EDACS scanning on BR330T - how would YOU do this?

[KI4LIV]

I live in a county where the EDACS system uses 4 seperate towers.

CURRENTLY, in my BR330T, I have a system setup for each tower, and then groups assigned to:

Sheriff 1 (North)
Sheriff 2 (East/Central)
Sheriff 3 (South)
Local PD 1
Local PD 2
Local PD 3
yada
yada
yada

The groups are selectable by way of group quick key and can be turned on/off based on what I want to listen to.

I select whichever system's tower that I am nearest, and selectively turn on/off whatever groups (agencies) that I want to listen to.

Thinking about ways that I could set my radio up to better take advantage of it's capabilities and let me follow an agency regardless of what tower I am nearest, I thought about tying multiple systems together and linking them via a system quick key. Each system quick key would be tied to all 4 systems (towers), but would have only 1 agency related to them. My way of thinking is that now (for example) I could travel the entire county and listen to the Sheriff's department without having to ever activate or deactivate any systems.

How would YOU do it in this case? Would there be any draw-backs to setting it up as I had mentioned?

 

[spooney]

If all 4 towers transmit the same signals (similcast) then there is no way the scanner can stop on the Strongest signal. It can only scan for the first open carrier it hits on when scanning. I have two towers to deal with one West and One East. I just select the one thats best for the area I'm in. Technically they are two separate Systems even though they transmit the same signal over both towers. GRE 500/600 can be set to search for the stronger signal on Motorola Systems using the Control Channel Only feature, but as far as I know there is no way to do that with Edac Systems because of the LCN protocall.

 

[KI4LIV]

Hmmm I hadn't thought about it that way. There are plenty of locations where I can pick up multiple towers, but at least one of them be severely less than an optimal signal.

When it comes to the Sheriff's department - all their talkgroups are simulcast but on different sets of frequencies, but, you're right, I could be at a spot where I get 100% signal from tower A, 10% from B and 0% from C and D and if the timing is right, I could end up receiving the transmission off of tower B.

I guess it's back to the drawing board!