Can we dump the County names from the TxWARN City departments?

[wm8s]

I suspect that everyone who monitors Pearland knows that it's in Brazoria County, etc. And we know they're "Talkgroups", too. So does anyone know why we the city departments start with the counties' names and end with "Talkgroups"?

E.g., why do we have "Harris County - Deer Park Talkgroups" instead of just "Deer Park"? All those extra letters really chew up screen real estate on the BCD536HP. For the Galveston County labels, for example, only the first few letters of the actual city name --- i.e., what we really care about -- get displayed. The only thing meaningful from "Galveston County - Galveston - Police Talkgroups" (and every other City of Galveston department) that gets displayed is "Galvest", which just isn't very useful. "Galveston Police", "Galveston Fire", etc., would be so much better.

If I'm I missing something, chime in. There's got to be better a solution. Thanks!

...R

 

[bpckty1]

My guess is that people from outside (and inside) the Houston, TX, area don't know/aren't aware of which counties the various cities/towns/vfd's, etc., are in, and it helps when programming a scanner geographically (i.e., Bank One: Harris County Sheriff, Bank Two: City of Houston, Bank Three: Other Harris County Law Enforcement, ... Bank Nine: Galveston County Law, Bank Ten: Other Galveston County Law, etc.

Just my 2 cents worth.

 

[Ensnared]

Alpha Tags

I suspect that everyone who monitors Pearland knows that it's in Brazoria County, etc. And we know they're "Talkgroups", too. So does anyone know why we the city departments start with the counties' names and end with "Talkgroups"?

E.g., why do we have "Harris County - Deer Park Talkgroups" instead of just "Deer Park"? All those extra letters really chew up screen real estate on the BCD536HP. For the Galveston County labels, for example, only the first few letters of the actual city name --- i.e., what we really care about -- get displayed. The only thing meaningful from "Galveston County - Galveston - Police Talkgroups" (and every other City of Galveston department) that gets displayed is "Galvest", which just isn't very useful. "Galveston Police", "Galveston Fire", etc., would be so much better.

If I'm I missing something, chime in. There's got to be better a solution. Thanks!

...R

On my digital radio, when I load it with software, I can either add the description, pre-made alpha tag, or enter my own label. Often, when I see a label I don't like, I simply change it to what I want. It is pretty simple. After living in Richmond/Rosenberg for many years, no I didn't realize that Pearland was in Brazoria county. I must have known this & selectively forgotten it.

 

[Hornnumb2]

This video shows how to edit the names...
BCDx36HP Sentinel Creating Custom Favorites List - YouTube

 

[wm8s]

Edit the names in Sentinel, and watch that program append all new talkgroups with the old names the next time you try to update the system from the RRDB master database. We need to take them out in the RRDB for it to have any practically useful effect.

I'm just wondering how helpful it is to cater to whoever it is from outside the area that listens to distant local municipalities at the expense of anyone being able to see the agency (department) name on the scanner's display.

 

[hiegtx]

Edit the names in Sentinel, and watch that program append all new talkgroups with the old names the next time you try to update the system from the RRDB master database. We need to take them out in the RRDB for it to have any practically useful effect.

I'm just wondering how helpful it is to cater to whoever it is from outside the area that listens to distant local municipalities at the expense of anyone being able to see the agency (department) name on the scanner's display.

Updating the master database does not overwrite or otherwise modify anything you've changed in a Favorites list. If you are seeing names "revert" to what's in the database, then you're scanning that (the main database), not the Favorites list. I have a number of systems, sites, and talkgroups on the various Favorites used on my Home Patrol-1, my 436HP, and 536HP, all with names differing from that in the main RRDB. None of them get overwritten or modified when I do the weekly updates. Nor does updating the main database update any frequencies, PL tones/DCS codes, NAC's, or other information. This question has been asked a number of times in the Uniden forum, i.e. "My local system has been rebanded. If I update the database will that update my Favorites list?" No, it won't.

As far as the "County" names in the text displayed in Sentinel, I suspect that is a standard for the way names are to be entered on the site, in other words, a policy issue. I see the same pattern on other statewide or large regional systems.

 

[wm8s]

Updating the master database does not overwrite or otherwise modify anything you've changed in a Favorites list. If you are seeing names "revert" to what's in the database, then you're scanning that (the main database), not the Favorites list. I have a number of systems, sites, and talkgroups on the various Favorites used on my Home Patrol-1, my 436HP, and 536HP, all with names differing from that in the main RRDB. None of them get overwritten or modified when I do the weekly updates. Nor does updating the main database update any frequencies, PL tones/DCS codes, NAC's, or other information. This question has been asked a number of times in the Uniden forum, i.e. "My local system has been rebanded. If I update the database will that update my Favorites list?" No, it won't.

As far as the "County" names in the text displayed in Sentinel, I suspect that is a standard for the way names are to be entered on the site, in other words, a policy issue. I see the same pattern on other statewide or large regional systems.

I'm not getting my point across. If you update your FLs from the Master RRDB (by re-appending the system to the FL that contains it after the weekly RRDB update), then for every TG whose channel name you've changed, Sentinel will add a "new" talkgroups with the old name. E.g., if I change TG 123,"PD Dispatch 1" to 123,"Police Dispatch 1" and then re-append that system to that FL after next week's updates, I get my 123,"Police Dispatch 1" PLUS Sentinel appends the old 123,"PD Dispatch 1", leaving me with both. Same for departments, etc. Sentinel ignores the internal RRDB ID code for objects and instead searches FLs by objects' names.

[And if you're not re-appending systems from the weekly RRDB updates to your FLs that contain them, how are you keeping those systems up-to-date? By hand? One system here alone contains something like 3,500 TGs, and there are surely well over 10,000 total channels near me. I've pointed out before that manually keeping all those sync'ed with the RRDB ain't gonna happen.]

And I still don't get how anyone is benefiting from seeing "Galveston County - Galvest..." for all three agencies "Galveston Police", "Galveston Fire", and "Galveston Services".

 

[hiegtx]

I'm not getting my point across. If you update your FLs from the Master RRDB (by re-appending the system to the FL that contains it after the weekly RRDB update), then for every TG whose channel name you've changed, Sentinel will add a "new" talkgroups with the old name. E.g., if I change TG 123,"PD Dispatch 1" to 123,"Police Dispatch 1" and then re-append that system to that FL after next week's updates, I get my 123,"Police Dispatch 1" PLUS Sentinel appends the old 123,"PD Dispatch 1", leaving me with both. Same for departments, etc. Sentinel ignores the internal RRDB ID code for objects and instead searches FLs by objects' names.

You're creating the issue by appending the database, repeatedly, to your existing Favorites list.

[And if you're not re-appending systems from the weekly RRDB updates to your FLs that contain them, how are you keeping those systems up-to-date? By hand? One system here alone contains something like 3,500 TGs, and there are surely well over 10,000 total channels near me. I've pointed out before that manually keeping all those sync'ed with the RRDB ain't gonna happen.]

Actually, I do update "by hand", and it takes less time than re-appending hundreds, if not thousands, of talkgroups to a Favorites list. I have my counties of interest, and trunked systems of interest, on my 'home page', the MYRR configuration I see when I log in.If there has been a change in one of them, it's highlighted green for the first 24 hours, and then a yellowish tan for another six days or so. Somewhere along that time period, I'll check to see what the update was, and if it affects me. Updates are very common with TxWARN P25, for example. However, upon closer inspection, it's often a very minor change, in a text label, or perhaps a talkgroup, that may be used in an area that does not interest me at all. So I have no reason to re-append the system. Houston-Galveston updates might matter to you, of course, but that's way out of my listening area, as are most of the East Texas counties.

I check for changes, make the few that apply to anything that I listen to, on any of my Favorites lists for the North Texas region, and I'm done. It does not take me long to do that. If the change if for a talkgroup or area that I don't monitor, I ignore it completely. The "correct" information is in the master database, if I need to create a new Favorites list based on location and with a different service types mix.

And I still don't get how anyone is benefiting from seeing "Galveston County - Galvest..." for all three agencies "Galveston Police", "Galveston Fire", and "Galveston Services".

I would still think this is based on site (RadioReference) policy. You might redirect that concern to the Database Discussion Forum for a more 'official' reply.

 

[wm8s]

If you're point is that yes, the department/agency names are useless and don't display properly on scanners, so every user should individually change those names himself by hand in Sentinel, one department or talkgroup at a time, as long as they don't live in Houston (like I do), where that would be a lot of work, then I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.

My original point, which we've drifted far from, was that just changing them once, here, in RRDB, for everyone --- so that "Galveston Police" shows up as "Galveston Police" and not "Galveston County - Galves...", which is useless and indistinguishable from the other three Galveston city departments/agencies --- would be a lot simpler. And I have yet to hear a good reason not to.

 

[hiegtx]

If you're point is that yes, the department/agency names are useless and don't display properly on scanners, so every user should individually change those names himself by hand in Sentinel, one department or talkgroup at a time, as long as they don't live in Houston (like I do), where that would be a lot of work, then I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.

My original point, which we've drifted far from, was that just changing them once, here, in RRDB, for everyone --- so that "Galveston Police" shows up as "Galveston Police" and not "Galveston County - Galves...", which is useless and indistinguishable from the other three Galveston city departments/agencies --- would be a lot simpler. And I have yet to hear a good reason not to.

Actually, you've missed my point, and this is my last comment, since what you're asking for needs to be addressed in the Database Forum, as I've already suggested.

It's not necessary for me to continually edit the names of every talkgroup or conventional frequency, because I don't go back and append the entire system (again) to my Favorites list each week. I only make whatever changes are needed, for my agencies and systems of interest. That takes very little of my time. No, I don't live in Houston, but the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area is quite sizeable. While no individual city is the size of Houston proper, I suspect the Metro areas of the two regions are closer than you think. In fact, based on 2012 figures, the Dallas-Fort Worth Metropolitan Statistical Area shows to have a slightly larger population than that of Houston.

On that, we'll just have to agree to disagree.