I've had the TRX-1 for eight months now and what I thought about it early on still stands. It takes minutes to learn but you'll never master it.
What I've found difficult is programming the scanner so that it scans efficiently. Here is what I'm trying to do.
1. I'm setting up scan lists by location. So, Scan list #1 is my local county. Specifically, only my local county's P25 system, no other systems, and no other conventinal frequencies. Really, I'm mostly focused on one site (simulcast
) on this system. It is my default, so I want it to be free of clutter while catching all of the dispatch and major incident frequencies. I'm really not having to much trouble with this except that the county does have a second site. I'm not down there too often, so 99% of the time I just keep that site locked out, and if I'm down there and I remember, I'll unlock it. I think I'm doing this about the best way possible.
1B: Scan list #11 is the rest of the county talk groups on that P25 system I listen to.
1C: Scan list #12 is the city talk groups on that p25 system, just services really, PD is encrypted
1D: Scan list #13 is the local military base p25 system (it is a joint system with many sites, and this will come into play later)
1E: Scan list #14 is conventional Fire Rescute, Law Enforcement, & Security Guards
1F: Scan list #15 is conventional Business frequencies, etc.
1G: Scan list #16 is the local airport
1H: Scan list #17 is the local rail road frequencies
1I: Scan list #18 is military air frequencies
1J: Scan list #19 is reserved for future use
So, between scanlists #1 & #11-#18 I get pretty granular in my home county. I've used scan list #10, but that is where my problems really start. If you get what I'm trying to do here, let me know if you have any suggestions.
2. Scanlist 10 is my state wide system, and when I keep it simple and just load the sites in my county, no problem. The TGs in scan list 10 all respond instantly when they are keyed up, but once I get a bunch of sites loaded to support other counties, even if I'm not listening to scan lists with those talk groups in it, it is less responsive. I suspect it is trying to find other control chanels in other sites, and may find some that don't include the TGs I'm interested in for scan list 10, or, it can't hear them at all and has to scan through the list.
I think I already know how I can deal with this, but I'm hoping to avoid it, & that is to create the systems and sites from scratch in the Whistler software and not load them from the database. I suppose this would be worth the effort for the large systems with sites in my local county.
3. The rest of the single digit scan lists are the neighboring counties that I often visit or drive through. That makes it easy, just one number to enable that scan list while driving so I can do it without taking my eyes off the road. For these I mostly just want to load up the state system and their local county P25 system and leave it at that but you can see how that expands my issues in #2 with the state system (and a few counties with military on the joint system)
4. additional counties (some that don't have their own P25 and just use the state system) and neighboring counties occupy many of the low double digit scan lists.
5. As I get further from home, I'm less concerened with the high efficiency and a lot of the details of the local systems and talk groups. I genereally add PD dispatch, Fire, & major incident TGs and that's it. If I'm going somewhere specific for any length of time, I'll whip up a VScanner for that area.
******
Are there any great tips for really optimizing systems and frequencies in the scanner? I think I'm on the right track for my use cases, but I can tell that it still isn't quite ideal, and I'm hoping to make it better!
What I've found difficult is programming the scanner so that it scans efficiently. Here is what I'm trying to do.
1. I'm setting up scan lists by location. So, Scan list #1 is my local county. Specifically, only my local county's P25 system, no other systems, and no other conventinal frequencies. Really, I'm mostly focused on one site (simulcast
) on this system. It is my default, so I want it to be free of clutter while catching all of the dispatch and major incident frequencies. I'm really not having to much trouble with this except that the county does have a second site. I'm not down there too often, so 99% of the time I just keep that site locked out, and if I'm down there and I remember, I'll unlock it. I think I'm doing this about the best way possible. 1B: Scan list #11 is the rest of the county talk groups on that P25 system I listen to.
1C: Scan list #12 is the city talk groups on that p25 system, just services really, PD is encrypted
1D: Scan list #13 is the local military base p25 system (it is a joint system with many sites, and this will come into play later)
1E: Scan list #14 is conventional Fire Rescute, Law Enforcement, & Security Guards
1F: Scan list #15 is conventional Business frequencies, etc.
1G: Scan list #16 is the local airport
1H: Scan list #17 is the local rail road frequencies
1I: Scan list #18 is military air frequencies
1J: Scan list #19 is reserved for future use
So, between scanlists #1 & #11-#18 I get pretty granular in my home county. I've used scan list #10, but that is where my problems really start. If you get what I'm trying to do here, let me know if you have any suggestions.
2. Scanlist 10 is my state wide system, and when I keep it simple and just load the sites in my county, no problem. The TGs in scan list 10 all respond instantly when they are keyed up, but once I get a bunch of sites loaded to support other counties, even if I'm not listening to scan lists with those talk groups in it, it is less responsive. I suspect it is trying to find other control chanels in other sites, and may find some that don't include the TGs I'm interested in for scan list 10, or, it can't hear them at all and has to scan through the list.
I think I already know how I can deal with this, but I'm hoping to avoid it, & that is to create the systems and sites from scratch in the Whistler software and not load them from the database. I suppose this would be worth the effort for the large systems with sites in my local county.
3. The rest of the single digit scan lists are the neighboring counties that I often visit or drive through. That makes it easy, just one number to enable that scan list while driving so I can do it without taking my eyes off the road. For these I mostly just want to load up the state system and their local county P25 system and leave it at that but you can see how that expands my issues in #2 with the state system (and a few counties with military on the joint system)
4. additional counties (some that don't have their own P25 and just use the state system) and neighboring counties occupy many of the low double digit scan lists.
5. As I get further from home, I'm less concerened with the high efficiency and a lot of the details of the local systems and talk groups. I genereally add PD dispatch, Fire, & major incident TGs and that's it. If I'm going somewhere specific for any length of time, I'll whip up a VScanner for that area.
******
Are there any great tips for really optimizing systems and frequencies in the scanner? I think I'm on the right track for my use cases, but I can tell that it still isn't quite ideal, and I'm hoping to make it better!
