Best Way To Program

[emsflyer84]

Hey all, I’ve been scanning for years, but just picked up a BCD436hp which is the best scanner I’ve owned yet. I’m basically looking for opinions. How do you program your scanner? Not physically how, but what arrangement do you use for your channels and frequencies? I’m trying to get the most out of this scanner and want the program it the best way.

Do you program police and fire together by town or county? Do you program police and fire/EMS separately so you can listen to just one or the other? I live in an area where there there are a lot of small towns dispatched by county dispatch centers, some towns have their own, and MOST fire/EMS is dispatched by larger regional dispatch centers. Again, some towns have their own. I’m trying to figure out the best way to program that is logical, understanding I may not want to listen to EVERYTHING all the time. No wrong answers here, just curious how you went up your programming. Thanks!

 

[a417]

There is no best way, it is way too subjective to say that any one way is superior.

I have always broken down by region (county), municipality within, and then service specific groups and channels. Each individual service/dept usually ended up with police being group 1, FD being 2, EMS 3, PubWorks 4, and then 5 and up as needed.

 

[Whiskey3JMC]

My county operates on its own P25 Phase-II simulcast trunked system. Police (fully encrypted), Fire & EMS are dispatched by our county 911 center & are grouped into regions so separating by town doesn't work in this case since every region has about 5, 6, 7 sometimes more separate departments operating there. Personally I see little to no need to modify how everything is laid out in Sentinel. Emergency services make up a tiny percentage of everything I listen to so for everything else I prefer Proscan for programming versus Sentinel since Proscan allows for greater list customization options (organizing objects alphabetically by system/site/department/channel name, or by frequency, other various options too numerous to mention)

 

[JethrowJohnson]

The way I like to program mine is by county, and I have my county plus the surrounding counties in case of mutual aid incidents. I put the conventional system and then the trunked network for each county and I put law enforcement first, fire/medical second, and whatever else third. And I put in the main city, then all the other cities or townships, then the county agencies, then the state agencies.

 

[lu81fitter]

I agree with a417. No right or wrong. It's what works for you. I break mine down by the state police districts here. I enter each county and city in the corresponding district with a system quick key, then each county has a quick key. Some have multiple cities on one quick key. The possibilities are endless. Do something that is easy for you to remember. Make it your own. Good luck!

 

[ladn]

My primary scanner is a 325P2. I have one System for LA Metro. Within that is one group that's a mix of law, fire, usfs and air frequencies that I've monitored for years. I have another group for fire/law mutual laid, another group for a specific comm plan for brush fires near my area, another group for Rose Parade air.

I have another System for BACKCOUNTRY which I use on the road when 4Wheeling. It's groups are similarly divided like LA Metro.

Then I have a System for LAPD, divided into groups for patrol dispatch, tac/metro/swat, detectives and special., Another for LA Co Fire and another for LA City Fire. I can access these for major incidents.

Also systems for CHP, Misc Air, Mil Air, CDF, State Parks, LA RICS, ICIS and a few others.

There's no right or wrong way to approach this. Let experience and evolving technology be your guide.

 

[ve1sef]

My preference is to set-up my conventional public safety frequencies under one department (by county or region) rather than several individual departments. Airports, parks, and alike I leave as separate departments where they cover a smaller area. Similarly with my trunk systems. I'm attaching a sample I created.

 

[ve1sef]

Attaching sample 2 as I noticed an error the original