BCD325P2/BCD996P2: Can my scanner slow down?

[kennyschroeder]

Hi all

Say I were to add every system, group, and channel from multiple counties into my scanner. Now would this affect my listening and receiving quality compared to having everything from just one county. If that's the case, would I actually be able to notice the slow down or change in quality?
Note: I have a Uniden BCD996P2
-Thanks

 

[trentbob]

Hi all

Say I were to add every system, group, and channel from multiple counties into my scanner. Now would this affect my listening and receiving quality compared to having everything from just one county. If that's the case, would I actually be able to notice the slow down or change in quality?
Note: I have a Uniden BCD996P2
-Thanks

There's an old saying, the more you scan, the less you hear. The only quality that will suffer is your ability to follow anything. You could miss a bank robbery down the street because you're listening to a car stop two counties away. If you need to listen to a lot of different stuff at one time get a lot of scanners.

 

[wtp]

for every trunked system you add, even if they are not talking, you loose 2 seconds as it does 'housekeeping' on a system.
so 2 or 3 extra counties would add 4 or 6 seconds respectively.
i myself have older radios in use for conventional analog frequencies.
if you ever see me in public, i have two radios with me. 396T for the digital trunked county system and a pro164 for analog stuff.

 

[TailGator911]

Great advice. Too much crammed into one scanner will slow it down and you will miss a lot. My SDS100 is focused on local PD only. One SDS200 I dedicate to county sheriff in my area, and the other SDS200 I target other agencies in Greene county. Different scanners assigned to different bands and agencies just makes it easier, for me anyway. YMMV of course.

 

[iMONITOR]

Say I were to add every system, group, and channel from multiple counties into my scanner. Now would this affect my listening and receiving quality compared to having everything from just one county. If that's the case, would I actually be able to notice the slow down or change in quality?
Note: I have a Uniden BCD996P2

There's not enough memory in the 996P2 to do that.

 

[hiegtx]

Unless you were trying to add an entire state, or a very large statewide system, you should be able to load the counties around you that are in range in the 996P2. It's memory is listed as '25,000 channels'. Granted, some items, such as trunked systems, consume more than one 'channel' per entry, but overall memory is quite large.

However, as trenbob has already noted, the more items you add, the longer it will take for the scanner to get all the way through them & scan your programmed systems again.

 

[marksmith]

That scanner has tons of memory for a lot of systems. What it doesn't have is capacity for each system. You are limited to 500 records per system. A record is a talkgtoup, frequency or unit ID. So while it can handle lots and lots of systems it cannot handle any big systems with lots of frequencies and talkgroups.

That being said, the more you scan the more you will miss. Best to have multiple scanners so you can focus on one and scan the rest of the area on others.

 

[iMONITOR]

That scanner has tons of memory for a lot of systems. What it doesn't have is capacity for each system. You are limited to 500 records per system. A record is a talkgtoup, frequency or unit ID. So while it can handle lots and lots of systems it cannot handle any big systems with lots of frequencies and talkgroups.

That being said, the more you scan the more you will miss. Best to have multiple scanners so you can focus on one and scan the rest of the area on others.

That's the limitation I ran into. I can't even load all the Talk Groups for Michigan's State Police alone.

 

[bob550]

Multiple scanners gets my vote also. Your primary radio scanning multiple agencies in your local county, and the others on the primary PD frequencies or talkgroups only for other areas within range. PD-only monitoring will often clue you in to fire and EMS calls whereupon you can then scan those affected departments as needed. There's no sense to pouring every talkgroup into your scanner if they're specific to geographic areas you aren't within range of. You can check the transmitter range of each system you monitor using the excellent information in the RR database. See this as an example of the Starcom21 Statewide System for DuPage County, IL.

 

[lu81fitter]

That's the limitation I ran into. I can't even load all the Talk Groups for Michigan's State Police alone.

Can you actually hear all of the TG's you're scanning? You wouldn't need TGID's from the northern part of the state if you are near Detroit. There would be no traffic on them anyway. If the system in the Detroit area is regularly broadcasting traffic from say Emmet County, it would be a waste of system resources anyway.

 

[ofd8001]

I might answer a little differently. If you have the right kind of scanner (x36 or SDS model) you could do what you want to. The x96 line is not the most robust scanner for large statewide systems. For what you want and that won't be great, you would need to have a substantial knowledge of Priority/Priority ID Scanning.

I've got five radios at my listening post and still miss stuff.

 

[xicarusx]

I try to keep different counties on different scanners. Sometimes even different services. It can get pricey if its digital, but since everything around me is analog its not bad. I keep finding old scanners on rummage sale sites and locally for between $10-30. They work great for this.

Caveat, multiple antennas for multiple scanners. That can get expensive too.

 

[iMONITOR]

Can you actually hear all of the TG's you're scanning? You wouldn't need TGID's from the northern part of the state if you are near Detroit. There would be no traffic on them anyway. If the system in the Detroit area is regularly broadcasting traffic from say Emmet County, it would be a waste of system resources anyway.

No, but the State Police have special task forces and divisions that can show up anywhere depending on the event. It's not necessary to have them all programmed, but I also have a couple BCD536HP's so I used those for statewide stuff at times.