Best way to set up favorites for fastest scanning? SDS200

[Louie1961]

I have an SDS 200, and I am able to program favorites with Sentinel. My last scanner was a PRO-652 and I am able to program the codeplug for my Anytone 878 DMR radio, so the programming part wasn't too hard for me. Is there a secret sauce for how to organize systems, FLQKs, etc., to make this radio scan faster? I live in Thomaston, so I am listening to a mix of trunked and conventional systems: Thomaston, Terryville, LCD, CSP, Bristol fire, Waterbury fire, Wolcott, and Watertown predominantly. I tried organizing my FLQKs by town, by type of service (Fire, EMS, police, etc.), and I also tried by system, just locking out the departments I didn't want to listen to on a particular day. No matter what the radio seems to zip through the conventional systems and spend a lot of time scanning the three trunked systems, to the point that I am missing traffic on the conventional systems (more than I care to, although I know this is unavoidable to a certain extent). I have tried limiting the talkgroups being monitored to Troop L primary channel, Encon police west, and LCD on CLMRN, and just the dispatch talkgroups for Bristol FD and Waterbury FD. Also on the CLMRN system, I can only receive the Troop L simulcast site. None of the other sites register any signal at all, so I have only included the Troop L site in my setup. As a point of reference, I have a homepatrol II here that I am setting up for my brother, and it seems to scan much faster than the SDS200, with pretty much the same favorites list. I am guessing that is because the smaller antenna isn't receiving anything from the Waterbury system.

Is there a better way to organize this radio?

 

[Reconrider]

With my sds100, I only enter the CC of each site(like 18 of them) and it scans and picks up all simulcast that runs through it that way. I’m hearing everything in the state.
As for the trunk scanning so long, you might have to many on. With you being in Thomason, I would get rid of Bristol , Waterbury, Wolcott. They’re pretty far from you so it won’t do you much good to be scanning them and taking up that extra time.
I haven’tfigured out how to make the trunk scan faster or sit longer on the conventional channels but I usually turn off trunks when I’m hearing something I want to listen to more. Clmrn I only have the few troops near me on and a few other things like the deep. Everything else is locked out so it skips over and doesn’t try to scan it at all

 

[Louie1961]

I receive Waterbury, Wolcott and Bristol just fine, with the stock antenna, amazingly enough. From my home, I am 9 miles from fire HQ in Bristol, 5 miles from Wolcott, and technically Waterbury is an adjoining city. I may end up running the PRO 652 along side the SDS200, dedicating the old radio to conventional systems and the new one just to trunked systems. But that is an imperfect answer because I was hoping to stream the new scanner to my phone for around the house use.

 

[phask]

The number of talkgroups does not affect scan time. The scanner will spend just under 2 seconds on each trunk system. There has been a lengthy detailed explanation on here, but that is the Cliff notes version.

With trunked systems, do not duplicate a system across multiple lists, it just increases the time. (not sure if that applies to you).

 

[iMONITOR]

Have you tried different filter settings? Several SDS200/100 owners claim the "AUTO" setting on the filters slow down scanning speed.

 

[buddrousa]

Also do nut have active System Sites that you can not hear.
At my home location I hear 6 Sites I only chose the 2 best 1 for 1st district and 1 for the 2nd district as each site carries different traffic.
Scanning the other 4 would be a waste of total scan time.

 

[Louie1961]

With trunked systems, do not duplicate a system across multiple lists, it just increases the time. (not sure if that applies to you).

I have tried it both ways, and didn't see a difference

 

[Louie1961]

Have you tried different filter settings? Several SDS200/100 owners claim the "AUTO" setting on the filters slow down scanning speed.

I have not yet messed with filtering. I will try that out. Thx

 

[Louie1961]

Also do nut have active System Sites that you can not hear.
At my home location I hear 6 Sites I only chose the 2 best 1 for 1st district and 1 for the 2nd district as each site carries different traffic.
Scanning the other 4 would be a waste of total scan time.

Right. I only have the one site active that my radio can measure on a system analysis.

 

[Saint]

I have not yet messed with filtering. I will try that out. Thx

Shut the filter OFF

 

[buddrousa]

It justs time and a commitment to fine tune a SDSx00 scanner to get the most out of it. As hard as UPMan tried it was not a turn on and work for everybody out of the box.

 

[Ubbe]

Is there a better way to organize this radio?

If you do not use the auto setting for the filters it will go through conventional channels at a 45ch/s rate but each site within coverage that has a control channel will add at least 1,5sec to the scan cycle for each site. Most people that monitors trunked systems use several scanners to speed up scan rate and/or program radios to monitor one important system.

Let the new scanner only scan the digital stuff that are specifically simulcast and have your old scanner do the conventional and non-simulcast systems and if possible make use of your DMR radio for support with some DMR channels or systems. Two scanners and a radio are a good start.

/Ubbe

 

[TexTAC]

My $0.02 ... Don’t spilt a trunked system across favorite lists.

For each trunk system, only program the sites where you actually get a CC signal. For the sites where you get a CC signal, only program the CC (not the alternate CCs or the voice channels). This suggestion alone helped my scan time.

The number of talk groups in the trunked system won’t slow down scanning unless you get hits on talk groups you don’t want to listen to. Avoid those talk groups if you don’t want to hear them.

Keep filter “off”. Keep squelch as low as possible without it stopping on static on conventional channels.

If you want to use Priority Scan use it on the Do Not Disturb Scan. Turn weather priority and close call priority off.

 

[TexTAC]

One more point, use DND priority for the conventional channels you think you may be missing. It will scan those conventional priority channels periodically when no other channel is active.

I reread your post and think this will help you considerably. Most of my local cities are on trunked systems but Dallas PD/FD is still conventional. I have Dallas PD/FD on priority DND scan and it will tune to those channels in between trunked system scans. (Almost to the point sometimes I feel like I am missing trunked traffic). If a lot of activity is going on locally and in Dallas, I use two scanners. SDS100 for trunked and old Pro106 for conventional.

 

[wesct]

I have an SDS 200, and I am able to program favorites with Sentinel. My last scanner was a PRO-652 and I am able to program the codeplug for my Anytone 878 DMR radio, so the programming part wasn't too hard for me. Is there a secret sauce for how to organize systems, FLQKs, etc., to make this radio scan faster? I live in Thomaston, so I am listening to a mix of trunked and conventional systems: Thomaston, Terryville, LCD, CSP, Bristol fire, Waterbury fire, Wolcott, and Watertown predominantly. I tried organizing my FLQKs by town, by type of service (Fire, EMS, police, etc.), and I also tried by system, just locking out the departments I didn't want to listen to on a particular day. No matter what the radio seems to zip through the conventional systems and spend a lot of time scanning the three trunked systems, to the point that I am missing traffic on the conventional systems (more than I care to, although I know this is unavoidable to a certain extent). I have tried limiting the talkgroups being monitored to Troop L primary channel, Encon police west, and LCD on CLMRN, and just the dispatch talkgroups for Bristol FD and Waterbury FD. Also on the CLMRN system, I can only receive the Troop L simulcast site. None of the other sites register any signal at all, so I have only included the Troop L site in my setup. As a point of reference, I have a homepatrol II here that I am setting up for my brother, and it seems to scan much faster than the SDS200, with pretty much the same favorites list. I am guessing that is because the smaller antenna isn't receiving anything from the Waterbury system.

Is there a better way to organize this radio?

If you were talking conventional systems, there are ways to speed up the scan rate: But, for only 12-16 channels.on a trunk system, it won't make any difference.

There are adjustments for how long the scanner looks at a data channel, try adjusting that setting (can't remember what it is Hold time I think).

Also, make sure all the control channels are in the list, as if it changes, you will not hear anything.

 

[Louie1961]

Shut the filter OFF

Wow, what a difference. Turning off the auto filter definitely sped up the scanning. But then I played around with the manual filter settings and the system analyzer to find the filter settings that work best. Turns out for Bristol, Waterbury (especially Waterbury) and Bristol, no filter works the best. On CLMRN, turning off the filter lets me receive Troops A&B simulcast in addition to Troop L. I am not sure if I will end up using those sites, but now at least I can experiment with them. Thanks for the help.

 

[Saint]

Wow, what a difference. Turning off the auto filter definitely sped up the scanning. But then I played around with the manual filter settings and the system analyzer to find the filter settings that work best. Turns out for Bristol, Waterbury (especially Waterbury) and Bristol, no filter works the best. On CLMRN, turning off the filter lets me receive Troops A&B simulcast in addition to Troop L. I am not sure if I will end up using those sites, but now at least I can experiment with them. Thanks for the help.

Glad that help, with my SDS100 scanner I leave off the filter all the time on everything
Steve