BCD436HP/BCD536HP: BCD436HP - SCAN speed very slow

[vselic]

Hello,

I know there have been some threads on this and other forums about BCD436hp and UBCD3600XLT, but I still do not know what to do, to scan faster. I own for few weeks now UBCD3600XLT, along with it, I have OPENDG77 radio and did some tests:

OPENGD77, 30 voice channels to monitor, programmed simpley conventional as analog or dmr channels (few dmr channels are also trunking with constant bursts that interrupt scan every single time with data burst). The whole circle takes cca. max 1-2 seconds, even though there are some data bursts on dmr channels like I said, but as there is no voice, it continues very fast. Dwell time is 30 / 60msec I think, so very fast indeed. I do not miss any START of the voice call in 98% cases, maybe in 2% cases, there is a little cut of the start but no misses!

UBCD3600XLT, 1 trunking with 3 sites, ham system, programmed as 3 single dmr freq, 1 system with 2 conventional dmr freq, and again 1 system with 3 conventional freq = 11 feq of 4 systems... in 40-50% it misses start of the voice call, and I think it's more luck, if radio scan is just "near" channel with a call than it would be so efficient with scan being so fast. I have seen that it should scan up to 45 channels in second, so what did I do wrong?

I DO NOT want scan hold time to put it to 0sec: scan hold time means, that when there is end of voice call, It will hold on channel for a voice reply and if there is no reply after 4 seconds, it will start scanning again. In fact, hold time to 0 will skip even more conversation of voice calls not opposite.

Scan dwell can not be set up, as I see, it's fixed / there is no settings to play around. Digital dwell time is just for analog/dmr mix channels, but since I do not have mixed channel, there will be no effect.
Threshold seems not to effect scan speed.
On all channels, CC is pre-set, no searching
ID searching set on on all channels

I'm dissapointed, as Baofeng 1801 with opengd77 is 50€ radio and free FW and it works, on the other hand we are frankly speaking about professional scanner, which should scan at least with the same speed and it does no. In this case, It would be better to buy motorola and listen to the trunking or what is point of scanner than?
I know you will say, go and listen on opengd77 than, but this is not a point of our researching in our hobby. Scanner would be really decent with some corrections... and it also supports openscanner mod from github, with even further more advantages.

I will make a video follwing days with radio and scanner - scanning same channels and you will be able to see a difference.

 

[IdleMonitor]

I find really it's not a matter of the scanner itself, but in how your programming is. You can store ALOT in a radio. But how well do you condense all your systems, depts, frequencies, trunked, non-trunked (conventional) etc... How big are your favorite lists. Not that it matters really, but how many of the different systems are being scanned at once. While I tend to have ALOT of systems programmed into my radio, its really a matter of how many of those do I actually listen to all the time vs. whenever I need to or want to. How well do you condense those Systems, Depts., Sites, Frequencies etc... I only have 15 favourite lists. At one time I had only 11 but I've since added more stuff, I don't listen to it but it's there when I need it. Some people might spread out all those systems and depts. etc.. out into many many more favourite lists then really needed.. Lock out what you don't need to listen to and open it up when you want to listen to it.

Condense your programming as much as possible and crunch what ya want to listen to. The more systems, favorites you have open, the longer it will take to cycle through everything.

My general hold time on anything whether it's a system, dept. or channel is usually 2 seconds and squelch set at 2. Nothing more, nothing less unless absolutely warranted.

Remember the days of a 200 channel scanner and you thought you were doing well back then. Things have since changed and radios can hold something like 25,000 frequencies, but now your programming these days is much more complex then those 200 channels.

 

[buddrousa]

Sorry but a Scanner is not a PROFESSIONAL RECEIVER it is a HOBBY RECEIVER.
The more you scan the more you miss other transmissions.
Baofeng is a cheap radio that is not a do all receiver.
Most of the time in my car I run 4 to 6 scanners all scanning different things as to keep up with what goes on around me.
All of the time at home I run over 20 scanners all setup to receive different counties and agencies in counties and states.

 

[Ubbe]

what did I do wrong?

I DO NOT want scan hold time to put it to 0sec: scan hold time means, that when there is end of voice call, It will hold on channel for a voice reply and if there is no reply after 4 seconds, it will start scanning again. In fact, hold time to 0 will skip even more conversation of voice calls not opposite.

For conventional systems and if you have 40 channels in a department that are scanned in 1/2 sec and if Hold time are set to 2 sec it will continue to scan that department for 2 sec, doing 4 scan cycles of those channels, waiting for any calls to start.

For each conventional channel you have a delay time. If it is a carrier detected that open squelch and that carrier later disappears it will use the delay timer to stay on the frequency even if there are no carrier until it starts to scan again.

Conventional DMR shouldn't send out any idle bursts, as cap+ does, but if it sends out bursts and the delay are set longer than the time between bursts then the scanner will stay forever on that channel and that channel must instead be put into a OFT system that ignores the idle bursts and only stays on conversations (or sometimes dedicated data channels).

I would put all conventional DMR channels in OFT systems, maybe one frequency in each site or all HAM channels in one site, to be able to manage talkgroups and set individual delays to them as well as being able to do avoid on the ones I do not want to monitor.

The hold time for trunked systems are used if the squelch opens for a carrier and it starts to detect a data signal. It will then stop at that frequency for at least 1,5 sec. If there are no carrier at a frequency it will swish past it at normal scan rate of 85ch/sec.

It looks as if your configuration should work better than it does. Any priority setting or CloseCall will slow down scanning.

What you could do are to go to the scanners menu and to Settings and Debug Log and start a debug file to the SD card and run the scanner for 2-3 minutes and then turn off debug mode. In the text file produced it will be possible to check how it scans and how long it stays on each channel and will probably be obvious why it takes so long time to scan all systems. You can zip that file and it will be so small that you can add it to a post here.

/Ubbe

 

[Ubbe]

I checked my log but the BCD scanner models only have a very basic logging and only of how it decodes the digital data signal. SDS scanners have a much more detailed log that shows how it scans and also how it handles analog signals and pretty much everything going on in the radio side of the scanner.

So the 3600 log would show how long it stays on a digital channel and how long it takes to go between digital channels and the time to do one complete scan cycle and come back to the same channel again.

/Ubbe

 

[vselic]

Hello Ubbe,

this is finally some answer I want to hear and it's more clear now. Here all dmr repeaters send bursts:
- cap+ obviously every second or so - so if I would program on scanner as conventional, it would stay on a channel forever, like you said, due to hold time. So cap+ can only bi programmed two ways I guess: as mototrbo (this is what I have at the moment) or as OFT. The problem on cap+ system here is, that control channel is ALSO VOICE channel, so maybe if I have set it up as mototrbo, it's not working as it should be on actual cap+ system (control channel and than voice channels separate).

- security, ham an other rpts, which I have set up as conventional, they also have data bursts from time to time, so it actually stops the scanner when/if it gets on it.

I will try to set up everything as OFT, this is actually how my opengd77 is set up I believe. Now funny question. With OFT, do you mean DMR One Frequency?

Also many thanks for suggestion of LOG, I will do as you suggested and than when I reprogram everything, I will check again and compare!

 

[dmfalk]

Hello Ubbe,

this is finally some answer I want to hear and it's more clear now. Here all dmr repeaters send bursts:
- cap+ obviously every second or so - so if I would program on scanner as conventional, it would stay on a channel forever, like you said, due to hold time. So cap+ can only bi programmed two ways I guess: as mototrbo (this is what I have at the moment) or as OFT. The problem on cap+ system here is, that control channel is ALSO VOICE channel, so maybe if I have set it up as mototrbo, it's not working as it should be on actual cap+ system (control channel and than voice channels separate).

- security, ham an other rpts, which I have set up as conventional, they also have data bursts from time to time, so it actually stops the scanner when/if it gets on it.

I will try to set up everything as OFT, this is actually how my opengd77 is set up I believe. Now funny question. With OFT, do you mean DMR One Frequency?

Also many thanks for suggestion of LOG, I will do as you suggested and than when I reprogram everything, I will check again and compare!

View attachment 193182

Yes. OFT = One-Frequency Trunking.

 

[vselic]

Ok, I have set some freq this way, i will test it next hours. So far what was on conventional, works, scan faster. I have to wait for trunk to have voice calls I'll report and make some kind of manual for others, to make everything faster.

 

[Ubbe]

The problem on cap+ system here is, that control channel is ALSO VOICE channel, so maybe if I have set it up as mototrbo,

If it is a cap+ system using two or more frequencies then the control channel will move and alternate between the two frequencies and the frequency that currently do not have the control channel will then use both slots for voice. If using OFT it cannot follow a call that moves between channels, it's a One Frequency Trunked system. If you program it as MotoTrbo then you'll have to figure out any LCN numbers to make it trunk track properly and be able to monitor all calls.

OFT will monitor all calls without using LCN if they are unknown but will not trunktrack.

Also many thanks for suggestion of LOG, I will do as you suggested and than when I reprogram everything, I will check again and compare!

When looking at the log there will be a counter value at the beginning of each line that represents 10mS values.
If you see D1 it will display the digital channels frequency. It doesn't write anything in the log from analog channels.

/Ubbe

 

[vselic]

Thank you. About cap+, it's just like you said: one system has ONLY one frequency, constant burst and it's control/voice call in one. Second system has two repeaters, alternating from one to another. I think if i monitor both as OFT, it should still follow tg, even if it alternates between conversation from one to another rpt, as it's not much traffic on it, so it would be extremely rare, that more than one tg is active on eather one of the repeaters. But this is more my experimenting... I can still program it like you suggested and see, if it effect to scan speed too much.

I will report after few tests.

You are a true expert! Many thanks.

 

[vselic]

Hello UBBE, thanks to you, single dmr works and scan speed is much higher, even though I did not have too much time to test everything lately.

one question is only open. Why - if i 2 trunk channels set as single dmr, there si no voice call? I have id search one, I have right frq and right cc...

 

[Ubbe]

if i 2 trunk channels set as single dmr, there si no voice call? I have id search one, I have right frq and right cc...

There's a bug in the firmware so you'll have to make a department and enter any TG there, like TG1, or the IDSearch function will not be done and skipped.

/Ubbe

 

[vselic]

Thank you, I will test it today..

 

[vselic]

Hi

There's a bug in the firmware so you'll have to make a department and enter any TG there, like TG1, or the IDSearch function will not be done and skipped.

/Ubbe

hi, it's not working out for me

 

[Ubbe]

hi, it's not working out for me

There's not much that can be set wrong. Set Slot to Any and check that the Service Type for the TG you have entered, I.E. TG1, are not disabled. Location control Off. The Site set to Digi Threshold Manual and to 8 as a start. Color Code to Search and use IDSearch.

/Ubbe