BC246T Delivered Today - Feeling Overwhelmed

[JustinD]

My new scanner was dropped on my doorstep today and I've been working with the Butel software to get things going. While I have my local pd programmed in, I'm feeling a bit confused as to how I should group the different frequencies I want to put in.

I know this question is a bit vague, but can someone give me a easy to understand rundown on how to seperate my frequencies so I can just listen to Tacoma Police, or just listen to Tacoma Fire. Probably a simple question for most, but bear with me. I'm a newbie to trunking and the "No Bank" scanner memory

Thanks in advance...
Justin

 

[Napalm]

Basically, you can do two things...

I'm assuming conventional freqs here and not trunked, so ignore me if they're not conventional.

Create a system, and label it "PD/Fire" or whatever. Then within that, create two or more groups, where you can store Fire, Police, EMS frequencies. I don't know how the 246 selects groups, but for the 330 you create a quick key that corresponds to that group.

Then you can just pick if you want to listen to the PD, Fire or both... or none.

The other option, which I guess isn't the best, is to create two systems: One for PD, one for Fire.

Personally, I have systems set up for Commercial stuff, MilAir, Civ. Air and then one for everything else.

Hope that helps.

 

[JustinD]

Thanks for the response. I stayed up until about 3am last night and it finally sunk in on how to do it lol. Just took me a bit to get over the fact that I couldn't just program banks lol.

Once I got the hang of it I can understand why everyone likes the new memory setup a lot better. I haven't had a lot of time to use the new 246t yet, but loving it so far.

Thanks again for the reply,
Justin

 

[safetyobc]

Thanks for the response. I stayed up until about 3am last night and it finally sunk in on how to do it lol. Just took me a bit to get over the fact that I couldn't just program banks lol.

Once I got the hang of it I can understand why everyone likes the new memory setup a lot better. I haven't had a lot of time to use the new 246t yet, but loving it so far.

Thanks again for the reply,
Justin

Same here. When I first ordered my 246T I couldn't grasp this new concept at first. Then I sat down with a pen and paper and wrote out my county and divided it into "groups" of agencies.

Bradley County
.... Fire / Rescue
.... Law Enforcement
.... EMS
.... Miscellaneous

That is how I set up my county. It is rural so it can work this way. If it were a city, I would likley do it the same way just replace the county name with the city name.
Once I done that, it was all down hill from there. Confusing at first, now it is second nature. ARC246 is also a wonderful tool to go with the 246.

I have since sold my 246 and got a BCD396T and love it too.

Good luck and enjoy.

 

[Go-24]

I found it extremely easy using the butel246 software. I just clicked Internet>RadioReferenceWebService> and then selected Trunked or Conventional ... it created everything for me. It worked like a charm, maybe I am just lazy - hahaha!

 

[DaveIN]

Yes, switching concepts from banks/channels to dynamic memory functions is somewhat confusing, but well worth it!

Just too bad Uniden hasn't adopted a memory card in some fashion to give us ability to quickly swap memory or record live audio. Maybe in a future model.

 

[Gilligan]

Here are some ARC246 systems for Tacoma

Hey, I felt like helping out so I made some Tacoma systems for ARC246 for you. They are attached as a zip file. There are six total, and the conventional ones are arranged w/ police and fire in separate systems, as I find useful. Then cities/towns are separated by group. I also have a 246T and I love it. Have fun and good luck. Gilligan

 

[JnglMassiv]

I, too, remember those first few panicked hours where I thought my brand new radio was broken. Turns out I just wasn't getting dynamic memory. Now, I can't imagine anything else! I hate 'wasting' unused channels in a bank on my 245xlt.

And rather then memory card, I'd be more supportive of large onboard flash memory..128 or 256 Mb or so. Flas memory is now cheap enough that this wouldn't raise the cost of the radio significantly and it's more then enough memory for virtually any reasonably concievable use.

 

[JustinD]

Just wanted to thank everyone again for their help and suggestions. I've got the hang of the dynamic memory now and have the basics programmed and working well. Have to say that the combination of the 246, the butel software and radioreference.com makes things a lot easier.