online, so I bought it. Well, after 4+ hours of exploring the ARC536PRO s/w, I don't feel any more comfortable with it than I did when I first opened it. For some reason, to me, it's very un-intuitive. At this point, all of my frustration centers around creating/saving new Favorite's Lists and opening/modifying existing Favorite's Lists. When I try to open existing Favorite's that I built in Sentinel, all I see are files like 'f_000007.hpd'. How am I supposed to know what that is without opening it?

Anyways, I'm very frustrated with this $70 s/w right now if you can't tell. And yes, I've read the manual! LOL! Anybody got a link to a good guide/how-to for ARC536PRO?

Any help would be appreciated........Thanks!

 

[sallen07]

Anyways, I'm very frustrated with this $70 s/w right now if you can't tell. And yes, I've read the manual! LOL! Anybody got a link to a good guide/how-to for ARC536PRO?

Not a link but a suggestion. Instead of trying to open the Sentinal favorite lists, use ARC536PRO to read what's in the scanner. You can then save each favorite list as its own .hpd file with a meaningful name. I use names like "system-yyyymmddvv" (where vv is a version number).

 

[mccleway]

Thanks for the reply sallen07.

I had already come up with something like that on my own. Making a little progress now, but I've still got a little further to go before I'm comfortable with it.

 

[garys]

I've never been able to open an ARC536 file in Sentinel or vice versa. For almost all of my Favorite List, System, Department, and over personality building, I use ARC536. I use Sentinel mainly for changes to the Profiles.

What I do is edit the information I need in ARC536, then load it into my 436HP. Then I read the info out of the 436HP into Sentinel. I can then change the scanner type to SDS200 and load everything on to that scanner. It's a bit tedious, but it works well.

Actually, I don't load directly into the scanner, which lives in my truck. I pop the SD card out of the scanner and bring it into the house and load it there.

I can support my x36HP scanners and the SDS 200 that way.

 

[ofd8001]

When I try to open existing Favorite's that I built in Sentinel, all I see are files like 'f_000007.hpd'. How am I supposed to know what that is without opening it?

Look for a file called "f_list.cfg" on your computer, where those "f....hpd" files are. Open it with a text editor and you will see what "hpd" file translates into which Favorites List file.

Typically I'll maintain two separate sets of Favorites List files, one for those created/edited in Sentinel, the other is for those created with ARC. Whenever I do Favorites List work, I'll write that to the scanner. Then I'll use the "other" software to read and save the Favorites List file.

Its a little cumbersome but works.

I believe its all due to the differences in the software, though the final product is an hpd file, which is recognized and used by the scanner.

It's been so long, but I think in the very beginning of the ARC software (and this could be corrected by now), was this: If I opened a Sentinel created hpd file with ARC, did some modifications, then save it, if I opened it back up with Sentinel, the changes didn't "take" or there was some other issue.

 

[Butelsoftware]

'f_000007.hpd' etc is the way Sentinel and the scanner stores favorites files, this is not a limitation of ARC536.

The best option as already suggested is read/write using the scanner. Then you will see the names linked to the hpd files as stored in the f_list.cfg file. On your PC while creating hpd files using arc536 you can use any name for the hpd files but once you use ARC536 to upload the file to the scanner that file is also converted in the sentinel format of f_xxxx.hpd

Gommert
www.butelsoftware.com

 

[mccleway]

Thanks guys.....I think I'm on the right track now after following a few suggestions from RR.

 

[dfw1193]

Ok so you figured out the .hpd files are state db files, right. So you can use notepad or any other text editor to open the .hpd files if you wish, if your text editor has a find feature you can search for county or city or system name if you wish. You can also open the hpd.cfg file which lists by state what each .hpd numbered file appliesto such as 00048 is Texas.

Arc just provides a means to manipulate and find information to creat favorite lists from the database and provides you the copy and paste ability to arrange etc.

If you are computer savy and use and have ms excel you can use the data tab to import the .hpd file as a tab delimited file the use the sort function in excel to search or sort the total lines of info based upon a particular column or name.

However when you actually wish to read and write to the scanner I would keep with sentinnel to do that.

YMMV