BCD436HP and mixing DMR/Analog

[Phillipsc84]

I have been trying to figure out a good way to do this but it appears to be a limit of the scanner.software. I have a "system" or a company that have a few DMR and analog frequencies/channels. All are conventional. The issue I noticed is that when you set it up I cannot just create a system for "Company A" a and then created departments and channels and have then all there since the "system" has to be set as conventional/DMR/Trunking, etc. You cannot properly mix different channel types. If I set the system to conventional then I cannot enter the TG/Slot info for the DMR channels. If I set it for DMR then I cannot enter and analog channels.

It seems to me that the channels themselves should be where you chose analog/DMR as opposed to setting that at the system level since with conventional they can be mixed.
Any ideas from any other users out there?

 

[drdispatch]

I think what you are describing will require 2 systems in the scanner: one conventional for the analog channels and one trunked for the DMR. You can assign both systems to the same System Quick Key.

 

[jonwienke]

Actually, it's easy to mix simplex DMR and analog FM. Create a conventional system. If you click the Options tab on the system, you can still configure the digital threshold mode and level (manual and 5 is a good starting point). Create departments as needed for each company that has mixed channels.

When adding channels, make sure the modulation is set to Auto for digital channels. Go to the Audio Option column for the channel and select Digital, then choose NAC/Color Code Search.

This will work, but will only show the ID of the talkgroup and radio. If you want to show the names of talkgroups, you'll have to set up a separate DMR One Frequency system for the DMR channels in addition to the conventional system for the analog channels. (You can actually add multiple frequencies to a site in a "One Frequency" DMR system, so the name is a bit misleading. It should actually be called "Non-Trunked" or "Tier II" or something like that.)

Create a Department and populate it with all the talkgroup IDs and names you know.

The radio IDs and names (if you know them) go into the Unit ID tab of the System.

Create a Site for the system and enter all of the frequencies used by the company. If the company has multiple locations, create a Site for each location, and add all frequencies used at each location into the Site for that location.

Note that with the current firmware, if you set up a DMR One Site system, the scanner will not pick up simplex DMR transmissions, or any analog traffic on any system frequency. If you set up a conventional system, you can configure channels to receive both analog or digital by selecting "Auto" for Modulation and "All" for Audio Option / Audio Type. For now, that's probably your best bet. If the company is using a mix of analog and DMR, they're probably transitioning to digital and the mix of traffic is likely to change.

 

[werinshades]

I think what you are describing will require 2 systems in the scanner: one conventional for the analog channels and one trunked for the DMR. You can assign both systems to the same System Quick Key.

Yes, I have one of my systems set up this way too. I have a CAP+ and a 1 channel DMR system together under one Quick Key. The one channel DMR channel is labeled as Channel 7 in the radios.

 

[Phillipsc84]

I Just think (and hope) that as they make improvements to the firmware this could be a lot easier if you could just enter each frequency with it's respective analog/DMR settings individually under your system/dept/channels. For instance there is another business that uses TG 2 on slot 1 on two different frequencies with the same color code as two channels like the below example:

450.100 CC1 SL1 TG2 "Channel 1"
450.200 CC1 SL1 TG2 "Channel 2"

In the logic of the DMR One frequency I might not know which "channel" they are on since it will scan all frequencies and look for the CC/Slot/TG but not really know that one is "Channel 1' and the other is "Channel 2". Unless I am mistaken about this?

The issue with just entering them as conventional with the mode set to auto and CC search is that now you cannot limit it to a certain TG or slot, causing you to potentially miss something on slot 1 when it's receiving slot 2.

 

[werinshades]

I Just think (and hope) that as they make improvements to the firmware this could be a lot easier if you could just enter each frequency with it's respective analog/DMR settings individually under your system/dept/channels. For instance there is another business that uses TG 2 on slot 1 on two different frequencies with the same color code as two channels like the below example:

450.100 CC1 SL1 TG2 "Channel 1"
450.200 CC1 SL1 TG2 "Channel 2"

In the logic of the DMR One frequency I might not know which "channel" they are on since it will scan all frequencies and look for the CC/Slot/TG but not really know that one is "Channel 1' and the other is "Channel 2". Unless I am mistaken about this?

The issue with just entering them as conventional with the mode set to auto and CC search is that now you cannot limit it to a certain TG or slot, causing you to potentially miss something on slot 1 when it's receiving slot 2.

I'm not sure what you're referring to here, but in your scenario, I'd set up a DMR One Frequency System, put both frequencies in, put Channel 1 Talkgroup in, under TDMA slot as any, then repeat for Channel 2 and scan away.

If you don't know the Talkgroup for the Channels, go to a search mode, park on the frequency and see what talkgroup comes up. Then go back to the previous step.

 

[Phillipsc84]

I'm not sure what you're referring to here, but in your scenario, I'd set up a DMR One Frequency System, put both frequencies in, put Channel 1 Talkgroup in, under TDMA slot as any, then repeat for Channel 2 and scan away.

If you don't know the Talkgroup for the Channels, go to a search mode, park on the frequency and see what talkgroup comes up. Then go back to the previous step.

I know the talkgroups/slot/CC etc. I have all of that. The issue as I see it is that you cannot just enter one frequency with all DMR details as a "channel" for a system.

Lets assume I have two frequencies for a particular business/agency: 451.100 and 451.200. Now let's say they have them setup as follows:

451.100 CC1/SL1/TG1 = "Channel 1"
451.100 CC1/SL2/TG2 = "Channel 2"
451.200 CC1/SL1/TG1 = "Channel 3"
451.200 CC1/SL2/TG2 = "Channel 4"

As you can see Channels 1/3 and 2/4 are the same EXCEPT for the frequency. Now when I set that up in the scanner as DMR One Frequency and enter both of those frequencies it will scan them both looking for a match of CC/SL/TG. If I am holding on "Channel 1" I would end up hearing both channel 1 and 3 because both of them would match the CC/SL/TG logic.

Now if I have them set as conventional I lose the ability to specify the TG and slot and can only limit to color code which means no ability to limit what slot and group I hear.

I certainly hear and understand the suggestions made here by all. I guess the answer is not as simple as we'd hope. But maybe future updates will fix these little issues.