Burnet County System

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lhenryp1

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Burnet, Tx
I have a Uniden BCD536HP and have downloaded the ARC536 software and used it to load the Greater Austin/Travis Regional Radio System (GATRRS) and I am only able to listen to dispatch of Burnet/llano counties and not able to hear any mobile units. I have an older scanner that picks up the same transmissions but I guess it is not picking up the digital transmissions.

Any ideas on where to look? I downloaded the database directly from radioreference.com

Lee
 

hiegtx

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May 8, 2004
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Dallas, TX
I have a Uniden BCD536HP and have downloaded the ARC536 software and used it to load the Greater Austin/Travis Regional Radio System (GATRRS) and I am only able to listen to dispatch of Burnet/llano counties and not able to hear any mobile units. I have an older scanner that picks up the same transmissions but I guess it is not picking up the digital transmissions.

Any ideas on where to look? I downloaded the database directly from radioreference.com

Lee
Have you installed Sentinel on your pc, and used it to download the latest RadioReference database updates? ARC536 allows you to create and edit your Favorites lists, but does not update the database.

Check the database on your scanner.
Press the Menu key
Scroll to Manage Full Database
Press "E" (Enter)
Scroll down to "Information"
Press "E" (Enter)
There, you'll see the date of the database on your scanner. Current available date is 09/07/2014. Use Sentinel to update if you are seriously out of date.

If using Location and the Full database, make sure that the correct Zip code and range are entered. If using a Favorites list, be sure that you have the GATRRS sites in your area loaded, along with the 'Departments' for your counties of interest. Range must be set far enough to cover these, if using a Favorites list with Location Control on.

Also verify that you have all of the Service Types of interest enabled in your Profile. You can do this as well in Sentinel, and then load the updated database,and any Favorites list changes made in Sentinel, to the scanner.
 

lhenryp1

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Joined
May 12, 2014
Messages
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Location
Burnet, Tx
Hi Steve,

Thanks for helping. I have updated the database with Sentinel to 9/7/14.

I'm not scanning the national database, just my favorites with is the Burnet County GATRRS. The scanner is scanning all channels in the GATRRS however I'm only receiving the same transmission that I receive from my old non-digital scanner which is the dispatch portion.

I'm not sure if I need to change anything in the DB to select digital or not. I have adjusted the squelch with no change.

I do have all of the correct services type selected in my profile.

I'm scratching my head on this.
 

hiegtx

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Location
Dallas, TX
Hi Steve,

Thanks for helping. I have updated the database with Sentinel to 9/7/14.

I'm not scanning the national database, just my favorites with is the Burnet County GATRRS. The scanner is scanning all channels in the GATRRS however I'm only receiving the same transmission that I receive from my old non-digital scanner which is the dispatch portion.

I'm not sure if I need to change anything in the DB to select digital or not. I have adjusted the squelch with no change.

I do have all of the correct services type selected in my profile.

I'm scratching my head on this.
I would suggest re-creating the Burnett & Llano County portions of GATRRS on your Favorites list.
I'm "at work" right now (I work from home), but this evening, I'll see about creating a Llano/Burnet specific list, then export that to an hpe file. You could then import that into a new list, or into your existing list. I suspect that if your existing list was created based on the older, out of date, database info, it may not have all the talkgroups loaded.
 

lhenryp1

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May 12, 2014
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Location
Burnet, Tx
Steve,

After updating the database I think I reloaded my favorite list but did not recreate a new list. If you could create a file for Burnet county Fire/EMS/Law that would be great. I would like to upload it and see if I get better results.

Lee
 

hiegtx

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Location
Dallas, TX
Steve,

After updating the database I think I reloaded my favorite list but did not recreate a new list. If you could create a file for Burnet county Fire/EMS/Law that would be great. I would like to upload it and see if I get better results.

Lee
Lee,

See the attached Burnet County Area. Save the file to your pc, to a place where you can find it easily. I use a dedicated download folder, but save it where ever you normally save a downloaded file.

To import the file into Sentinel, you will need to slightly rename it. The export files have a file extension of *.hpe, which is not one the forum allows to be uploaded. So, I 'renamed' it by adding '.txt' to the file. Right now, it's named "Burnet County Area.hpe.txt" (without the quote marks, of course). You can either save the file simply as Burnet County Area.hpe, leaving off the txt during the save file from the page, or go back & rename it to remove them after saving to your pc.

In Sentinel, to import"
Click on File
Import from hpe file
(This will bring up a window with your existing Favorites lists. You can either import the hpe file into an existing list, or create a new list. To avoid a conflict with your existing list, I'd recommend creating a new Favorites list; you can give it whatever name you want.)
With the new list created, go into the Profile editor (that's the pencil over the tablet icon) and set the new list to download to the scanner & be monitored.
Then, write the information to the scanner.

I put both Llano & Burnet Counties in there, both the conventional frequencies, as well as the GATRRS sites and talkgroups for them, plus some state talkgroups (DPS). I also included the LCRA sites for the area with a few of their talkgroups. That can be interesting during a storm event.

If you would like some additional screen shots on this, pm me your email address and I'll send you some additional information.
 
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lhenryp1

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Premium Subscriber
Joined
May 12, 2014
Messages
4
Location
Burnet, Tx
Steve,

Thanks for all of your help. I have not used this file yet but I will. What I found through reading a lot of old posts on here was that I changed the band default of the 150 MHZ from NFM to FM and it started receiving.

I don't know if this is correct, but it seams to work now. I do notice that some of the radio traffic is hard to understand and is not 100% clear.

I will upload your file since you included the LCRA and DPS. Again, thanks for your help!


Lee
 

hiegtx

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Premium Subscriber
Joined
May 8, 2004
Messages
11,171
Location
Dallas, TX
Steve,

Thanks for all of your help. I have not used this file yet but I will. What I found through reading a lot of old posts on here was that I changed the band default of the 150 MHZ from NFM to FM and it started receiving.

I don't know if this is correct, but it seams to work now. I do notice that some of the radio traffic is hard to understand and is not 100% clear.

I will upload your file since you included the LCRA and DPS. Again, thanks for your help!


Lee
Note that I only included the TX DPS talkgroups on GATRRS, not the conventional channels. But those are readily available in the main database, and you can append them to your favorites list very easily.
 
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