Digital Scanners - What to get/Scanlist Question

[portroyalbirdy]

1st Question: I'm going to be buying a digital scanner here in the next few months/days for my county's new digital system and unsure what scanner to get! The system is a P25 Phase I conventional system. Any suggestions?

2nd Question: By looking online I've seen that digital scanners have what they call "Scanlists". Are they the same or completely different than the whole "banks" thing I know? And how many frequencies can be put into a scanlist?

Thank You for any help!!!

 

[puzzleriddle]

a scanlist is only limited to the scanners memory (20) list o on the rs/gre & and if ya want you can stuff everything 1 scanlist. not sure on the Unidens which are a bit different

 

[maybelater9181]

I have the BCD396XT and the BCD996XT as my county recently switched to digital trunked 800 mhz. Uniden now has 2 new models the BCD436HP and BCD536HP. I have not used the 2 new models. They have favorite lists. From what I have read and seen I am not impressed with the favorite lists.

The BCD396XT and the BCD996XT do not have banks. You create systems and then within the system you can create groups. Basically these have dynamic banks. You then assign quick codes to these systems and groups. This was big change from what I was used to with banks. I have had mine for a year now. I am constantly changing my programming to make scanning work better and easier for me. I use Freescan software to program the scanner. You really should program the scanner with the software. Makes life much easier.

You choose how you want to set up your programming instead the scanner giving you banks. Setting up the scanner to your personal use is the hardest task. The systems do have limits. Not sure off hand. But you can for sure have more than 20 frequencies in a group. The way groups and systems work is like a file cabinet. The scanner is like a file cabinet, the drawers are like a system. The groups are like folders within the drawers (system) and the frequencies are like pieces of paper in a folder. Get the idea? I know that each system can hold 20 groups.

You can make the system a county, and agency, an area or region. How ever you want to make it work. Then you assign quick code to the systems. You also assign quick codes to the groups. (limit of 10 group quick codes, but you can use the same group code on more than 1 group.)

 

[portroyalbirdy]

Ah ok! I think I got it now! Now with your BCD996XT is your audio sometimes choppy/distorted? I was looking into that scanner a long time ago because I thought it would be a good model. But a live feed provider here in PA (Blair County) has a P25 UHF Conventional system similar to what my county is going to and the audio skips out and is choppy. Now I'm not sure if its the scanner itself or if its programmed incorrectly . (Not trying to bash the provider by any means)

 

[davewhall29]

I own/owned several Radio Shack/GRE digital scanners. Currently have a PSR800, which has 200 scanlists and with the SD card provided, can store probably all the frequencies you could ever use. I currently have 18 (of 200) scanlists with more than 1200 conventional channels, 9 trunked systems (one statewide system being built out with 15 sites and nearly 200 talkgroups, 2 others with about 100 TG each), and still have all kinds of room left. And that's just in my main folder. There are six other "V-foolders" that can hold that much and more. So, some of the newer scanners (I am not familiar with how the newer UnidensX36HP's work) can literally have unlimited storage with a SD card the right size.

And maybelater9181 explained the scanlists pretty well. I would like to add that I have one scanlist that has over 200 combined conventional frequencies and talkgroups in it. Another thing I would like to mention is that with the newer digitals you can program a trunked system (example a statewide system, or a large county-wide system) in to the scanner, and separate each agency (Sheriiff, PD, FD, etc) or area (East, West, Central) into different scanlists so you can only listen to one or the other if you want to, or listen to a specific area if and when you travel through that area.

 

[portroyalbirdy]

Thanks to everyone for their help! I think I have a pretty good idea of how it works! Now say I have my main county in and I want to put in Chester County frequencies all by itself. So then for example my county would be in Scanlist 1 and Chester Scanlist 2? Also, I'm a member of my nearby fire company and the new radios have the "Repeater/Direct Mode" My question is, would I be able to program that in or would it cause interference?

 

[davewhall29]

Thanks to everyone for their help! I think I have a pretty good idea of how it works! Now say I have my main county in and I want to put in Chester County frequencies all by itself. So then for example my county would be in Scanlist 1 and Chester Scanlist 2? Also, I'm a member of my nearby fire company and the new radios have the "Repeater/Direct Mode" My question is, would I be able to program that in or would it cause interference?

Correct. And programming the repeater/direct frequencies in separate would not cause interference, but if they are the same frequency then you would be programming the same frequency twice.