Does the BCD396XT have an LTR repeater finder?

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Gilligan

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I am familiar with GRE's repeater-finder feature where you can park on an LTR channel in Manual mode and it will tell you the repeater number. Does the BCD396XT do anything like this? Do you even have to program in the LCN when you are programming an LTR system? I am just curious as to what I may run into if I get a BCD396XT and find a new LTR system... Thanks!
 

kayleesdad

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In a custom search, turn on control channel only and it should identify HR and channel when holding on a frequency. It won't do it in quick search the way GREs do it in TUNE. The xt needs a good signal to read and it seems slower compared to the 106. In custom search with control channel only the xt identifies LTR, Motorola, and P25 control channels but not EDACs if I recall correctly.
 

Gilligan

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In a custom search, turn on control channel only and it should identify HR and channel when holding on a frequency. It won't do it in quick search the way GREs do it in TUNE. The xt needs a good signal to read and it seems slower compared to the 106. In custom search with control channel only the xt identifies LTR, Motorola, and P25 control channels but not EDACs if I recall correctly.
This is what I was looking for...

I am hoping to get one of these soon and wasn't sure if the feature was built in. I can imagine sitting in an airport or in a town somewhere trying to figure out a new LTR system from scratch, but I wasn't sure how possible it would be to do this. I was aware of the Map-20-systems-with-same-freq idea presented in the wiki, as I have a BC246T, but that's not feasible when you don't have software or a lot of time.

I wonder why Uniden doesn't implement a feature like the LTR-Repeater-Finder in their new scanners... This is a pretty basic feature and a necessity of determining LCN order. In all honestly, it really needs to be added in a quick-search setting, and not just a custom-search setting.
 

Gilligan

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The xt needs a good signal to read and it seems slower compared to the 106. In custom search with control channel only the xt identifies LTR, Motorola, and P25 control channels but not EDACs if I recall correctly.
It makes sense to me that it would be slower, since with the GRE, the scanner already knows what trunking mode to search for the data in. If it is just searching a band for all types, it is probably cycling through Motorola first and then checking for LTR.

To add to my previous comment, at least having this feature in custom-search mode makes it feasible for determining LTR LCN on the spot. You could simply keep a custom search bank open for new LTR freqs and program in the freq with the same lower and upper limits, then verify the LCN. So it takes a few seconds longer, but the desired results are still achieved.
 

hiegtx

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I wonder why Uniden doesn't implement a feature like the LTR-Repeater-Finder in their new scanners... This is a pretty basic feature and a necessity of determining LCN order. In all honestly, it really needs to be added in a quick-search setting, and not just a custom-search setting.
While the 396XT/996XT series don't have an LTR repeater finder, and neither do the previous models, that is one of the features of the Extreme Upgrade for the HP-1 (Home Patrol). Among other things, it includes an LCN finder for LTR and EDACS systems.
 

captclint

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Control Channel Only in LTR system

I did something with my 346XT in FreeScan that resulted in the screen flashing: Control Channel Search WITHIN a programmed LTR system. It was the only thing going on, even though I had 7 systems in normal scan mode. I have no idea what I did, and have not been able to duplicate.

However, what I tried was to erase all LCN #'s in a programmed system, and selected C/C only. This did not work as I had hoped(it did not identify anything).

Edit: I found a variation on kayleesdad's suggestion. I simply entered each of 10 custom search ranges with SAME begin and end frequency, hold time=0, delay=2, with C/C only selected. This DID work!! (Just noticed that is what Gilligan said.) I am not sure this is any better than creating 10 sites with the same freq entered into all 20 LCN positions, as suggested in http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Mapping_an_LTR_System but it's a much faster to set up. Comments anyone?
 
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Gilligan

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I definitely see it as a feasible option if you are in a place where programming your scanner by computer is not an option, or if you are on a time limit. It's quick and easy. The proper channel numbering can then be programmed into the scanner one freq at a time as it is discovered through the quick search. Or, as I believe you have suggested in your last post, you could simply program all the LTR frequencies into the individual custom-search ranges. But that would also require using up more of them and I tend to think that anyone die-hard enough to be scouting out new LTR systems is probably going to be using their custom-search ranges for other things... :)
 
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