Best way to catch (most of) the action with the least amount of scanners?

[4436time]

In order to hear most of what's going on around town (Denver) I recently created a fave/scanlist on both scanners (HP-1/Pro-197), for most of the depts/systems containing only dispatch and/or the first couple channels (1/2, A/B). I believe I get a better overall sampling than if the systems were fully enabled and scanned. But I'm not sure how much is missed by doing it this way and was wondering if it's safe to assume most calls/incidents come through on those channels or if others should be included? We're talking any and everything, but mostly police/fire/ems.

Also, would the odds be better with both scanning the same list simultaneously, or by splitting/load balancing it between the two? As it is, they're using the same one and only occasionally do they stop on the same transmission.

Thanks

 

[gewecke]

In order to hear most of what's going on around town (Denver) I recently created a fave/scanlist on both scanners (HP-1/Pro-197), for most of the depts/systems containing only dispatch and/or the first couple channels (1/2, A/B). I believe I get a better overall sampling than if the systems were fully enabled and scanned. But I'm not sure how much is missed by doing it this way and was wondering if it's safe to assume most calls/incidents come through on those channels or if others should be included? We're talking any and everything, but mostly police/fire/ems.

Also, would the odds be better with both scanning the same list simultaneously, or by splitting/load balancing it between the two? As it is, they're using the same one and only occasionally do they stop on the same transmission.

Thanks

High priority traffic on one with no delay,and repeat the talkgroups if needed in multiple lists.
Everything secondary on the other.


n9zas

 

[4436time]

Thanks, gewecke, I'll give it a try.

 

[4436time]

Well, there's obviously no way to change delay time on the HP-1 unless Uniden issues a firmware update allowing it. But with what little experimenting I've done it may not be necessary. Having it enabled (both scanners) seems to be the way to go because dispatchers often issue breaks and you end up missing the call before the scanner can cycle back around due to traffic on the other channels. And, with delay enabled both almost need to scan the same list. Otherwise, the scanner with the hi priority channels stays busy while the low priority scanner isn't. So I've included all channels together (this is LE only) in both lists and let the scanners receive what they will. They're identical and contain just over 150 channels. Again, with the first few from each agency in town. Some have more. (There's probably a better way to organize them, I just need more time to figure out what that is (load balance?))
When a call comes in worth locking onto, I quickly change over to a fave/scanlist containing the full set of channels/freqs for that system to continue listening and then revert back when the incident is over. This has been working well so far but again it's LE only, and it would be nice to include fire/ems/etc. But that would mean at the expense of LE, which is what I'm most interested in. So two scanners IMO aren't enough. I think a third would probably do the trick. Two for hi priority LE and a third for low priority LE, fire/ems, and anything else. Or, just two for LE and a third for fire/ems, and everything else. Obviously, I'll never be able to hear what someone would in the area with half a dozen or more scanners, but that would be the goal. More with less...

I know others are doing something along these lines and it would be interesting to hear what that is...