BCDx36HP - Sort Conventional Freqs for Optimal Scan Rate?

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county

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Howdy-

Is there a scan-speed benefit to sorting in ascending or descending order the conventional frequencies within a department?

Perhaps the radio optimizes this internally. .
 

county

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I decided to run a little test on my BCD436HP. It appears the order in which you enter conventional frequencies within the same department has no impact on scan-speed.

I programmed in 189 frequencies with an even distribution of channels in VHF-low, VHF-high, UHF, and 800MHz bands, I created one department of these freqs. in a random/scattered order, and another department with them in perfect ascending order. I timed the duration spent running through each department, with antenna off (so as not to get any delay from outside signal influences), and measured consistently ~2.3 seconds to step through each scenario.. for a scan-rate of ~82 channels a second.. slightly better than the advertised 80 chan/sec. Granted - I was relying on my reaction time for the start/stop of the timer, but with several iterations I achieved results within +/- 0.1 sec. Close enough for government work. It appears the radio (or Sentinel?) does its own internal sort for optimal scan-rate.

I wonder what extent of optimization occurs when you start mixing in other departments of conventional freqs. on the same system, within the same FL, or amongst multiple FLs.. I may do some additional testing later when I've more time..

One of my favorite off-hours scanning techniques is to scan trunking-system repeater-inputs.. this alerts me to activity nearby. . naturally in that scenario scanning-speed is your friend.

I'm pretty happy with the outcome of the first test!
 
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county

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Paul (UPMAN) has stated several times that it makes no difference.
Has he? Ok - good deal, glad this has been confirmed by our resident expert. At least now we have this documented in its own thread. . I'd tried numerous search variations and hadn't found a result. Hopefully this will help get the word out, and help with future searches.

Best,
 

SCPD

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Paul (UPMAN) has stated several times that it makes no difference.

I can't imagine that it would have any effect on a trunked system. Trunked systems (Motorola, P25, and EDACS) aren't "scanned" in the conventional sense. The scanner just sits on a single frequency (the control channel) until a channel grant matches one of the channels you've stored (in ID Scan mode). There is nothing you can do in your programming that is going to get the system to send the channel grant any faster.

I believe Upman Paul was referring to channel grants in a trunk system
 
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