I have NEVER used start up keys. Turn on the radio and enable the systems you want, unless they are already enabled. Simple as that. Don't overcomplicate it.
I have not used Start Up Keys in quite a long time. But back in the later 2000's & early 2010's, I did use them on a regional trip I took quite often.
This was for a trip of around 125-140 miles, from my residence in Dallas, to parts of Stephens County, which is west of the DFW area. Back then, before the advent of database scanners (beginning with the HP-1), my 'grab & go scanner' was one of my 396XTs. I used 3 startup keys: 1, 2, & 3. For an occasional trip farther west to Abilene (a little under 200 miles), I had a startup key 4.
I did not have a GPS, and, for that matter, a number of my systems were manually created & lacked the location details needed to use a GPS.
Start Up Key 1 systems included those I could monitor while traveling west through Dallas & Tarrant County. I would reboot the scanner, and holding down the ! to access those systems.
On the west side of Tarrant County, near the Parker County line. I would reboot the scanner & use startup key 2. That turned off the metro area systems & enabled those that I could hear driving along I-20 to my destination.
Once I arrived, I would reboot again, using key 3. That disabled the key 2 systems & activated those I could hear in that vicinity,
When returning back home, I would switch to the key 2 systems when getting on I-20, then to Key 1 when getting back to the DFW metro area.
For systems that I wanted on at all times, such as the Texas DPS channel plan, no key was used, & it was scanned regardless of which startup key was active. For other systems that were monitorable in more than one trip segment (but not all of them), you need to duplicate the system, using the startup key for the segments where it was monitorable.
The downside of startup keys is that there is not a quick & easy way to clear all the keys & resume scanning all systems. You either have to manually edit each system to re-enable it, or wait till back home so that the original programming file could be sent to the scanner again, leaving all systems enabled until the next time the startups were utilized.
For the GRE/Whistler scanners, you could mimic much the same effect by programming trip segments into specific V-folders.
For the current crop of Uniden database scanners, you can simply split segments into Favorites lists if no GPS is available. As already noted, you can accomplish similar results with judicious use of Quick Keys.
