As I understand it, P25 sites each have a "band plan," which is used to set the relationship between channel number and frequency. If you listen to a new site OTA with Unitrunker, you'll quickly get the logical channel numbers (LCNs) for the control and voice channels for the site you are listening to, as well as its band plan, which will be used to convert the LCNs to frequencies. You may also get the LCNs of other sites on that system, but without their band plans, and therefore, without their frequencies,
If you then use the "download this system" (boat's wheel icon) to hopefully import the talk group and other sites for the system from RR, the following happens:
1. For the site you are listening to, additional entries are created in the channels tab for all the channels from RR, with sequential LCNs starting at 00-0001. Not only are these entries invalid because they have the wrong LCN for their frequencies, but they duplicate the entries with the correct channel numbers. Because there is already a band plan present for this site, the import should be smart and do nothing with entries for frequencies that match RR. It should add entries for any RR frequencies that are not yet in the channel list, and use the band plan to correctly calculate their LCNs.
2. It does the same thing for the additional sites on the system, creating all the channels with LCNs starting at 00-0001. Ideally, RR should have the band plan information -- it does in some cases, in a non-standard format. Most of the time, the other sites in a system share the same band plans, so I would like it if, when downloading these additional sites, if it sees just a single channel entry with an LCN but frequency = 0, and the prefix of the LCN matches the prefix of the LCN of the control channel of a site on the system that DOES have a band plan, copy the band plan from that site and use it to generate the correct frequencies for the existing control channel entry that had frequency = 0, as well as adding entries with correct LCNs for the additional channels from the RR db.
If it really can't determine the LCN for a channel, it should probably be set to some invalid value (??-????), instead of something that looks like it could be a real LCN.
Also, it would be nice to be able to select which types of data to import (perhaps with checkboxes in the login dialog that already pops up). With this current LCN issue, for example, I'd like to be able to just import talk groups. Control over which site (or all) to import would be good, too.
Thanks for any help or suggestions!
If you then use the "download this system" (boat's wheel icon) to hopefully import the talk group and other sites for the system from RR, the following happens:
1. For the site you are listening to, additional entries are created in the channels tab for all the channels from RR, with sequential LCNs starting at 00-0001. Not only are these entries invalid because they have the wrong LCN for their frequencies, but they duplicate the entries with the correct channel numbers. Because there is already a band plan present for this site, the import should be smart and do nothing with entries for frequencies that match RR. It should add entries for any RR frequencies that are not yet in the channel list, and use the band plan to correctly calculate their LCNs.
2. It does the same thing for the additional sites on the system, creating all the channels with LCNs starting at 00-0001. Ideally, RR should have the band plan information -- it does in some cases, in a non-standard format. Most of the time, the other sites in a system share the same band plans, so I would like it if, when downloading these additional sites, if it sees just a single channel entry with an LCN but frequency = 0, and the prefix of the LCN matches the prefix of the LCN of the control channel of a site on the system that DOES have a band plan, copy the band plan from that site and use it to generate the correct frequencies for the existing control channel entry that had frequency = 0, as well as adding entries with correct LCNs for the additional channels from the RR db.
If it really can't determine the LCN for a channel, it should probably be set to some invalid value (??-????), instead of something that looks like it could be a real LCN.
Also, it would be nice to be able to select which types of data to import (perhaps with checkboxes in the login dialog that already pops up). With this current LCN issue, for example, I'd like to be able to just import talk groups. Control over which site (or all) to import would be good, too.
Thanks for any help or suggestions!