Channel Programming SDS 200

[retofdac]

I recently purchased an SDS 200 to replace a 13 year old Radio Shack PRO-2096. The PRO-2096 worked fine for our P25 system when just our city, but when the system went county wide with multiple tower simulcast it could not handle. The SDS 200 handles the system very well and I am very pleased with the reception. I do think the owner's manual and Sentinel documentation is horrible. Mark's simplified instructions help a little, and with additional information from various Radio Reference forum threads I have been able to set up and program most of what I need. However, I am unable to figure out a way to toggle Channels on and off.

My county-wide PD "Favorites List" is set up as follows: "System" - Ohio MARCS (P25 system). "Department" - Butler County Law. "Channels" - all TGID channels in department with all but (4) channels set to "avoid". The (4) channels set with the avoid off are the (4) main dispatch channels for the county. When the PD Favorites List is toggled "on" via FQK, I would like to be able to toggle the individual channels on and off so I can listen to just my city or to surrounding jurisdictions depending on what is going on.

I found if I change programming to set the (4) channels to "avoid", I can then use the Menu and Function controls to get to the "avoid off" function and turn one or more of the (4) channels on. But, then they disappear from the "avoid off" function list so I can't turn back off. That's a cumbersome way to do it anyway.

One way I thought about programming was to duplicate the "System" four times within the same Favorites List with one of the (4) channels "not avoided" in each system, and giving each system their own SQK. But, don't know if that would work or not.

Any help here would be greatly appreciated.

 

[drdispatch]

Don't duplicate the system. There are others here who can explain the "why" better than I, so I will leave that to them. Suffice it to say that that would not be optimal.
My suggestion would be to use the Department Quick Keys and split the talkgroups up as different departments within the system. That way you can toggle those departments/talkgroups on & off using the System<dot>Department convention, which is much easier and quicker. It's also easy to see from the display which ones are on and which are off.

 

[jonwienke]

Don't duplicate the system. There are others here who can explain the "why" better than I, so I will leave that to them. Suffice it to say that that would not be optimal.

Short version is that a trunked system should only be scanned once, and all talkgroups you want to hear should be enabled. If you scan 2 copies of the system, one with only police channels enabled, and the other with only fire channels enabled, when you scan the police-only copy and a fire transmission comes in, the scanner will ignore it until it gets around to scanning the fire-only copy, and vice versa. You end up doubling the amount of memory needed to program the system once, and you miss more traffic. There is no upside.

Quick keys can turn entire Departments on and off all at once, as well as individual channels. Learn how to use them, and there isn't any reason to do kludgy suboptimal programming faux pas.

 

[retofdac]

Okay.....

I see the value of changing to a single favorites list for the county trunked system and using department quick keys to separate the police and fire rather than using separate favorites lists as I do now. I also would like to keep the programming simple and straight forward as you suggest. But... since all the PD channels for the county are under the same "department" (Butler County (09) Law) in the database, I need to be able to toggle individual channels on and off so I don't have to listen to all the county PD's all the time I want to listen to my city PD and I don't see any information about quick keys for individual channels on a trunked system or how to set them up.

 

[jonwienke]

Make separate Departments for each town within the System, move talkgroups to the new Departments as appropriate, and assign quick keys as needed.

 

[drdispatch]

You can have up to 100 different departments assigned quick keys. Create "new" departments and split talkgroups off into those departments. (I've got one department that only has 1 talkgroup in it; because sometimes I just don't want to listen to it.)

 

[retofdac]

I think I have it......I tried using the + icon while editing to add a new department to the system, gave it a name and copyed in the channel I wanted to that department... but it would not scan. I then changed the name of the department that I had originally appended from the database that was working and saved. I then went to the database and appended the same "department" with the original name into the system again with all the id's. I then changed the name of that department, deleted all the channels I didn't want, and saved. Did the same one more time to get three departments, each with the id I wanted to scan. May not be the easiest way....but it worked! Seems like it shouldn't be that hard to program.

I assigned quick keys to each favorite, system, and department......and it is working.

Much thanks for the help.

 

[jonwienke]

I then went to the database and appended the same "department" with the original name into the system again with all the id's. I then changed the name of that department, deleted all the channels I didn't want, and saved. Did the same one more time to get three departments, each with the id I wanted to scan. May not be the easiest way....but it worked! Seems like it shouldn't be that hard to program.

I assigned quick keys to each favorite, system, and department......and it is working.

Much thanks for the help.

The reason the new Departments didn't scan is that you have to enter location information for the department. That is done when you Append a Department from the database, but if you create a new one, location information will be blank, and will not scan until you fill it in correctly.

The location lat/lon should be the geographic center of the city or county, and the radius should be big enough to enclose the entire town/county inside the circle.

 

[drdispatch]

If you don't use location control, that won't be an issue.

 

[jonwienke]

If you don't use location control, that won't be an issue.

If you don't use Location Control, you scan everything in your favorite list, even if it's at the other end of the state.

 

[drdispatch]

If you don't use Location Control, you scan everything in your favorite list, even if it's at the other end of the state.

Unless you don't add stuff from the other side of the state to your Favorites List.

 

[jonwienke]

And you never travel.

 

[maus92]

I hate quick keys - too much to memorize, and I'd rather watch the road. I use location control and a GPS - best decision I made other than buying the radio in the first place.

 

[drdispatch]

And you never travel.

'Cuz if you travel, you'll either:
A) Use the database and a GPS
B) Have a Favorites List for your destination
C) Have a really big Favorites List with several counties worth of stuff and Location Controls on

It's all personal preference. When I travel I prefer a combination of A and B. In my hometown, I have a FL with whatever I want to listen to and nothing I don't; so I don't need location control. Whatever floats your boat. It's the best feature of these scanners, IMHO.

 

[maus92]

Yea, I have a regional FL and use the GPS to tune a subset of what should be receivable.