W2IRT
Member
Hi guys,
I've been scanning since the early 80s but this 996xt is by far the most intimidating piece of technology I've encountered in many years. The more I read the more my brain shuts down as I attempt to go down rabbit hole after rabbit hole.
The radio itself is still not unpacked but I've been attempting to generate a beginner's codeplug for it (for wont of a better term--what can I say, I'm an old-school batwings guy) using ARC-XT, I took out a premium subscription to R.R. and have successfull "installed" a good number of conventional and trunked systems for my area (western Essex County, NJ and nearby Passaic Co. and Morris Co., as well as NYPD, FDNY and some aircraft frequencies.
The problem is how can I arrange all those downloaded frequencies/systems/etc into something usable? Let me explain how my trusty BC780 and BC785 are set up now. I'd kinda like to keep the overall schema more or less the same if at all possible. I typically use 7 old-style banks at the moment on my legacy scanners, and I'm comfortable with their bank numbers (i.e. probably quick-keys in the new way). But I just don't understand how to load things up.
For example, here's a very high-level overview of how things are set up now.
Bank 1: All Essex County PD, FD, EMS, and the West Orange Trunked system. I use this when I'm driving local roads east of my local area.
Bank 2: Morris County: Now obsolete as they're P-25, but it was the same principle as bank 1. All PD, all FD.
Bank 3: Passaic County. Same principle.
Bank 4: NJ State police
Bank 5: Local. This is the BIGGEST need. It has about 30 conventional frequencies representing the PD/FD/EMS agencies in my town and the four surrounding towns, which also inclides an EDACS trunked system for Verona.
Bank 6: FDNY & NYPD SOD along with Port Authority trunking system. Used when I drive into NYC.
Bank 7: PSE&G Electric, in case of blackouts (never heard anything useful, ever, but ya never know....)
As I said, I know the 996 works differenty, but I just have NO idea on how I can group all sorts of things together. For example, for my LOCAL area, I want a QuickKey that has West Caldwell PD, Fairfield PD, Caldwell PD, North Caldwell PD and Verona PD (trunked) and Montclair PD (trunked), as well as those corresponding town's FDs, and the local volly EMS squad, plus Caldwell Airport. I'm in the "browser" in ARC-XT and I see all the systems (One large folder for "Essex", another for Verona trunking, etc) but don't know where to go from here. How can I create one "bank" (or whatever the right terminology is for the 996) containing a few from here, a few from there, a couple of talkgroups from that other thing there, etc, and lump them into a manageable package of about 25 "channels", for lack of a better term.
Another idea would be when I'm driving east of my local area on I-80. Passaic County sheriff, Wayne PD (P25 trunked) and NJSP 3-comm and 4-comm (Mot. trunked).
Please just point me in the right direction and I can try to logic it out from there, but I don't even have a starting point here. I know I'll have a lot of questions once I get the basic radio working (never even listened to a P-25 system before, so that's going to be "fun" in its own right, I suspect), but for now, any assistance would be greatly appreciated--either here or via private email (preferred). Thanks in advance!
p.s. is there any possibility of importing data off my old 780 or 785, to use as a starting point? I've customized the heck out of the TG names over there.
I've been scanning since the early 80s but this 996xt is by far the most intimidating piece of technology I've encountered in many years. The more I read the more my brain shuts down as I attempt to go down rabbit hole after rabbit hole.
The radio itself is still not unpacked but I've been attempting to generate a beginner's codeplug for it (for wont of a better term--what can I say, I'm an old-school batwings guy) using ARC-XT, I took out a premium subscription to R.R. and have successfull "installed" a good number of conventional and trunked systems for my area (western Essex County, NJ and nearby Passaic Co. and Morris Co., as well as NYPD, FDNY and some aircraft frequencies.
The problem is how can I arrange all those downloaded frequencies/systems/etc into something usable? Let me explain how my trusty BC780 and BC785 are set up now. I'd kinda like to keep the overall schema more or less the same if at all possible. I typically use 7 old-style banks at the moment on my legacy scanners, and I'm comfortable with their bank numbers (i.e. probably quick-keys in the new way). But I just don't understand how to load things up.
For example, here's a very high-level overview of how things are set up now.
Bank 1: All Essex County PD, FD, EMS, and the West Orange Trunked system. I use this when I'm driving local roads east of my local area.
Bank 2: Morris County: Now obsolete as they're P-25, but it was the same principle as bank 1. All PD, all FD.
Bank 3: Passaic County. Same principle.
Bank 4: NJ State police
Bank 5: Local. This is the BIGGEST need. It has about 30 conventional frequencies representing the PD/FD/EMS agencies in my town and the four surrounding towns, which also inclides an EDACS trunked system for Verona.
Bank 6: FDNY & NYPD SOD along with Port Authority trunking system. Used when I drive into NYC.
Bank 7: PSE&G Electric, in case of blackouts (never heard anything useful, ever, but ya never know....)
As I said, I know the 996 works differenty, but I just have NO idea on how I can group all sorts of things together. For example, for my LOCAL area, I want a QuickKey that has West Caldwell PD, Fairfield PD, Caldwell PD, North Caldwell PD and Verona PD (trunked) and Montclair PD (trunked), as well as those corresponding town's FDs, and the local volly EMS squad, plus Caldwell Airport. I'm in the "browser" in ARC-XT and I see all the systems (One large folder for "Essex", another for Verona trunking, etc) but don't know where to go from here. How can I create one "bank" (or whatever the right terminology is for the 996) containing a few from here, a few from there, a couple of talkgroups from that other thing there, etc, and lump them into a manageable package of about 25 "channels", for lack of a better term.
Another idea would be when I'm driving east of my local area on I-80. Passaic County sheriff, Wayne PD (P25 trunked) and NJSP 3-comm and 4-comm (Mot. trunked).
Please just point me in the right direction and I can try to logic it out from there, but I don't even have a starting point here. I know I'll have a lot of questions once I get the basic radio working (never even listened to a P-25 system before, so that's going to be "fun" in its own right, I suspect), but for now, any assistance would be greatly appreciated--either here or via private email (preferred). Thanks in advance!
p.s. is there any possibility of importing data off my old 780 or 785, to use as a starting point? I've customized the heck out of the TG names over there.